How to detect and debug multi-threading problems?

Question

This is a follow up to this question, where I didn\'t get any input on this point. Here is the brief question:

Is it possible to detect and debug problems co

Answer 1

For Java there is a verification tool called javapathfinder which I find it useful to debug and verify multi-threading application against potential race condition and death-lock bugs from the code.
It works finely with both Eclipse and Netbean IDE.

[2019] the github repository https://github.com/javapathfinder

Answer 2

Apart from crash dumps, a technique is extensive run-time logging: where each thread logs what it's doing.

The first question when an error is reported, then, might be, "Where's the log file?"

Sometimes you can see the problem in the log file: "This thread is detecting an illegal/unexpected state here ... and look, this other thread was doing that, just before and/or just afterwards this."

If the log file doesn't say what's happening, then apologise to the customer, add sufficiently-many extra logging statements to the code, give the new code to the customer, and say that you'll fix it after it happens one more time.

Answer 3

A little chart with some debugging techniques to take in mind in debugging multithreaded code. The chart is growing, please leave comments and tips to be added. (update file at this link)

Answer 4

I implemented the tool vmlens to detect race conditions in java programs during runtime. It implements an algorithm called eraser.

Answer 5

assert() is your friend for detecting race-conditions. Whenever you enter a critical section, assert that the invariant associated with it is true (that's what CS's are for). Though, unfortunately, the check might be expensive and thus not suitable for use in production environment.

Answer 6

I'm using GNU and use simple script

$ more gdb_tracer

b func.cpp:2871
r
#c
while (1)
next
#step
end