Android logging and crash debugging

1. Android logging and debugging
● By: Ashish Agrawal
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2. Android's boot up process
Stage Steps Comments
Boot-loader - Location: bootablebootloaderlegacyusbloader
init.S Initializes stacks, zeros the BSS segment, call
_main() in main.c
main.c Initializes hardware (clocks, board, keypad,
console), creates Linux tags
Displays "USB FastBoot". Boot from flash, or loops
while usb_poll() awaits host PC connection
Linux kernel - Sets up the system, loads drivers, and starts
running the first process init
The init process Setup file system Create and mount directories like /dev, /proc, /sys
Execute init.rc This is the boot-up script, commands are using
Android-specific syntax
Setup console
Display "A N D R This is just a text msg written to /dev/tty0
O I D"
Zygote Zygot process in init.rc brings up Dalvik Java VM
and starts the system server
bootanimation Shows the animation during boot-up 2
Framework …. ….

3. Overview of Android Logging
system
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4. * Main - the main application log
This log contains output from android.util.Log class on Java side and
LOGE(LOGV, LOGI, LOGW.) macro on the native side.
* Events - for system event information
Events log reflects system diagnostic events which outputs using
android.util.EventLog class e.g:
System diagnostic events are used to record certain system-level events
(such as garbage collection, activity manager state, system watchdogs, and
other low level activity)
* Radio - for radio and phone-related information
The logging system automatically routes messages with specific tags (“RIL”,
“GSM” etc.) into the radio buffer.
* System - a log for low-level system messages
and debugging.
Many classes in the Android framework utilize the system log to keep their
messages separate from (possibly noisy) application log messages. 4
Slog.i(“Tag I want to see in the system log”, “Hello system log");

5. dumpsys/dumpstate
Dumps huge amounts of information about the system, including
status, counts and statistics
• Dumpstate reproduces lots of stuff from /proc
– Does a dumpsys as well
• Dumpsys show status information from Android services
– e.g. dumpsys alarm
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6. Dumpsys Eg:
adb shell dumpsys battery
You will get output:
Current Battery Service state:
AC powered: false
AC capacity: 500000
USB powered: true
status: 5
health: 2
present: true
level: 100
scale: 100
voltage:4201
temperature: 271 <---------- Battery temperature! %)
technology: Li-poly <---------- Battery technology! %)
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7. How to get kernel messages from
Android?
● To invoke the "dmesg" from the control PC, one can simply
run
● # adb shell dmesg
● However, because "syslogd" is possibly not included in
Android, there is no such logs, and one may find that the
directory "/var" is not even created.One can just run the
following command to continuously dump the kernel
messages.
● adb shell cat /proc/kmsg
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8. Redirecting kernel messages
● If the phone doesn't even boot up to a stable state where the
ADB commands can be used, one might be interested in
redirecting the kernel messages to some places where they
can be seen. This is to leverage the "console=" command for
the kernel.
● For different devices, there may be different ports where the
messages can be redirected to. USB SERIAL PORT, SERIAL
PORT, UART port
● Eg: console=ttyMSM2,115200n8, console=ttyUSB0,9600n8
etc
● In order to be used as a console, a device driver has to
register itself as a console provider by calling register_console
in kernel/printk.c, and it has to provide some callbacks for
printk to write kernel messages.

9. Java Application Crash
When a Java application crashes, the Dalvik VM
will receive a SIGQUIT, it dumps stack traces for
all threads and parse to plain text typo.
Developer could use this dump together with
AndroidRuntime error level log to locate error.
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10. Example
----- pid 182 at 2009-03-06 06:15:22 -----
Cmd line: com.android.settings
DALVIK THREADS:
"main" prio=5 tid=3 NATIVE
| group="main" sCount=1 dsCount=0 s=0 obj=0x40018dd8
| sysTid=182 nice=0 sched=0/0 handle=-1096356708
at android.os.BinderProxy.transact(Native Method)
at
android.app.ActivityManagerProxy.handleApplicationError(ActivityMana
gerNative.java:2044)
at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit.crash(RuntimeInit.java:302)
at
com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$UncaughtHandler.uncaughtE
xception(RuntimeInit.java:75)
at java.lang.ThreadGroup.uncaughtException(ThreadGroup.java:887)
at java.lang.ThreadGroup.uncaughtException(ThreadGroup.java:884)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method) 10

11. ANR
In Android, the system guards against
applications that are insufficiently responsive for
a period of time by displaying a dialog to the
user, called the “Application Not Responding”
(ANR) dialog
Note that system cannot show this dialog
sometimes due to internal problems e.g. if ANR
occurred in the Activity or Window Manager.
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12. What triggers ANR
In Android, application responsiveness is
monitored by the Activity Manager and Window
Manager system services. Android will display
the ANR dialog for a particular application when
it detects one of the following conditions:
* No response to an input event (e.g. key
press, screen touch) within 5 seconds
* A BroadcastReceiver hasn't finished
executing within 10 seconds
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13. Click to11-28 12:30:56.258 489 505 W ActivityManager: Timeout executing
service: ServiceRecord{41f9c338
com.google.android.apps.maps/com.google.android.location.internal.server.G
oogleLocationService}
11-28 12:30:59.937 489 505 E ActivityManager: ANR in
com.google.android.apps.maps:GoogleLocationService
11-28 12:30:59.937 489 505 E ActivityManager: Reason: Executing service
com.google.android.apps.maps/com.google.android.location.internal.server.G
oogleLocationService
11-28 12:30:59.937 489 505 E ActivityManager: Load: 96.68 / 22.15 / 7.49
11-28 12:30:59.937 489 505 E ActivityManager: CPU usage from 6970ms
to 960ms ago:
11-28 12:30:59.937 489 505 E ActivityManager: 90% 9297/coredump:
82% user + 7.6% kernel
R
11-28 12:31:00.875 489 505 W ActivityManager: Killing
ProcessRecord{41b4af40
5361:com.google.android.apps.maps:GoogleLocationService/u0a35}:
background ANR
11-28 12:31:01.203 489 794 I ActivityManager: Process
com.google.android.apps.maps:GoogleLocationService (pid 5361) has died. 13

14. ANR hints
* Look the “SIG: 9” line in the main thread and analyze nearby
messages. Sometimes system output information why it decided
that the thread is in ANR state.
* In ANR log start your analysis from the “main” thread of the
process since this is a thread where UI works. The ANR concept
was specially invented with struggling “not responding” UI threads.
* In ANR log check in which state is your main thread. If it is in
MONITOR state it can be in “dead lock” state. TIMED_WAIT state
can also point to the problems with locking of your thread by ‘sleep’
or ‘wait’ functions.
* If the system itself (Activity or Window Managers) is in ANR
condition and cannot raise ANR so you cannot differentiate which
thread in which process is responsible for this analyze “Just Now”14
log.

15. Thread Status
* ZOMBIE – terminated thread
* RUNNABLE – runnable or running now
* TIMED_WAIT – timed waiting in Object.wait()
* MONITOR – blocked on a monitor
* WAIT – waiting in Object.wait()
* INITIALIZING - allocated, not yet running
* STARTING - started, not yet on thread list
* NATIVE - off in a JNI native method
* VMWAIT - waiting on a VM resource
* SUSPENDED - suspended, usually by GC or debugger
* UNKNOWN – thread is in the undefined state
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16. How to read Android native crash
log and stack trace
● An Android crash in C/C++ code often
generates some crash log which looks like the
following.
● The first is the build information in the system
property "ro.build.fingerprint"
I/DEBUG ( 730): *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
*** *** ***
I/DEBUG ( 730): Build fingerprint: 'generic/generic/generic/:1.5/...'
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●

17. How to read Android crash log and
stack trace
● Then, it shows the process ID number (pid)
and the thread id (tid). In this example, the PID
and TID are the same. However, if the crash
happens in a child thread, the thread ID tid will
be different from pid.
I/DEBUG ( 730): pid: 876, tid: 876 >>> /system/bin/mediaserver <<<
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●

18. How to read Android crash log and
stack trace
● The following shows the signal which caused
the process to abort, in this case, it's a
segmentation fault. This is followed by the
register values.
I/DEBUG ( 730): signal 11 (SIGSEGV), fault addr 00000010
I/DEBUG ( 730): r0 00000000 r1 00016618 r2 80248f78 r3 00000000
I/DEBUG ( 730): r4 80248f78 r5 0000d330 r6 80248f78 r7 beaf9974
I/DEBUG ( 730): r8 00000000 r9 00000000 10 00000000 fp 00000000
I/DEBUG ( 730): ip afd020c8 sp beaf98d8 lr 8021edcd pc 8021c630 cpsr
a0000030
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●

19. How to read Android crash log and
stack trace
● This is the call stack trace. #00 is the depth of the stack
pointer. The "pc <addr>" is the PC address in the stack.
Sometimes, the "lr" link register containing the return address
is shown instead of PC. It is followed by the file containing the
code.
I/DEBUG ( 730): #00 pc 0001c630 /system/lib/libhelixplayer.so
I/DEBUG ( 730): #01 pc 0001edca /system/lib/libhelixplayer.so
I/DEBUG ( 730): #02 pc 0001ff0a /system/lib/libhelixplayer.so
I/DEBUG ( 730): #03 pc 000214e0 /system/lib/libutils.so
I/DEBUG ( 730): #04 pc 0000e322
/system/lib/libmediaplayerservice.so
...
I/DEBUG ( 730): #15 pc b0001516 /system/bin/linker
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●

20. How to read Android crash log and
stack trace
● The following is actually the current stack with the stack
pointer address and code dump. Each line contains 4 bytes
(one machine word), and the address is in ascending order.
The words in the stack are mapped onto the memory region it
belongs to.
I/DEBUG ( 730): stack:
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf9898 00016618 [heap]
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf989c beaf98d0 [stack]
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf98a0 0000db28 [heap]
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf98a4 beaf98f8 [stack]
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf98b8 8021cf4d /system/lib/libhelixplayer.so
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf98bc 80248f78
I/DEBUG ( 730): #00 beaf98d8 0000d330 [heap]
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf98dc 00000000
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf98e0 0000d330 [heap]
I/DEBUG ( 730): beaf98e4 8021edcd /system/lib/libhelixplayer.so
I/DEBUG ( 730): #01 beaf98e8 80248f78
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●

21. Unix Signals
SIGHUP 1 Exit Hangup
SIGINT 2 Exit Interrupt
SIGQUIT 3 Core Quit
SIGILL 4 Core Illegal Instruction
SIGTRAP 5 Core Trace/Breakpoint Trap
SIGABRT 6 Core Abort
SIGEMT 7 Core Emulation Trap
SIGFPE 8 Core Arithmetic Exception
SIGKILL 9 Exit Killed
SIGBUS 10 Core Bus Error
SIGSEGV 11 Core Segmentation Fault
SIGSYS 12 Core Bad System Call
SIGPIPE 13 Exit Broken Pipe 21

22. Android Watchdog
Android framework's watchdog is meant to deal with
cases when any of the following locks is held for
more than a minute or when ServerThread is busy.
ActivityManagerService.this
PowerManagerService.mLocks
WindowManagerService.mWindowMap
WindowManagerService.mKeyguardTokenWatcher
WindowManagerService.mKeyWaiter
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23. Watchdog thread posts a message MONITOR to
android.server.ServerThread.
android.server.ServerThread's looper thread would read all
pending messages including watchdog's MONITOR message and
would invoke an appropriate handler.
The handler of MONITOR message would simply check for
availability of above mentioned locks.
If all, locks are available variable mCompleted (Watchdog.java)
would be set to true and watchdog would continue to post
MONITOR messages once every minute.
mCompleted stays false only when any of the above locks is held
by any thread of system_server for more than a minute or if the23
MONITOR message isn't handled by ServerThread.

24. In this case, MONITOR is handled but can't be serviced due
to unavailability of lock (ActivityManagerService)
"android.server.ServerThread" prio=5 tid=8 MONITOR
group="main" sCount=1 dsCount=0 s=N obj=0x4690be50
self=0x54e440
sysTid=206 nice=-2 sched=0/0 cgrp=unknown handle=5562400
at
com.android.server.am.ActivityManagerService.monitor(ActivityMana
gerService.java:~14726)
- waiting to lock (0x4691a9b8) (a
com.android.server.am.ActivityManagerService) held by threadid=41
(Binder Thread #7)
at
com.android.server.Watchdog$HeartbeatHandler.handleMessage(W
atchdog.java:306)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
at com.android.server.ServerThread.run(SystemServer.java:517) 24

25. When you are no longer wanted..
Android open source project supports a
maximum of 15 hidden applications running at
any point and any attempt to launch new apps
kills the least recently used ones. This is done to
reduce the load on RAM and has been the case
since early version of Android.
02-19 13:43:55.194 I/ActivityManager( 1096): No longer want
com.lge.omadmclient:remote (pid 23052): hidden #16
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26. References:
http://bootloader.wikidot.com/linux:boot:android
http://softteco.blogspot.com/2011/04/android-playing-with-dumpsys.html
http://bootloader.wikidot.com/linux:android:crashlog
https://github.com/keesj/gomo/wiki
http://elinux.org/Android_Portal
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