Segfault in application, but no core or application failure...how to troubleshoot.

ithawtewrong · 02-19-2009, 10:12 PM

I am trying to troubleshoot an application that is generating several segfaults with an error 14, but the application is not crashing. The program continues to run. I would assume I can connect to a running process to debug it, but I'm not sure what to gather. The program has several background processes associated with it so I'm sure I'll need to attach to the actual internal process.

Does anyone have any experience in this to offer some insight?

vkmgeek · 02-20-2009, 02:31 AM

you can attach debugger (like gdb) to running process.
run gdb
and then
attach <process id>

but you ll not be able to debug it if the application was not compiled with debug information

nx5000 · 02-20-2009, 05:32 AM

Another way is to run the application through a tracer:
strace -f -o /tmp/logapp appname

And then maybe in /tmp/logapp there are some information when it happens and for which system call.

ithawtewrong · 02-20-2009, 07:59 AM

vkmgeek - I'll check with the APP team to see if they compiled with debug or not.

nx5000 - I thought about this, but it takes over 4 hours for the segfault and the machine is under pretty heavy load at the time. I thought this would generate....well how about we call it a ton of information. I do realize this may be my only option though.