My Workday



Hung, Deadlocked, or Looping Process

• Print thread stack for all Java threads:
  • Control-\
  • kill -QUIT pid
  • jstack pid (or jstack -F pid if jstack pid does not respond)
• Detect deadlocks:
  • Request deadlock detection: JConsole tool, Threads tab
  • Print information on deadlocked threads: Control-\
  • Print list of concurrent locks owned by each thread: -XX:+PrintConcurrentLocks set, then Control-\
  • Print lock information for a process: jstack -l pid
• Get a heap histogram for a process:
  • Start Java process with -XX:+PrintClassHistogram, then Control-\
  • jmap -histo pid (with -F option if pid does not respond)
• Dump Java heap for a process in binary format to file:
  • jmap -dump:format=b,file=filename pid (with -F option if pid does not respond)
• Print shared object mappings for a process:
  • jmap pid
• Print heap summary for a process:
  • Control-\
  • jmap -heap pid
• Print finalization information for a process:
  • jmap -finalizerinfo pid
• Attach the command-line debugger to a process:
  • jdb -connect sun.jvm.hotspot.jdi.SAPIDAttachingConnector:pid=pid

Post-mortem Diagnostics, Memory Leaks

• Examine the fatal error log file. Default file name is hs_err_pidpid.log in the working-directory.
• Create a heap dump:
  • Start the application with HPROF enabled: java -agentlib:hprof=file=file,format=bapplication; then Control-\
  • Start the application with HPROF enabled: java -agentlib:hprof=heap=dump application
  • JConsole tool, MBeans tab
  • Start VM with -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError; if OutOfMemoryError is thrown, VM generates a heap dump.
• Browse Java heap dump:
  • jhat heap-dump-file
• Dump Java heap from core file in binary format to a file:
  • jmap -dump:format=b,file=filename corefile
• Get a heap histogram for a process:
  • Start Java process with -XX:+PrintClassHistogram, then Control-\
  • jmap -histo pid (with -F option if pid does not respond)
• Get a heap histogram from a core file:
  • jmap -histo corefile
• Print shared object mappings from a core file:
  • jmap corefile
• Print heap summary from a core file:
  • jmap -heap corefile
• Print finalization information from a core file:
  • jmap -finalizerinfo corefile
• Print Java configuration information from a core file:
  • jinfo corefile
• Print thread trace from a core file:
  • jstack corefile
• Print lock information from a core file:
  • jstack -l corefile
• Attach the command-line debugger to a core file on the same machine:
  • jdb -connect sun.jvm.hotspot.jdi.SACoreAttachingConnector:javaExecutable=path,core=corefile
• Attach the command-line debugger to a core file on a different machine:
  • On the machine with the core file: jsadebugd path corefile
    and on the machine with the debugger: jdb -connect sun.jvm.hotspot.jdi.SADebugServerAttachingConnector:debugServerName=machine
• libumem can be used to debug memory leaks.