Thunderbird:Testing:Get A Debug Thunderbird Hang Stack

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How to get a debug Thunderbird hang stack using gdb

(from bug 494849 comment 3, tested in Leopard 10.5)

Only use this with debug Thunderbird, which produces valid debug symbols.

If you are running debug Thunderbird, either clicking Sample Process in activity manager will get a sample, or follow the following instructions :

0) Change to the debug Thunderbird directory:

 cd /path/to/Thunderbird

1) Run Shredder:

 ./thunderbird-bin

And repeat steps to reproduce to get the hang.

2) At a Terminal prompt, find its process id:

 ps ax | grep thunderbird-bin

(The pid will be listed in the first column to the left. Let's assume it's '123'.)

3) Attach to the Shredder process:

 gdb thunderbird-bin 123

4) If TB stops, then continue it:

 cont

5) Next, get a backtrace of all running TB threads:

 thread apply all bt

6) Finally, save the output to a text file and attach it to your bug report.

A sample all-thread backtrace

Credit Steven Michaud from bug 470001 comment 23 for the original instructions.


See Also:

Backtraces on OS X
Using the Mozilla symbol server