How can I debug this User Space application crash? - linux

Question

I'm running a Qt5.4.0 application on my embedded Linux system (TI AM335x based) and it's stopping to run and I'm having a hard time debugging this. This is a QtWebKit QML example (youtubeview) but other QtWebKit examples are preforming the same for me so it's something WebKit based on my system.
When I run the application, it runs for a second or so, then ends with no messages. There is nothing reported to the syslog or dmesg either. When I kick it off with strace I can see this futex message:
futex(0x2d990, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 0
futex(0x2d9ac, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 7, NULL <unfinished ...>
+++ exited with 1 +++
Then it stops. Not very helpful... My next though was to debug this with GDB, however GDB crashes when I try to run this:
-sh-4.2# gdb youtubeview
GNU gdb (GDB) 7.5
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
...
(gdb) run
Starting program: /usr/share/qt5/examples/webkitqml/youtubeview/youtubeview
/home/mike/ulf_qt_450/ulf/build-ulf/out/work/armv7ahf-vfp-neon-linux-gnueabihf/gdb/7.5-r0.0/gdb-7.5/gdb/utils.c:1081: internal-error: virtual memory exhausted: can't allocate 64652911 bytes.
A problem internal to GDB has been detected,
This issue occurs even if I set a break point at main first, just as soon as it starts running it will get stuck and run out of memory.
Are there other tools or techniques that can be used here to help isolate the issue?
Perhaps arguments to GDB to limit memory use or give some more information about why this Qt program made it crash?
Perhaps some FDs or system variables I could use to figure out why the FUTEX is being held and failing?
I'm not sure where to take this problem right now.
The Qt code itself is pretty simple, and I don't anticipate any issues in here:
#include <QGuiApplication>
#include <QQuickView>
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
QGuiApplication app(argc,argv);
QQuickView view;
view.setSource(QUrl("qrc:///" QWEBKIT_EXAMPLE_NAME ".qml"));
view.setResizeMode(QQuickView::SizeRootObjectToView);
view.show();
return app.exec();
return 0;
}

Answer 1

Running gdb on the device, especially with a huge library such as WebKit, is bound to get you out of memory errors.
Instead, run gdbserver on the device, and connect to it via gdb running on the host machine, using the toolchain's cross-gdb for that. In that scenario, the gdb on the host loads all the debug information, while the gdbserver on the device needs almost no memory.
It is even possible to have the separate debug information available on the host and stripped libraries on the device.
Please note that parts of WebKit are always built in release mode, even if the rest of Qt was built in debug mode, if you are going to debug into WebKit you might want to change that in the build system.
Here is a minimal example:
Device:
# gdbserver 192.168.1.2:12345 myapp
Process myapp created; pid = 989
Listening on port 12345
Host:
# arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gdb myapp
GNU gdb (Sourcery G++ Lite 2009q1-203) 6.8.50.20081022-cvs
(gdb) set solib-absolute-prefix /opt/targetroot
(gdb) target remote 192.168.1.42:12345
Remote debugging using 192.168.1.42:12345
(gdb) start
The "remote" target does not support "run". Try "help target" or "continue".
(gdb) break main
Breakpoint 1 at 0x1ab9c: file myapp/main.cpp, line 12.
(gdb) cont
Continuing.
Breakpoint 1, main (argc=1, argv=0xbecfedb4) at myapp/main.cpp:12
12 QApplication app(argc, argv, QApplication::GuiServer);
And you are right that it looks like a problem in QtWebKit itself, not in your application. Good luck!