Tracking down reasons for segvaulting applications

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:43:12 +0100 Ivo van den Maagdenberg
<ivo.vdmaagdenberg at gmail.com> said:

> 2009/12/28 Patrick Beck <pbeck at yourse.de>:
> > Hi,
> >
> > is that not a normal enlightenment (window manager) error message? I
> > think it will be useful to start the script from the command line. Then
> > you get the error output directly from the python interpreter.
> >

enlightenment pops up these dialogs whenever a child it is tracking (that it
would have exec'ed) exitsabnormally. either non-zero exit codes (this is meant
to imply an error at the higher levels of the app - missing file, missing
config, etc. etc. but the app exits with a non-zero exit code) or exits where
it died due to a signal (segfault, abort etc.) e also nicely is capturing
stdout and stderr and will provide that for you if it has any so maybe the app
went "help! no config!" on stderr and then exit(-1)'ed). this is what you get
as opposed to the window mysteriously vanishing and you process having vanished
and you have no idea why.

> Ok, all irony aside, I will start with a test session from the command
> line and see what I can find. Then after that I'll throw some strace
> at it.
> 
> The downside of this all is that I will have to have a GPS fix, which
> will force me to go outside in wintertime :/

you don't need a whole session from the cmd-line, just tun your app from it
under gdb (yes it is installable on the device if your oe repositories are
complete enough - or you use debian). i.e. just ssh in, then export DISPLAY=:0
to work on the local display and run app and debug as u would anywhere on linux
on a desktop. (sshing in just gets you a sane kbd and desktop screen to use as
your debug console :))

-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com