topic Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK in ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Android Questions

SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:39:03 GMT

I have been trying to track this down for a couple of days now.

I am getting

07-25 13:03:49.340: A/libc(7133): Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0xdeadbaad (code=1)

My application instantly crashes and I get no stack trace. I can usually run for 5-10 minutes panning around until this happens.

I have removed all of my tiles, all graphics features and it still happens. Since this is happening in native code, my debugging options appear to be pretty limited at this point.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

AndyGup — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 15:36:08 GMT

Jozef, can you run a basic, Hello World map from the SDK?

Here's a blog post I wrote that may help narrow the problem down: http://www.andygup.net/troubleshooting-multi-threading-problems-related-to-androids-onresume/

-Andy

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 15:44:26 GMT

I have not tried running the hello world app on the newest version of the SDK, but I haven't had any issues in the past.

I have done the console logging after every line already to no avail. It is crashing in native code, and there are no exceptions thrown that I can catch. The app simply goes away without even an error on the device screen.

This isn't a terribly complex application, but it does use multiple graphics layers (with async tasks) and a custom tile loader.

I have tried running it in the simulator so I can get the actual core dumps, but the emulator takes ages to work and the app barely functions at all when panning. I am nearly to the point of rooting the device to just see if I can get something useful.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

AndyGup — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:09:49 GMT

Gotcha. I see there are other references to the same error after doing a quick internet search.

Your best bet is to try the app on another phone or tablet. Is that an option?

If it crashes on several phones with the same version of the Android OS then the problem is most likely the app. If it only crashes on one phone in particular, then the problem could be related to that phone. I suggest trying it out on several phones before rooting or resetting your phone.

What phone and OS version are you running?

-Andy

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:13:03 GMT

I am running it on a ASUS transformer 101, android 4.0.3

I dont know if it will run on a phone, but maybe I can borrow a tablet.

I can't seem to find anything on the internet about getting the stack trace in a case like this. That would make it much more simple.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

AndyGup — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:22:13 GMT

I noticed you said you couldn't capture an error on the device screen. Have you looked at the ADB logcat dump for your phone?

You could also try Acra http://acra.ch/. I haven't used it in a while so I don't know much about the latest version.

And, there are also ways to capture an NDK stack dump if the error is happening below the application level and further down in the Android OS. You could look into way to capture that.

-Andy

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:29:53 GMT

I have seen both of those and used logcat, but acra cannot work on anything below the java level. The logcat output just tells me the SIGSEGV happened but with no context at all so I can't see what happened leading up to it.

The NDK doesnt run on windows, so that is a problem (at least not easily). I am reading about JNI hooks now, so maybe that will be useful.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

AndyGup — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:41:38 GMT

Yep, I've been there and done that. Before you go any farther then I suggest the following things to make sure you've eliminated the easy problems. IMHO I've found it's almost never worth the time to do deep OS-level debugging when working at the application level. I've found some interesting things like busted power controller boards and corrupted methods within patches, but it all meant I should have either replaced or rebuilt the device in the first place.

- Make sure you've installed the latest ArcGIS Runtime
- Restart your phone
- Try running a Hello World Android (non-ArcGIS) app and see if it happens
- Then, try running the Hello World ArcGIS app.

If everything works with these three steps, then I recommend creating a brand new project and start building your app from the ground up until you hit the spot where the problem starts happening again.

-Andy

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:46:07 GMT

You make me sad Andy, but I suppose I will make that plunge and rebuild slowly. I have tried commenting out large sections of code with no luck. The worst part is that it make take 20 minutes or more of solid panning and zooming to crash it. That is why I had hoped to find a place to look.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

AndyGup — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:54:10 GMT

Just to clarify I was referring to Scenario 1. What you have are two different scenarios:

Scenario 1 - app crashes immediately
Scenario 2 - app crashes after 5 - 20(?) minutes of panning and zooming.

Do you get the exact same error in both scenarios?

-Andy

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:58:03 GMT

Im sorry, my writeup wasn't clear originally.

My app starts and runs fine. Only after panning and zooming for a random period does it crash and always with the SIGSEGV error.

I should have wrote that the app immediately closes (no warnings or logcat output) when receiving the SIGSEGV.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

AndyGup — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:08:32 GMT

Okay, that makes sense, thanks. I'd still suggest restarting the phone and then trying out your panning and zooming on the Hello World map app and see if you can recreate the problem on that.

And, if that works fine then you'd most likely agree it's something in your custom app. Then creating a new project from scratch will help you pinpoint the problem.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

AndyGup — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:18:17 GMT

I had a few more thoughts since your use case calls for extensive panning and zooming. When the app crashes pay attention to the data and cache size as found in Settings > App Info > your application.

Also consider setting up the app to ask for a larger heap: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/R.styleable.html#AndroidManifestApplication_largeHeap. This is a common approach in apps that are data intensive, even with the caveats such as you can't predict how large the heap will do. It also depends on what the device has for available memory and CPU, etc. I'd consider your use case as following into this category.

Example:

android:largeHeap="true"

You might also monitor the heap in DDMS and see if that provides any hints if you are using too much memory somewhere.

-Andy

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:48:40 GMT

Thank you. I will give those a try and see what happens.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

SebastianGreifeneder — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 11:48:29 GMT

Jozef, did you come to any results since then?

I'm running exactly into the same problem. After some time of panning and zooming, the app crashes without any UI message. Only this one SIGSEGV error shows up in the LogCat.

09-17 11:43:33.880: A/libc(2056): Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0xdeadbaad (code=1)

What I guess:
I've built an offline app, using two compact caches. Actually I'm experiencing this problem when both compact caches and a graphics layer are shown in the map. So maybe there is some kind of memory problem and two caches are too much ...

I will try the largeHeap hint, as Andy mentioned before.

Best regards,

Sebastian

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 12:10:44 GMT

I have taken my app apart and removed the graphics layers and everything seems to work. I have not found a final resolution to the problem yet however. So, it seems that the offline tiles are fine, just something to do with large graphics feature layers is causing an issue (or multiple graphics layers).

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

SebastianGreifeneder — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 13:53:05 GMT

Thanks for your answer!

I actually have 3 graphics layers, but two of them are more or less temporary layers with only a few graphics. However, the other graphics layer can contain a few hundred up to several thousand graphics. Is this what you mean with "large" graphics layer?
Do you now use feature layers to display your graphics?

Best regards,

Sebastian

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

JozefKaslikowski — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 15:15:52 GMT

I have pretty much the same setup. 3 layers and about the same number of objects in one.

I load the big one using an async task every time the view changes at all (including every pan operation). The dataset I am using contains 110,000 items so I only display when zoomed in past a threshold. So I may dump and reload 1,000 or more graphics features on every pan. I just dont think it was made for that kind of duty.

Right now I just deal with the crashes, but at some point i will revisit the underlying issue. It would be awesome if an ESRI person would run it and show the crash point in their debugger, but that is asking a bit much for them to do that. Everyone would ask then.

It is crashing in native code, so there isnt much you can do with it for troubleshooting or pinpointing. I tried to run it in the emulator to get the actual process dump when it crashes, but my computer cant run the emulator fast enough to make it happen.

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

OliviaWattson — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 11:46:16 GMT

Hello everyone I am new to android development , can anyone give me some tips and basic key ideas for an app development?

Re: SIGSEGV error and application crash when using SDK

SebastianGreifeneder — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 14:13:21 GMT

Jozef,

I think we have to wait for ESRI to release its native offline functionality to overcome this problem.
Because also using feature layers, all features have to be stored within memory, so imo it can't be that better. And everything else with graphic layers can only be a workaround.

And using the emulator with ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Android is just not practical!

Best regards,
Sebastian