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Java Platform, Standard Edition Troubleshooting Guide
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17.4 Collect Core Dumps

This section explains how to generate and collect core dumps (also known as crash dumps). A core dump or a crash dump is a memory snapshot of a running process. A core dump can be automatically created by the operating system when a fatal or unhandled error (for example, signal or system exception) occurs. Alternatively, a core dump can be forced by means of system-provided command-line utilities. Sometimes a core dump is useful when diagnosing a process that appears to be hung; the core dump may reveal information about the cause of the hang.

When collecting a core dump, be sure to gather other information about the environment so that the core file can be analyzed (for example, OS version, patch information, and the fatal error log).

Core dumps do not usually contain all the memory pages of the crashed or hung process. With each of the operating systems discussed here, the text (or code) pages of the process are not included in core dumps. But to be useful, a core dump must consist of pages of heap and stack as a minimum. Collecting non-truncated good core dump files is essential for postmortem analysis of the crash.

The following sections describe scenarios for collecting core dumps.

17.4.1 Collect Core Dumps on Oracle Solaris

With the Oracle Solaris operating system, unhandled signals such as a segmentation violation, illegal instruction, and so forth, result in a core dump. By default, the core dump is created in the current working directory of the process and the name of the core dump file is core. The user can configure the location and name of the core dump using the core file administration utility, coreadm. This procedure is fully described in the man page for the coreadm utility.

The ulimit utility is used to get or set the limitations on the system resources available to the current shell and its descendants. Use the ulimit -c command to check or set the core file size limit. Make sure that the limit is set to unlimited; otherwise the core file could be truncated.


Note:

ulimit is a Bash shell built-in command; on a C shell, use the limit command.

Ensure that any scripts that are used to launch the VM or your application do not disable core dump creation.

The gcore utility can be used to get a core image of running processes. This utility accepts a process id (pid) of the process for which you want to force core dump.

To get the list of Java processes running on the machine, you can use any of the following commands:

  • ps -ef | grep java

  • pgrep java

  • jps


Note:

The jps command-line utility does not perform name matching (that is, looking for "java" in the process command name) and so it can list Java VM embedded processes as well as the Java processes.

The following are two methods to collect core dumps on Oracle Solaris.

17.4.2 Collect Core Dumps on Linux

On the Linux operating system, unhandled signals such as segmentation violation, illegal instruction, and so forth, result in a core dump. By default, the core dump is created in the current working directory of the process and the name of the core dump file is core.pid, where pid is the process id of the crashed Java process.

The ulimit utility is used to get or set the limitations on the system resources available to the current shell and its descendants. Use the ulimit -c command to check or set the core file size limit. Make sure that the limit is set to unlimited; otherwise the core file could be truncated.


Note:

ulimit is a Bash shell built-in command; on a C shell, use the limit command.

Ensure that any scripts that are used to launch the VM or your application do not disable core dump creation.

You can use the gcore command in the gdb (GNU Debugger) interface to get a core image of a running process. This utility accepts the pid of the process for which you want to force the core dump.

To get the list of Java processes running on the machine, you can use any of the following commands:

  • ps -ef | grep java

  • pgrep java

  • jps


Note:

The jps command-line utility does not perform name matching (that is, looking for "java" in the process command name) and so it can list Java VM embedded processes as well as the Java processes.

The following is one option to collect core dumps on Linux.

17.4.3 Reasons for Not Getting a Core File

The following list explains the major reasons that a core file might not be generated. This list pertains to both Oracle Solaris and Linux operating systems, unless specified otherwise.

  • The current user does not have permission to write in the current working directory of the process.

  • The current user has write permission on the current working directory, but there is already a file named core that has read-only permission.

  • The current directory does not have enough space or there is no space left.

  • The current directory has a subdirectory named core.

  • The current working directory is remote. It might be mapped by NFS (Network File System), and NFS failed just at the time the core dump was about to be created.

  • Oracle Solaris operating system only: The coreadm tool has been used to configure the directory and name of the core file, but any of the above reasons apply for the configured directory or filename.

  • The core file size limit is too low. Check your core file limit using the ulimit -c command (Bash shell) or the limit -c command (C shell). If the output from this command is not unlimited, the core dump file size might not be large enough. If this is the case, you will get truncated core dumps or no core dump at all. In addition, ensure that any scripts that are used to launch the VM or your application do not disable core dump creation.

  • The process is running a setuid program and therefore the operating system will not dump core unless it is configured explicitly.

  • Java specific: If the process received SIGSEGV or SIGILL but no core dump, it is possible that the process handled it. For example, HotSpot VM uses the SIGSEGV signal for legitimate purposes, such as throwing NullPointerException, deoptimization, and so forth. The signal is unhandled by the Java VM only if the current instruction (PC) falls outside Java VM generated code. These are the only cases in which HotSpot dumps core.

  • Java specific: The JNI Invocation API was used to create the VM. The standard Java launcher was not used. The custom Java launcher program handled the signal by just consuming it and produced the log entry silently. This situation has occurred with certain Application Servers and Web Servers. These Java VM embedding programs transparently attempt to restart (fail over) the system after an abnormal termination. In this case, the fact that a core dump is not produced is a feature and not a bug.

17.4.4 Collect Crash Dumps on Windows

On Windows operating system there are three types of crash dumps:

  • Dr. Watson logfile, which is a text error log file that includes faulting stack trace and a few other details.

  • User minidump, which can be considered a "partial" core dump. It is not a complete core dump, because it does not contain all the useful memory pages of the process.

  • Dr. Watson full-dump, which is equivalent to a Unix core dump. This dump contains most memory pages of the process (except for code pages).

When an unexpected exception occurs on Windows, the action taken depends on two values in the following registry key:

\\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug

The two values are named Debugger and Auto. The Auto value indicates if the debugger specified in the value of the Debugger entry starts automatically when an application error occurs.

  • A value of 0 for Auto means that the system displays a message box notifying the user when an application error occurs.

  • A value of 1 for Auto means that the debugger starts automatically.

The value of Debugger is the debugger command that is to be used to debug program errors.

When a program error occurs, Windows examines the Auto value and if the value is 0 it executes the command in the Debugger value. If the value for Debugger is a valid command, a message box is created with two buttons: OK and Cancel. If the user clicks OK, the program is terminated. If the user clicks Cancel, the specified debugger is started. If the value for the Auto entry is set to 1 and the value for the Debugger entry specifies the command for a valid debugger, the system automatically starts the debugger and does not generate a message box.

The following are two ways to collect crash dump on Windows.

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