Ralph wrote: >.. > 3195 ? S 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/local/mozilla/v1.7.13/mozilla > 3197 ? S 0:00 \_ /bin/sh > /usr/local/mozilla/v1.7.13/run-mozilla.sh > /usr/local/mozilla/v1.7.13/mozilla-bin > 3202 ? Sl 9:39 \_ /usr/local/mozilla/v1.7.13/mozilla-bin
Sure looks like 3202 is right. The Sl means there are threads, but all memory for all threads should be accounted for in the process memory. > > That's all. I'm guessing that the first one is the navigator, second is the > main > email program, and third is the email composer. That follows with my using > one > to spawn the next. All three are still open on the still frozen gui on F7 > (just > checked). > > Although I refer to the gui as being frozen, I don't think it is. With the > mouse > pointer still following the motions of the mouse, and the clock still ticking > away, it makes me think that something else is confusing it. Alt-Tab does > nothing, nor does Alt-Esc, Ctrl-Alt-Del, and not even mouse pointer context. > Even Ctrl-Alt-[->] (right arrow) doesn't move to Workspace 2, but Ctrl-Alt-Fx > switches to the appropriate console. Maybe the mouse got confused. It did > freeze up during the midst of an attempt to drag an icon from one place to > another. I'm just not quite ready to try anything that could cause Mozilla to > self-destruct until I've made an acceptable effort to get my email. Yeah, I've seen this too, I don't really know a precise explanation of what's going on in such a case. In some past cases, some of the desktop features are also affected: panels go away or get blanked, application windows get frozen in partially rendered state, ... Clearly X has stopped working properly. Maybe the "event dispatching" system is broke, or maybe some non-interruptible component failed to "yield" or return. Is a puzzlement! :-( > >> How are you searching. I might try >> >> grep "known string" core.3202 >> and if that works >> strings core.3202 | grep -30 "known string" >> to get (say) 30 text lines before and after the match. >> >> >> If you get this far, checkout greps -B and -A options >> .. grep -B10 -A50 .. >> (or similar) might be useful. > > I launch vim with that file, and do "/knownWord". Got nuthen. Although I would still prefer something like strings core.3202 | less or strings core.3202 > core.strings vim core.strings .. Vim _is_ pretty good at reading binary files, so I would expect what you did to be ok. Do you see anything interesting? Did you try searching for other (maybe shorter) strings you think might be there? The benefit of going through the strings operation, is that what results is pure text, one line per contiguous sequence of text. The minimum sequence of contiguous "printable" characters can be specified (see man strings) - I think the default is 4 bytes. Anyway, if the non-ASCII stuff is filtered out, the rest is easier to visually browse. I suppose if you do not discover any trace of the message you were composing, there might be an explanation that some child process that held that memory aborted (before X froze up), and it's memory got unmapped and hence is not now accessible. Back in the "oughta" world, it seems that there should be a way to browse or dump the entire contents of RAM, but I don't know how. Once upon a time (kernel 2.4, I think), you used to be able to read /proc/kcore and see the active RAM content, but it no longer seems to work that way. I have to ask: is the information you are looking for so valuable to justify this amount of strain? I'm thinking that email you were composing is a product of your own thinking, so even if it's annoying, you should be able to repeat the mental process and get something more-or-less equal to what was lost? I've lost multiple-page stuff on a number of occasions due to computer failure coupled with my neglect of periodic save operations. Although it sure is exasperating, I _have_ managed to continue my life :-[ .. such as it is. ;-) Or, maybe it's more a matter of curiosity? If so, it might be worth further pursuit (maybe with shorter, pointed questions): Why don't programs have a capability to save work-in-progress upon receipt of some system signal? Is there a way to dump an entire RAM image? Regards, ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
