Re: [dev] [wmii] Reproducible crashes with "dead" windows

From: Tom Kazimiers <tom_AT_voodoo-arts.net>
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:29:30 +0100

Hi,

> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Tom Kazimiers <tom_AT_voodoo-arts.net> wrote:
>>> This error is caused by an incomplete status bar definition: there a
>>> status bar applet defined in your config which lacks a "label"
>>> subsection.
>> I looked into my config file and found the following status bar applets:
>>
>> But why should a applet fail that late? I mean, it seems to work all the
>> time except such situations.
>
> You're right. I will add error checking, to detect a missing "label"
> section, right at the beginning when the status bar applet is
> initialized.

That would be great. Improvements in robustness are most of tho time a
good thing.

>> Thanks for the tip. If I have done it correctly I get no core file
>> generated. To enable core dumps I executed "ulimit -c unlimited" and
>> instead of starting "wmii" after login, I started the above gdb line.
>> Unfortunately without success, did I do something wrong?
>
> Yes, the steps you took seem incorrect. The above commands are only
> useful after a core dump has been generated. Since you are running
> wmii via GDM (which is run by root, I would assume) things are a bit
> more complicated. I would recommend trying this simpler (startx)
> approach:
>
> 1. Go to a virtual terminal (control-alt-f2)
> 2. Log in
> 3. Run "ulimit -c unlimited"
> 4. Run "startx wmii -- :1"
> 5. Make wmii crash
> 6. You should have a core* file in your home dir.
> 7. Run the gdb commands on the core dump file.

Indeed, it worked - thank you very much for those detailed steps. And if
 I understand the output correct, wmii is not the problem:

Reading symbols from /usr/bin/wmii...(no debugging symbols found)...done.

warning: core file may not match specified executable file.
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Core was generated by `/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer.bin
--plugin /usr/lib/flashplugin-'.
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
#0 0x0000000000000000 in _start () from /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2

Well, like twenty times a day big letters appear in my head: I hate the
Adobe flash player (at least is npviewer.bin its executable)... But
honestly, I don't know what the gdb means for my problem (I even had
flash not running). Like I said before: It is reproducable by having a
window in moving (grab/pan?) mode (so they are floating) while closing
it. Typical for this are progress bar windows, they often close
automatically.

Do you have any idea?

>> But what I got is more log entries from "~/.wmii-hg/wmiirc.log":
>>
>> E, [2010-02-17T02:08:29.687682 #31728] ERROR -- : Broken pipe (Errno::EPIPE)
>
> This is a harmless error, which says that wmii abruptly closed the 9P
> socket through which it and Rumai communicate.

Oh, ok thanks. But this also sounds not very common or "good", but maybe
I'm wrong.

Cheers,
Tom
Received on Wed Feb 24 2010 - 21:29:30 UTC

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