Re: Program crashes - debugging suggestions?

From: boa (root_at_localhost.com)
Date: 06/29/04

  • Next message: Josef Moellers: "Re: need a server/client ftp" 
    Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 06:18:27 GMT

    Mark wrote:

    > Hi, I was hoping to get some suggestions on debugging a multi-threaded Linux
    > program that crashes about every 10-12 hours. The program coordinates the
    > behaviour between several (about 4)attached devices (serial and ethernet).
    > There is generally one thread for each attached device. Unfortunately when
    > it crashes the threads stop responding one-by-one, no seg fault or other
    > obvious error occurs, making it very hard to pin down. What I suspect is
    > happening is one thread is gradually overwriting memory and it crashes as
    > soon as the memory being overwritten is in use by another thread. It
    > currently has a 4k guard between threads.
    >
    > Does anyone have any suggestions for how to figure out which code is the
    > source of the problem? I've inspected the most likely areas but haven't
    > been successful in fixing it. Any techniques using gdb/ddd, or other tools?
    > If it generated a seg fault it would be easy......
    >
    > Thanks in advance for any help, this is really driving me nuts!
    >
    > Mark
    >
    >

    Have you tried valgrind?

     From its homepage at http://valgrind.kde.org/
    Valgrind is a GPL'd system for debugging and profiling x86-Linux
    programs. With the tools that come with Valgrind, you can automatically
    detect many memory management and threading bugs, avoiding hours of
    frustrating bug-hunting, making your programs more stable. You can also
    perform detailed profiling, to speed up and reduce memory use of your
    programs.

    The Valgrind distribution includes five tools: two memory error
    detectors, a thread error detector, a cache profiler and a heap
    profiler. Several other tools have been built with Valgrind.

    HTH
    boa@home

  • Next message: Josef Moellers: "Re: need a server/client ftp"

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