how to debug "deep" crashes in Android?
- by eerok512
Hi All,
I've been trying to debug an android crash that is occurring without a Java Stack Trace... Java Stack Trace bugs are very easy for me to fix... but this bug I'm getting seems to be crashing inside the "NDK" or whatever it is the deep internals of Android are called... I've made no modifications to the NDK btw... I just dunno what else to call that layer hehe.
Anyway I'm mainly looking for advice on deep-debug methods, rather than help with this specific problem... because I doubt I can post all the source code involved... so really I just need to know how to set breakpoints at the deep layers or whatever other methods there are to trace deep-crashes to their source... so I will briefly describe the bug and then post a LogCat.
I have an app with 7 Activities
Activity_INTRO
Activity_EULA
Activity_MAIN
Activity_Contact
Activity_News
Activity_Library
Activity_More
INTRO is the initiating one... it fades in some company logos... after displaying them for a set time it jumps to the EULA activity... after the user accepts the EULA, it jumps to MAIN... MAIN then creates a TabHost and populates it with the 4 remaining activities
now heres the thing... when I click on say, the More tab of the TabHost, the app pauses for a few seconds and then hard-crashes... no java stack trace, but an actual ASM level trace with the registers and IP and stack... the same thing occurs no matter which tab I select, Contact, News, Library, More... all of them crash with the same hard-crash
if however I set the manifest to start the app at Activity_MAIN, bypassing the INTRO and EULA, then these crashes do not occur... so something is lingering from those opening activities that is somehow hosing the TabHost'ed Activities... and I'm wondering what the hell that could be... because I'm using finish() on those activites when they need to jump... in fact here is how I'm doing it let me know if you see any bugs:
when jumping from INTRO to EULA I do:
//Display the EULA
Intent newIntent = new Intent (avi, Activity_EULA.class);
startActivity (newIntent);
finish();
and EULA to MAIN:
Intent newIntent = new Intent (this, Activity_Main.class);
startActivity (newIntent);
finish();
anyway, here is the hard crash log... please let me know if there is some way I can reverse engineer either
/system/lib/libcutils.so or /system/lib/libandroid_runtime.so, because I think the crash is happening in one of them... i think its happening in the libandroid_runtime in fact.... anyway on to the log:
12-25 00:56:07.322: INFO/DEBUG(551): *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
12-25 00:56:07.332: INFO/DEBUG(551): Build fingerprint: 'generic/sdk/generic/:1.5/CUPCAKE/150240:eng/test-keys'
12-25 00:56:07.362: INFO/DEBUG(551): pid: 722, tid: 723 >>> com.killerapps.chokes <<<
12-25 00:56:07.362: INFO/DEBUG(551): signal 11 (SIGSEGV), fault addr 00000004
12-25 00:56:07.362: INFO/DEBUG(551): r0 00000004 r1 40021800 r2 00000004 r3 ad3296c5
12-25 00:56:07.372: INFO/DEBUG(551): r4 00000000 r5 00000000 r6 ad342da5 r7 41039fb8
12-25 00:56:07.372: INFO/DEBUG(551): r8 100ffcb0 r9 41039fb0 10 41e014a0 fp 00001071
12-25 00:56:07.382: INFO/DEBUG(551): ip ad35b874 sp 100ffc98 lr ad3296cf pc afb045a8 cpsr 00000010
12-25 00:56:07.552: INFO/DEBUG(551): #00 pc 000045a8 /system/lib/libcutils.so
12-25 00:56:07.572: INFO/DEBUG(551): #01 lr ad3296cf /system/lib/libandroid_runtime.so
12-25 00:56:07.582: INFO/DEBUG(551): stack:
12-25 00:56:07.582: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc58 00000000
12-25 00:56:07.592: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc5c 001c5278 [heap]
12-25 00:56:07.602: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc60 000000da
12-25 00:56:07.602: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc64 0016c778 [heap]
12-25 00:56:07.602: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc68 100ffcc8
12-25 00:56:07.602: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc6c 001c5278 [heap]
12-25 00:56:07.612: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc70 427d1ac0
12-25 00:56:07.612: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc74 000000c1
12-25 00:56:07.612: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc78 40021800
12-25 00:56:07.612: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc7c 000000c2
12-25 00:56:07.612: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc80 00000000
12-25 00:56:07.612: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc84 00000000
12-25 00:56:07.622: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc88 00000000
12-25 00:56:07.622: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc8c 00000000
12-25 00:56:07.622: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc90 df002777
12-25 00:56:07.632: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc94 e3a070ad
12-25 00:56:07.632: INFO/DEBUG(551): #00 100ffc98 00000000
12-25 00:56:07.632: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffc9c ad3296cf /system/lib/libandroid_runtime.so
12-25 00:56:07.632: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffca0 100ffcd0
12-25 00:56:07.642: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffca4 ad342db5 /system/lib/libandroid_runtime.so
12-25 00:56:07.642: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffca8 410a79d0
12-25 00:56:07.642: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcac ad00e3b8 /system/lib/libdvm.so
12-25 00:56:07.652: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcb0 410a79d0
12-25 00:56:07.652: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcb4 0016bac0 [heap]
12-25 00:56:07.662: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcb8 ad342da5 /system/lib/libandroid_runtime.so
12-25 00:56:07.662: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcbc 40021800
12-25 00:56:07.662: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcc0 410a79d0
12-25 00:56:07.662: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcc4 afe39dd0
12-25 00:56:07.662: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcc8 100ffcd0
12-25 00:56:07.662: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffccc ad040a8d /system/lib/libdvm.so
12-25 00:56:07.672: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcd0 41039fb0
12-25 00:56:07.672: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcd4 420000f8
12-25 00:56:07.672: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcd8 ad342da5 /system/lib/libandroid_runtime.so
12-25 00:56:07.672: INFO/DEBUG(551): 100ffcdc 100ffd48
12-25 00:56:07.852: DEBUG/dalvikvm(722): GC freed 367 objects / 15144 bytes in 210ms
12-25 00:56:08.081: DEBUG/InetAddress(722): www.akillerapp.com: 74.86.47.202 (family 2, proto 6)
12-25 00:56:08.242: DEBUG/dalvikvm(722): GC freed 62 objects / 2328 bytes in 122ms
12-25 00:56:08.771: DEBUG/dalvikvm(722): GC freed 245 objects / 11744 bytes in 179ms
12-25 00:56:09.131: INFO/ActivityManager(577): Process com.killerapps.chokes (pid 722) has died.
12-25 00:56:09.171: INFO/WindowManager(577): WIN DEATH: Window{43719320
com.killerapps.chokes/com.killerapps.chokes.Activity_Main paused=false}
12-25 00:56:09.251: INFO/DEBUG(551): debuggerd committing suicide to free the zombie!
12-25 00:56:09.291: DEBUG/Zygote(553): Process 722 terminated by signal (11)
12-25 00:56:09.311: INFO/DEBUG(781): debuggerd: Jun 30 2009 17:00:51
12-25 00:56:09.331: WARN/InputManagerService(577): Got RemoteException sending
setActive(false) notification to pid 722 uid 10020