Segmentation Error

[Dan Decker]

I received this message in my mailbox every minute "Segmentation Violation Signal, has been caught catch.c" What causes this?

We thought that this was caused by the system not being rebooted for some time. We did shut it down and brought it back up. Was this the right thing to do or should I expect this to reappear. This is on a Class D box 9000 system running 10.2

Thank you in advance for your comments.

DKD

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Dan, That is a classic EFAULT error meaning that some process is violating memory bounds.
If it is occuring every minute I would first check for cronjobs triggered once a minute.

It is probably generating a core file somewhere. If you can find that then we can probably figure out what is happening.

... Hope this gets you started, Clay.

[boley janowski]

check this link out, there alot of simular problems listed:


http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=495d95f200442693a2/screen=ckiSearchResults?SEARCH_CRIT=AllWordsChecked&ri=0&rn=10

the gist of it is, is that your program catch.c is running crazy and using up your alocated memory. but check it out.

hope this helps!

[Dan Decker]

Thanks to both of you. I did find the core file under root but couldn't make heads or tails out of what is was saying. I then removed it.

I'm still trying to figure out what originally caused the problem..

Thanks

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Dan:

Unless you are familiar with debugging tools examining a core file can be daunting; however, if this problem persists, save this core file; you may need to send it to HP support and you can also do a 'strings core > /tmp/corestuff'. You could then examine the corestuff file for recogizable text which can give even a novice a few clues as to what process generated the corefile.

Hope this at least points you in the right direction, Clay

[Rita C Workman · Accepted solution]

Found this document:
Document Id : A3526416
Problem Description
While attempting to compile a program, I received the following SIGSEGV error:
Signal 11: Segment violation

What caused this error, and how can I avoid it?
Solution

The SIGSEGV or "segment violation" error typically is caused by having the kernel parameter "maxssiz" (which determines the maximum size of the stack available to programs) set too low. SIGSEGV and other system related signals are defined in the file /usr/include>/sys/signal.h. For additional information on these events, see the man pages for "signal".
To avoid this error in the future, you need to determine the following:

o the memory requirements of the program
o the current value of system parameters that define memory usage

When program requirements exceed the system defined limits, you have to change the program or system parameters or both.
1.Program Memory Requirements
To determine the size requirements for an object file, you can use the size() program. It gives a display similar to the following:
$ size /usr/bin/zcat
27088 + 6372 + 433872 = 467332
(text) (data) (dynamic memory)

2. System Memory Parameters
You can use sam(1M) or the contributed program readmem(1) to display the values of system parameters. The following parameters are important:

o maxtsiz (maximum allocation for text)
o maxssiz (maximum allocation for stack)
o maxdsiz (maximum allocation for dynamic memory)

In this instance, the user reconfigured the total size of his system memory parameters from 8 Mb to 16 Mb and rebooted. This
change allowed the program to run normally.
*******
There are other reasons that a segmentation violation can occur...(trying to use corrupt files, trying to to perform a task that you previously set contrary to this task..like trying to write to a read only..and more) But thought this might shed some more details..
Regards,
/rcw

[Dan Decker]

Thanks Everyone for you immeditate replies. Sorry it took me so long to get your points assigned. This has been one of those weeks which I'm sure we all have experienced at one point or another.

Thanks
DKD