Hi all,

A process from some software I am running keeps crashing with seemingly no real pattern. I ahve tried using ddd/gdb to run the process in question but everytime it crashes no useful information is returned. I also tried getting a core file with the same result. It seems as though according to linux the program has exited normally.

This obviously points towards the process itself having a bug but there are other instances of the same program running on other machines in the network with no problems at all.

I have made comaprisons of hardware/drivers (lspci etc) installed on various machines and all are exactly the same as the machine in question so my question is (at long last): What else should I be looking for?

The program using a GUI if that helps.

Try issuing the command: `ulimit -c`. Does it report 0? That means processes won't dump cores. Try issuing `ulimit -c unlimited`.

But actually what you should do, to make the sure the process is using the new ulimit value:
Edit your $HOME/.bash_profile (or the equivalent shell script that runs on login), and put in the `ulimit -c unlimited`. Then log out and log back in and then start the process. I believe then by default you should see a file called 'core' in the directory of the binary if the process happens to core dump.

--Shaun

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi Shaun,

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately I am not in a position to test out your suggestion at the moment but I do have another question on the subject in the meantime.

When I was trying to get a core dump I ran another instance of the problem process from the command line (rather than the GUI), but before I did this I ran:
'limit coredumpsize unlimited' and then ran the program in the same terminal. My question is: What is the difference between limit and ulimit? I take it that by adding ulimit -c unlimited to the .bash_profile this will apply to all processes run? would this not put a strain on my memory?

I have tried to find out myself but cant really find any decent answers.

Regards

Jim

Problem solved.

As my problem program was graphical I had to make some changes to my xorg.conf file. modules section which was empty. This is what I added.

Section "module"

Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"

Endsection

cheers