After analyzing dump of ppc program, whose crash occurred after watchdog_force_here () function, GDB couldn't print full back trace because GDB couldn't unwind PC from the watchdog fucntion. The problem is introduced with the following patch: https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2008-08/msg00245.html In function skip_prologue(), shifted lr_reg makes below condition always false because non-shifted lr_reg value is expected to be checked. else if (lr_reg >= 0 && /* std Rx, NUM(r1) || stdu Rx, NUM(r1) */ (((op & 0xffff0000) == (lr_reg | 0xf8010000)) || /* stw Rx, NUM(r1) */ ((op & 0xffff0000) == (lr_reg | 0x90010000)) || /* stwu Rx, NUM(r1) */ ((op & 0xffff0000) == (lr_reg | 0x94010000)))) Before this fix unwinding was able to work because it relied on unwind directives or on some of the next frames to find PC. Problem came with watchdog_force_here() function which didn't contain unwind directives. I wasn't able to produce test case that would show improvements for end user. I suppose that changes would be visible if watchdog event was called, but I don't have valid ppc board to try this. I have tried this code on simple test case with few functions in back trace. The back trace is printed correctly with and without this fix, but the difference between those two runs is that the body of the upper condition was visited with this patch. After visiting the body there was no need to look for PC counter in next frames nor to use unwind directives.