Re: GDB cannot access memory after Emacs abort

Vladimir Prus
2007-11-12T07:39:02Z

Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 10, 2007 at 10:38:14PM -0800, Michael Snyder wrote:
>>
>> Making sure that I understand -- you ran emacs under gdb,
>> you set a breakpoint at abort, you hit the breakpoint --
>> and your desktop is locked up?
>>
>> That seems unusual -- do you have any idea of the cause?
>
> This is pretty common when debugging X programs, IIRC. I believe
> there's some ways in which an application can "own" a display while
> something is in progress.

I believe it's XGrabPointer, which causes all mouse and/or keyboard
event to be delivered to specific application. If that application is
stopped by gdb, it means, in effect, that events are not processed at all.

I have no idea if that's the cause, since the emacs diff posted in another
email does not have any apparent locking thing, but it very likely.

>> > > At this point my desktop (I tried in KDE, GNOME and twm, same
>> > > behavior in all)

I believe this is dependent on what toolkit the application being debugged
uses, not what other applications are running.

- Volodya