Debug hangs due to SIGINT in C++ binary using zlib - gdb

I have a working logging implementation in my code, on the top of that I have added compressed log functionality using zlib's gzwrite/gzflush/gzopen/gzclose functions to output the logs in compressed format.
The problem is earlier in normal logging I was able to use ctrl+c to send SIGINT and stop the program, but with compressed logs functionality enabled, pressing ctrl+c hangs the program.
I have tried to debug using gdb as well, when I pressed ctrl+c inside GDB, the program works as expected inside GDB, so unable to do any debug there.
Questions
Is there something wrong with how I am sending SIGINT inside GDB?
Are there any known issues with zlib, causing hangs due to SIGINT?
Is there any other tool I can use to understand what is the source of hang in my program?

Related

Strange behavior of Eclipse Neon

I use Eclipse with CDT plugin for my C/C++ development. And I use MinGW compiler. Environment Path set properly. All the setting done properly in Eclipse. While editing the source code its working fine but after compilation when I try to execute the source code sometimes it says it cannot open the .exe file or sometimes doesn't show anything when there is some input to take. When I stop the execution pressing the red button program gets executed completely with default values.
But everything is fine if I compile and run the same source code using notepad and the command prompt. Please help.
A common problem is that if the program is currently executing, the program file is opened by the system and cannot be reopened for writing by the compiler (or more exactly by the linker). This problem can be easily reproduced by starting the program in debug mode and stop it at a breakpoint. Then, while the process is active, change a line in source and ask for a new build: you will get the error saying that the exe file cannot be opened.
How to fix: ensure to close any possible execution of the program when the error happens and rebuild

When are memory dump files exactly created?

I have configured my windows 7 to create mini dump files on crashes but when my application crashed, no dump file was created. The search for answer left me rather confused as to when are dump files created, when windows crashes or my application crashes?
In my case, I am looking for dump file when my application crashes. I receive a typical crash dialog that states:
TheApp Application has stopped working
Windows can check online for a solution to the problem
-> Check online for a solution and close the program
-> Close the program
-> Debug the program
So can I generate dump file for my application when it crashes? I can't produce this bug on development machine so I want to walk back from dump file. Is there any other option to trace the source of bug (to source code)?
First of all, there are different places to configure a "create a minidump on crash" setting, which are totally different.
You can configure Windows to create a kernel dump file when Windows crashes, i.e. when a Bluescreen of death (BSOD) occurs. This is done in the following screen on Windows 7:
You can configure Windows to create a user mode dump file when an application crashes, i.e. instead of the "Windows Error Reporting" dialog which would normally appear. To do so, and you know that in advance, then configure a Registry key called LocalDumps (MSDN). By default, dumps will be created below %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps and they will have the naming scheme app.exe.<PID>.dmp.
For the sake of completeness, there might be other triggers. The only sure way to tell is: when the method MiniDumpWriteDump (MSDN) is called.
I'm quite sure that you want option 2 of the above. If you have trouble with it, see whether all the conditions for LocalDump are fulfilled.
The answer given by #antlersoft does not work, for the reasons I have posted in my blog: at the time the dialog is shown, Windows has triggered a breakpoint to stop the application and it has injected a callstack of Windows Error Reporting. All in all, not a good starting point for debugging.
What would work is:
attach a debugger of your choice
press "Go" in the debugger
press the "Debug" button of the WER dialog
confirm the warning about the debugger which is already attached
click "No" when asked to start debugging using the selected debugger
Using Task Manager to create a crash dump is not recommended, since it will not consider the bitness of the application, which may cause trouble later. See ways to create good and useful crash dumps.
Minidump is created when Windows crashes. It's not intended to application crash.
If you want to debug crashes of your application, you may attach it to a debugger after it is started. Clicking on the "Debug" button when application crashes do the same. You can use the debugger of MS Visual Studio to do that, for example.
See this page for help on attaching a process to MS Visual Studio debugger:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/3s68z0b3.aspx
EDIT: following text removed, as this may not work as expected (comment from Thomas)
You can also create a dump file from task manager, however you will still need a debugger to analyze it and, actually I am not sure you will be able to get the dump file at the point application crashes. The best way, if you can, is to debug the process on the target machine by attaching it to debugger either after it is started or when crash occurs.
When you get the crash dialog, go to Task Manager, find the process, right click on the process, and select "Create dump file". The dump file is created in the AppData/Local/Temp folder for the user; it will be named %AppData%\Local\Temp\.DMP; if you create multiple it will be -1.DMP, etc. You can move the dump file to your development machine and open it within Visual Studio. Visual Studio will then act as if you had hit "Break all" at the point of the crash while running the process in the debugger.

Remote gdb stops at every event

I'm having remote ARM Linux box which I need to debug.
The server is started:
gdbserver :12345 ./my_app
The client:
./arm-am3354-linux-gnueabihf-gdb ~/
(gdb) target remote dev_r:12345
(gdb) continue
Then I'm trying to pause the app with Ctrl+C, but the gdb stops with:
[Inferior 1 (process 2766) exited with code 01]
And on server:
Child exited with status 1
GDBserver exiting
Story:
I was trying to use remote debugging in QtCreator, but when setting breakpoints in run-time the gdb was crashing in the same way. Also the breakpoints and pause is not working in QtCreator.
I was trying also another gdb like gdb-multiarch and the one from android-sdk.
Update:
Debugging small program aka Hello World works. Local Debugging (on x86) works too. The app itself has hundred thousand lines of code, shared and static libraries.
Partial solution:
Probably the sysroot for embedded platform that I've got was invalid. After copying /lib/ and /usr/ from the target device and setting it as
set sysroot /home/karel/sysroot
I'm able to set breakpoints and the app stops at them. The pause however is still stopping the remote app. The same for QtCreator: Tools->Options->Debugger->GDB->Additional Attach Commands
I had a similar (or even exactly the same?) issue with debugging my application running on the EGLFS platform. Debugging when built with Qt 5.4 was working perfectly fine, debugging with Qt 5.5 did behave as you describe.
After hours of searching, I found that my application on Qt 5.5 exited when receiving a SIGINT, whereas on Qt 5.4, the debugger could pause the application as expected. Since GDB sends SIGINT when trying to pause the application or setting / removing a breakpoint, this was where trouble started.
After some more research, I finally found the following commit to Qt 5.5: Fix up signal handling in QFbVtHandler. At the very end, you see that when receiving SIGINT or SIGTERM, the handleInt() handler is called where we finally run into _exit(1). Setting a breakpoint there confirmed that this is exactly what happens when trying to pause or set a breakpoint with GDB.
Solution that worked for me: I have created a patch to qfbvthandler.cpp, simply removing the #define VTH_ENABLED line.
GDB debugging is now again working like a charm.
Note: Even though qfbvthandler.cpp has been updated in Qt5.6 and upwards, I suspect the behaviour would still be the same. I however don't have a workspace set up in order to test this.

'GDB: Failed to set controlling terminal' warning in MonoDevelop

Whenever I run a C++ console program in MonoDevelop IDE in linux, I recieve this warning in the console:
&"warning: GDB: Failed to set controlling terminal: Operation not permitted\n"
After this message is shown the program runs normally.
So, I want to prevent MonoDevelop from printing this warning. Is there a way to solve the problem or prevent MonoDevelop from printing this message?

Eclipse C++ - output to window DOS

I am using Eclipse with C++. When I run the program, I get the following message in my Console window:
**** Build of configuration Debug for project Disks Repulsion ****
**** Internal Builder is used for build ****
Nothing to build for Disks Repulsion
I makes changes to the program and run it again, and this time I get following message:
**** Build of configuration Debug for project Disks Repulsion ****
**** Internal Builder is used for build ****
g++ -oDisksRepulsion.exe DisksRepulsion.o -lopengl32 -lglu32 -lglut32
C:\MinGW\bin..\lib\gcc\mingw32\3.4.5........\mingw32\bin\ld.exe: cannot open output file DisksRepulsion.exe: Permission denied
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
Build error occurred, build is stopped
Time consumed: 103 ms.
When I first ran the program, it started my program (I can see it running in my Window Task Manager), but there is no output being sent to the console.
After making changes to my program, the program is still running in the background, so I get the "Permission denied" error, when I try to run the program. I can make the error go away by ending the instances via task manager. However, when I run the program, I still don't see any output being sent to the console.
Yesterday, I was able to see the output in my console, but don't know why I cannot see it today. Also, when I saw my output, the cursor's focus did not change from the code to the console. I dislike having to do it manually.
I also don't like that when I make changes to my program, and run it again, that the program is not automatically terminated on its own.
I have used VC++ and I prefer the window Dos for output. So, I wanted to know if there is anyway in Eclipse to send the output to Windows Command Prompt, since I know that the instance of the .exe is really gone when I close the program. It automatically gets cursor's focus. I will also be able to get some output.
I installed MinGW with MaSYS or something, to compile the program.
It sounds like your application isn't terminating on its own and you didn't build in any sort of interface that would allow you to kill the program. This sounds like a bug in your code and not an Eclipse issue. If issuing a Ctrl+C in the console won't kill your program, then look into coding something that will let you kill your app with keystroke or input sequence.
If you want to run your app in a command console, then open a normal command console, browse to the folder containing your project, and run the compiled executable from the console instead of doing it through the Eclipse interface.
A simple solution, which I've been using for ages now, is opening a command prompt yourself and running the executable manually. An advantage of this method is that you can set your "DOS" window's size to anything you want. (Right now I'm using a 120x50 window with 8192 lines of scrollback buffer.) Another one is that you will never lose your console output; in fact, you'll be able to see outputs from past runs. (8192 lines is A LOT unless you're printf-debugging a tight loop.)
An alternative to terminating your program from the taskbar is using the red icons on the top right corner of the Eclipse "Console" window.
Is your program's entrypoint main() or WinMain()? There may also be a setting/link option for the "subsystem," console or Windows I think they're called in Visual Studio.
Anyway, if your program is starting up via WinMain, the expectation is that you'll have a Windows form of some sort through which the user can control the program. If you use main(), then your program should automatically trigger the opening of a console window.
Look up AllocConsole() on MSDN (or google it) if you are using WinMain() intentionally and want a console window to also open up. There's some trickery also available via google search that can hook stdout to this console, but at this time I don't remember what it is. (You basically redirect the stdout handle to your new console.)
Good luck.