Re: When Apps Crash...

[Tom Gilbert <gilbertt tomgilbert freeserve co uk>]

On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Michael Rogers wrote:

>> > > I notice a number of applications crash when I try to use them. I'm
>> > > certain its probably the application that is crashing, but it occurred to
>> > > me it might be nice if Gnome would tell me when they crash.
>> 
>> > Press ctrl-alt-F1 or whatever virtual terminal you started X from, and
>> > there'll be an error message there. An app might be able to tell you itself
>> > that it's crashed by connecting a signal to the SIGSEGV signal (actually,
>> > I'm not too sure about this, I've not played with signals much), but I don't
>> > think another program is able to listen for signals sent to other processes
>> > (again, I'm probably wrong).
>> 
>> Yes, I understand. That's how I've been figuring it out. I guess I was
>> looking to make a suggestion to the Gnome developers. I get the impression
>> from other posts to this list there is a "wish list" place. Maybe I should
>> try to find it.
>
>Would it be possible to redirect stderr for applications launched by
>Gnome, so that error messages would appear in a window (or scroll past on
>the desktop background) rather than appearing on the console? Also,
>perhaps you could have a "core watcher" applet that would pop up an icon
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>if a core file appeared, and allow you to find out which app had produced
>it? (This already happens if an app dies in ~/.gnome_desktop, but could
>you watch for core dumps elsewhere?)
>
>Michael Rogers

You should check out tick-a-stat. It has a core-watcher module which pops
up when a core file is created, and also provides an automatic
gdb backtrace. Its very natty (but probably no substitute for a well
executed gnome-libs solution.)

Tick-a-stat can be found at http://gqview.netpedia.net/ and can also tail
log files and watch system load.

-- 
   .------------------------------------------------------------------.
   | Tom Gilbert, England                        pingu@linuxfreak.com |
   | www.tomgilbert.freeserve.co.uk    tom@tomgilbert.freeserve.co.uk |
   |------------------------------------------------------------------|
   | Sites to Visit:                |    .~.                          |
   |     www.freshmeat.net          |    /V\        L  I  N  U  X     |
   |     www.gnome.org              |   // \\   >Beware the Penguin<  |
   |     www.enlightenment.org      |  /(   )\                        |
   |     http://themes.org          |   ^^-^^      www.linux.com      |
   `------------------------------------------------------------------'