[Erlang Systems]

Information pages

Each menu item points to an information page. If no information is found for an item, the page will simply say "No information found". The reason for not finding any information about an item can be that the dump is truncated, that it is a dump from an old OTP release in which this item was not written or that the item simply wasn't present in the system at the point of failure.

If the dump was truncated, a warning is displayed.

Even if some information about an item exists, there might be empty fields if the dump originates from an old OTP release.

The value "-1" in any field means "unknown", and in most cases it means that the dump was truncated somewhere around this field.

Only some of the fields in the different information pages are described here. These are fields that to not exist in the raw crashdump, or in some way differs from the fields in the raw crashdump. Details about other field can be found in the user's guide for the Erlang runtime system, in the chapter "How to interpret the Erlang crash dumps". A link to this chapter can be found in the Crashdump Viewer's menu under documentation, and there are also direct links from the specific sections below to related information in "How to interpret the Erlang crash dumps".

General information

This is the first page shown when a new dump is loaded into the system. It shows a very short overview of the dump.

'Node name' will only exist in dumps originating from OTP R9C and later.

The following fields are not described in the Erlang runtime system user's guide:

Crashdump created on
Time of failure.
Memory allocated
The total number of bytes allocated, equivalent to c:memory(total). This will only be present in dumps from OTP R9C and later.
Memory maximum
The maximum number of bytes that has been allocated during the lifetime of the originating node. This will not be present in dumps older than OTP R9C, and even in newer releases it is only shown if the Erlang runtime system was run instrumented.
Atoms
If at all available in the dump, this is the total number of atoms in the atom table. If the size of the atom table is not available, the number of atoms visible in the dump is presented.
Processes, ETS tables and Funs
The number of processes, ETS tables and funs visible in the dump.
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Processes

The Process Information page shows a list of all processes found in the crashdump, including some short information about each process. By default the processes are sorted by their pids. To sort by other topic, click any heading in the process table.

Detailed information about a specific process is shown when the pid is clicked.

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Ports

The port information page shows all port information found in the dump.

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ETS tables

The ETS table information page shows all ETS table information found in the dump. The 'Id' is the same as the 'Table' field found in the raw crashdump, and 'Memory' is the 'Words' field from the raw crashdump translated into bytes. 'Type' is the type of table, and it can be either "hash" or "tree". For tree tables there will be no value in the 'Bucket' field.

Clicking a pid in the 'Owner' column takes you to the detailed information about the process owning the ETS table.

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Timers

The timer information page shows all timer information found in the dump.

Clicking a pid in the 'Owner' column takes you to the detailed information about the process owning the timer.

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Fun table

The Fun table information page shows all Fun information found in the dump. Fun information will only exist in dumps from OTP R8B or later.

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Atoms

The atoms information page lists all atoms found in the dump. The last created atom is listed first.

Note that if the dump is from OTP R8B or earlier, the raw dump lists the atoms in the opposite order and the Crashdump Viewer reverses them. This means that there is no problem if the dump is not truncated. However, if the dump is truncated, the last atoms might not be shown at all!!

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Distribution information

The distribution information page shows all distribution information found in the dump.

If the page shows "Not alive", it means that the node was not distributed.

It the node was distributed, all connected nodes are shown. Visible nodes are alive nodes with a living connection to the originating node. Hidden nodes are the same as visible nodes, except they are started with the "-hidden" flag. Not connected nodes are nodes that are not connected to the originating node anymore, but references (i.e. process or port identitifiers) exist.

'Links/Monitors' may contain information about links or monitors between processes on the originating node and the connected node.

'Extra Info' may contain debug information (i.e. special information written if the emulator is debug compiled) or error information.

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Loaded modules

The loaded modules information page shows all modules that were loaded on the originating node, and the current size of the code. If old code exsits, the old size is also shown.

Detailed information about a specific module is shown when the module name is clicked.

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Internal tables

Internal tables are shown in two information pages: hash tables and index tables.

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Memory

Memory information is divided into three pages.

The first page, Memory, shows information similar to what you can obtain on a living node with c:memory(). This will only be present in dumps from OTP R9C and later. More...

The Allocated areas page shows information similar to what you can obtain on a living node with erlang:system_info(allocated_areas). More...

The Allocator information page shows information about allocators. The contents of the page will vary with the version. More...

Documentation

'Crashdump Viewer help' is this document.

'How to interpret Erlang crashdumps' is a document from the Erlang runtime system describing details in the raw crashdumps. Here you will also find information about each single field in the different information pages.


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