[ale] How to debug a program that just goes away

[jknapka at kneuro.net (JK)]

Shouldv'e read the OP more closely before replying. You're
already doing most of this.  I'd first recompile with
optimization turned off and see if the problem persists.

-- JK



On 2/26/2010 9:12 AM, JK wrote:
> Chris's strace idea will at least let you see what it was
> doing (last system call) when it died.
>
> Also, check whether there are any core files for it.
> There are some user-level accounting parameters that
> affect when/how core dumps are generated, but I can't
> remember what they are at the moment. "man -k core"
> might be your friend there. Anyway, if you have
> a core file, you can load it up in gdb (or your fave
> debugger) and see exactly WTF it was doing at the
> moment the Grim Reaper came calling.
>
> Also, you can set handlers for SIGKILL, SIGILL, etc that
> do something informative when called, so you can see if
> any of those are causing the problem. (Though sighandlers
> are not supposed to call any other functions, so you may
> need to be kinda clever to make this useful. Combined
> with a corefile, though, you might get some helpful
> behavior -- eg make each signal handler set some static
> int to a unique value when called, and check that
> value in gdb post-mortem.)
>
> If your program is a memory hog, the Out-Of-Memory
> killer in the kernel's VM subsystem may be the culprit.
>
> -- JK
>
>
> On 2/26/2010 7:13 AM, Jim Lynch wrote:
>> Chris Fowler wrote:
>>> Have you used strace to see if it is blocking in a system call?
>>>
>>>
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>> Would that cause it to just go away?  It's not that the program stops
>> processing, it's that it disappears from the process table. It's as if a
>> kill -9 was sent to it.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jim.
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>>
>
>


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