Debug SageTV Server on Linux (focus on native libraries not java)

[mwnswiss]

I wanted to share some experience and ask some questions on debugging the sagetv server with focus on the native libraries. I assume you have good knowledge on Linux, gcc and gdb, without it will be more effort :-)

My focus is not on Java debugging, but on the native C/C++ libraries used.

1) depending on what library you want to debug, make sure the corresponding Makefile has debug enabled and optimisation turned off - this means mainly setting -g in CFLAGS or similar.

2) make a build/clean.sh and build/buildall.sh in order to make a clean build

3) I used the tar.gz binaries, install them as usual

4) start sage server

5)

ps -ef

to get the PID of the java sagetv process

6)

gdb -p PID

7) use "continue" to continue the process

8) use "bt" to back trace if the daemon crashes, this will show you the crash statement (file and line number and the crash type like a memory issue) - this will help to fix the issue or to post it to the forum.

In order to identify issues without gdb, enable the logging:

a) set the debug to true through the sage client (setup->detailed setup->advanced->debug logging) or editing the Sage.properties while the server is not running.

b) in the install directory make

touch NATIVE_LOG.ENABLE

This is mainly needed to use the enhanced log file to analyse without gdb

Now a question, probably someone can give me a hint before I invest too much time on searching When I attached the gdb and make continue I get quite frequent SIGSEGV which I think are related to the java part and not really a crash, I just hit continue and the server continues - is there a way to deal with this as it can get annoying to continue always (like in a channel scan ...) till the real crash happens?

If we can complete this guide here, I would vote to add it to the build post or to the FAQ post.