Crash Dump Analysis

Sponsored link: Memory Dump Analysis Services

Debugging Experts Magazine Online

Need the crash dump. Period. This might be the first thought when an engineer gets a stack trace fragment without symbolic information. It is usually based on the following presupposition:

We need an actual dump file to suggest further troubleshooting steps.

This is not actually true unless it is the first time you have the problem and get stack trace for it. Consider the following fragment from bugcheck kernel dump when no symbols were applied because the customer didn’t have them:

b90529f8 8085eced nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x1b
b9052a70 8088c798 nt!MmAccessFault+0xb25
b9052a70 bfabd940 nt!_KiTrap0E+0xdc
WARNING: Stack unwind information not available. Following frames may be wrong.
b9052b14 bfabe452 MyDriver+0x27940

We can convert module+offset information into module!function+offset2 using MAP files or using DIA SDK (Debug Interface Access SDK) to query PDB files if we know module timestamp. This might be seen as a tedious exercise but we don’t need to do it if we keep raw stack trace signatures in some database when doing crash dump analysis. If we use our own symbol servers we might want to remove references to them and reload symbols. Then redo previous stack trace commands.

In my case it happened that I already analyzed similar previous bugcheck crash dumps months ago and saved stack trace prior to applying symbols. This helped me to point to solution without requesting the crash dump corresponding to that stack trace.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

           

Museum of Debugging and Memory Dumps

7/7/2010 - 8/8/2010 Annual Competition: Tell Your Windows Debugging Story

Crash and Hang Analysis Audit Service

CARE: Crash Analysis Report Environment

Crash Dump and Software Trace Analysis Training and Seminars

Access OpenTask Titles on Safari Books Online

DATA (Dump Analysis + Trace Analysis) Facebook group
Please join the community of memory (dump) and trace analysis engineers. This group promotes scientific methods and memory dump-based worldview.

Twitter @ DumpAnalysis
You can now follow portal and blog news at DumpAnalysis on Twitter

LinkedIn Group Dr. Watson Enthusiasts
All about Dr. Watson errors and more. Get news, excerpts and progress reports about the forthcoming book The Science of Dr. Watson: An Illustrated History of Debugging (ISBN 978-1906717070)

2010 (0x7DA) - The Year of Dump Analysis
2011 (0x7DB) - 2020 (0x7E4) The Debugging Decade

International Memory Analysts and Debuggers Day:
07.07 and/or 08.08 starting from The Year of Dump Analysis, 2010, 7DA

Announcements

Coming Soon:

Management Bits: An Anthology from Reductionist Manager

Crash Dump Analysis: Practical Foundations (Windows Edition, Systematic Software Fault Analysis Series)

Debugging Notebook: Essential Concepts, WinDbg Commands and Tools

Crash Dump Analysis for System Administrators and Support Engineers

New Magazines:

Debugged! MZ/PE: MagaZine for/from Practicing Engineers

New Books:

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology: Color Supplement for Volumes 1-3

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 3

First Fault Software Problem Solving: A Guide for Engineers, Managers and Users

x64 Windows Debugging: Practical Foundations

Also available:

Windows Debugging: Practical Foundations

DLL List Landscape: The Art from Computer Memory Space

Dumps, Bugs and Debugging Forensics: The Adventures of Dr. Debugalov

WinDbg: A Reference Poster and Learning Cards

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 2

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 1

New Children's Book:

Baby Turing

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 at 2:59 pm and is filed under AntiPatterns, Crash Dump Analysis, Crash Dump Patterns, Software Technical Support. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.