Core Crash Dump For FMS On Windows
By Stefan Richter
Expert Author
Article Date: 2007-09-28
A few weeks ago someone posted about problems with their FMS server on the Flash Media List.
Asa Whillock from Adobe was kind enough to post these guidelines for creating a core crash dump on Windows. The instructions for Linux will follow.
1. Install on your FMS system Microsoft Debugging Tools for Windows.
Found here at time of writing http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx
2. Within that you'll find an application called ADPlus.
3. Run adplus.vbs from the command line with options similar to this
'adplus -c ####'
where #### is the PID number of the process that you want to watch. You can find the core process that you expect to crash from the Windows Task Manager or from FMS' Master.00.log - it's listed when it starts the core process
4. Wait for that process to crash
5. Within the same directory as ADPlus will be a folder listing something like 'CrashDump on so and so day and time from process so and so'
6. In this folder are several items, the most important to you being a dmp file.
NOTE: The DMP file is named for the kind of failure that produced it. For instance an AccessViolation crash would have AccessViolation in the long name of the DMP file. If the file says PROCESS_SHUTDOWN or anything similar to that in it - you DID NOT crash, but merely the process was shutdown properly.
ADPlus isn't smart enough to know the difference, but you can be. So always examine this file by name before thinking you have a crash on your hands.
7. Open WinDbg, also installed with Debugging Tools for Windows
8. Under the file menu choose ImageFilePath. . .
9. Here insert the path to your FMS install
10. Close WinDBG and choose Yes to save the information for your workspace
11. Reopen WinDbg and this time drag and drop, or load via open the DMP file you generated via AdPlus
12. This will start a command window that will tell you that you don't have symbols or sources for a lot of files, and you shouldn't.
13. Go to the View menu
14. Select Call Stack
15. This will take a moment to load, but once you do it will have the call stack for the offending thread that produced your crash.
Several lines may not be mapped but there should be a useful stack that crashed located in there.
16. If this doesn't work you can send the entire DMP to your local FMS engineer, but it may be very large and getting a stack trace can be much faster and equally helpful.
Comments
About the Author:
Stefan is a certified Flash Developer who has been involved with Flash Media
Server since its very early days. From his home office in the UK he has
handled a variety of projects, specializing in Flash Video and Rich Internet
Applications for clients that include CNET, USA Network and Unilever. Stefan
is the author of a series of Adobe Developer Center articles, has spoken at
several industry events and contributes a regular column on Flash Video to
Streaming Media Magazine. His site www.flashcomguru.com is one of the
largest online resources on Flash Video. |
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