Desperately in need of a working debugger

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Raziel

Posted on: 2011/4/27 0:17 #1

Home away from home

I need a backtrace of one of my ports, GrimReaper is not enough.

There is gdb 3.6 (updated by alfkil i think) - crashing when i load the project with "gdb <project>" even before i can type "run"
and then there is DB101 by kas1e version 0.9 which is also crashing.
Version 0.1 which i happened to have in the src drawer runs, but of course can't provide me with the information i need (not that i'd know how to use it anyway)

Please, can someone point me to a non-crashing updated version of either of those or another which could geive me a backtrace of a crash?

I'd even be grateful if some could tell me if i can produce a backtrace from a GrimReaper log (not the StackTrace)

I'm going mad here, slowly...but mad

Thanks for all suggestions

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tonyw

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/27 1:49 #2

Quite a regular

If a "Stack Trace" is not a "back trace", then just what do you want? A trace of where you've been?

The most reliable way to get that is by using IExec->DebugPrintF().

If you have a crash log, post the guts of it (not all the system & library stuff) and perhaps we can help get some sense out of it.

Are you using the debug kernel?

cheers
tony

Mrodfr

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/27 6:42 #3

Quite a regular

AFAIR, gdb need a new elf.kmod for working on SAM systems and the same for db101.

For sure, there are no tool for debugging and no real and complete explanation about how to do that.

http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum ... hp?topic_id=4610&forum=25

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Raziel

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/27 7:23 #4

Home away from home

Quote:

tonyw wrote:
If a "Stack Trace" is not a "back trace", then just what do you want? A trace of where you've been?

The most reliable way to get that is by using IExec->DebugPrintF().

If you have a crash log, post the guts of it (not all the system & library stuff) and perhaps we can help get some sense out of it.

Are you using the debug kernel?

I don't know, i keep being told (non amiga users) that the Stacktrace is unuseable and they need a backtrace of what happened.
Until recently i wasn't able to get some useable info out of addr2line...with the threads on here and amigaworld i know now how to and can exactly find the line in the file GrimReaper is pointing to

No debug kernel, no

I'll try to "translate" the log for the devs

Thank you

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kas1e

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/27 9:13 #5

Home away from home

@Raziel
Quote:

and then there is DB101 by kas1e version 0.9 which is also crashing.

No no, db101 also done by Alfkil , i only help with beta-tests of it. But for db101 you need or beta version of elf.kmod , or one of the older elf.kmod (from aos4.1 update 1 if i remember right). I hope when alfkil will finish with QT, he will continue work on db101.

@MrodFR
new elf.kmod need for db101, not for GDB. GDB buggy by itself and unusable at all, but db101 can be used more or less already (still you can set breakpoint on any address, only on functions avail in debug info, but still better than gdb)

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Raziel

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/27 9:43 #6

Home away from home

ok, sorry for mixing you two up

hrm, but there won't be a eta for the update... :-/

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kas1e

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/27 12:40 #7

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@raziel
You can use elf.library.kmod from previous os4.1 update and it will not crashes (i can check which one works and can send it for you if its need it).

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centaurz

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/27 18:24 #8

Just popping in

@Raziel

Quote:

i know now how to and can exactly find the line in the file GrimReaper is pointing to

What exactly is the problem then ? You don't know how you landed into the function which threw that DSI/ISI/whatever... ?

Raziel

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/28 1:22 #9

Home away from home

The problem is...and that will make me getting killed by OS4 devs...stacktrace != backtrace.

At least that is what every non OS4 dev keep telling me...and to be perfectly honest, NONE...not a single time was a crash fixed due to the information grim reaper spitted out.
It nmay be perfectly good for writing a program on OS4 for OS4, but when it comes to ported parts or programs it gets to it's limit.

I'm not badmouthing the dev tools here or grim reaper or anything, i'm just saying that for fixing bugs it just isn't enough (at least for me imho)

so, sorry for stepping on anyone's toes

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Mrodfr

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/28 6:51 #10

Quite a regular

Quote:

At least that is what every non OS4 dev keep telling me...and to be perfectly honest, NONE...not a single time was a crash fixed due to the information grim reaper spitted out.
It nmay be perfectly good for writing a program on OS4 for OS4, but when it comes to ported parts or programs it gets to it's limit.

I'm 100% agree with you...

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abalaban

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/28 8:38 #11

Quite a regular

@Raziel

Maybe because non AOS4 developpers don't know how to read a Grim Reaper log nor they know how to produce an executable embedding correct debug information to help them.

Grim Reaper log will tell you what was the location of the crash.
On the other hand a debugger will tell you why the crash occured, but for that you must :
- have a relative knowledge of what the program is supposed to do and how;
- have an AOS4 debug friendly executable (i.e. an executable generated with correct AOS4 debug information).
This means that a debugger is reserved to *programmers* not to end users.

If you want think to a car and the diagnostic box garage owners have to find problems in cars. Now imagine you, as a car end user, manage to obtain such a diagnostic box it obvious that to find where the problem is :
- you have to be sure the car is compatible (i.e. right brand) with the diagnostic box you have,
- you have to know how to use the box, how it should read for the specific car model you have and how to interpret results.

Back to a quiet home... At last

tonyw

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/28 8:59 #12

Quite a regular

@Raziel

If you want a trace of where the program went before it crashed, then you probably want a debugger with breakpoints, etc. GrimReaper is only a crash reporter, not a debugger.

The debugger that goes with the gcc suite is gdb, but no one has ported or compiled it for OS4 since the very early days, and things have changed.

There was a "graphical" version of gdb years ago but it was pretty ordinary. Have you tried Codebench? It may provide the support you need, although I don't know what it can do in the debugging functions.

cheers
tony

Raziel

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/28 11:24 #13

Home away from home

@abalaban
@tonyw

That's why i love being on AmigaOS, no one is being bashed for being a noob...

Thank you all for the great spirit

@abalaban

I'll pick up the car remark

It's like being in a garage, talking to a mechanic, who knows the engine, but not the car and who doesn't happen to own such a device, but *i* do.
Now all i need to derive from the device is the information the mechanic needs to fix the job

Unfortunately ... and here

@tonyw

provided the information "GrimReaper is only a crash reporter, not a debugger", which is exactly my problem.

Well, i'll leave it at that.
I'll keep my feet still and wait for either an update or a debugger

Codbench is nothing i have used so far, but i will certainly take a look

Many thanks again and sorry if i happened to p*ss anyone of, my bad

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Chris

Re: Desperately in need of a working debugger

Posted on: 2011/4/28 12:18 #14

Amigans Defender

Quote:

Raziel wrote:
The problem is...and that will make me getting killed by OS4 devs...stacktrace != backtrace.

At least that is what every non OS4 dev keep telling me...and to be perfectly honest, NONE...not a single time was a crash fixed due to the information grim reaper spitted out.
It nmay be perfectly good for writing a program on OS4 for OS4, but when it comes to ported parts or programs it gets to it's limit.

I've submitted GR crashlogs/stack trace to developers before and got my bugs fixed. It gives the function names and offsets. I run those through addr2line along with a description of how to reproduce the problem.

Nine times out of ten this is sufficient to get the bug fixed. If it's an OS4-only bug then it is probably up to the porter to fix it anyway.

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