Breadpad crash analysis

Windows release is built with Google's breakpad.

The .dmp generated is Microsoft's minidump format

When a crash is encountered, a dump file is generated under the folder crash.Take the dump file as a.dmp for following example.

Option 1: Visual Studio

1. Open the .dmp file with VS
2. Click Debug with Native Only
3. Click Locate goldendict.pdb manually -> click to a path that contains the .pdf file (Require exact naming of goldendict.pdb)

Bottom tab → locals → watch stack.

Option2: WinDbg

1. Grab a modern version of WinDbg https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/
2. Click Settings -> Debug settings -> Debugging paths -> Symbol path -> (add a path contains goldendict.pdb).

Option 3: dump_syms + minidump-stackwalk

Mozilla/Rust version (Better)

Download the exe files from

• https://github.com/mozilla/dump_syms
• https://github.com/rust-minidump/rust-minidump

.\dump_syms.exe goldendict.pdb > goldendict.sym

.\minidump-stackwalk.exe .\crash.dmp .\goldendict.sym > f.txt

Google version

Part of Google breakpad's repo. Grab them from random places of internet (e.g. minidump-tools).

1. dump_syms.exe GoldenDict.pdb > GoldenDict.sym The content of GoldenDict.sym is like this:

   MODULE windows x86_64 904B2C52C1EC411D9D0271445CAD6DCD2 GoldenDict.pdb
   INFO CODE_ID 645510C96CC000 GoldenDict.exe
   

2. create a folder such as symbols and a series of folders like this:

   GoldDict.exe
   a.dmp                 (A)
   symbols
   └─GoldenDict.pdb    (B)
       └─904B2C52C1EC411D9D0271445CAD6DCD2   (C)
            └─GoldenDict.sym
   

3. A this is the dump file
4. B this is a folder name

5. C this folder takes the name from the first line of GoldenDict.sym file

6. anlaysis the dump file like this

   minidump_stackwalk.exe  -s a.dmp symbols > a.txt
   

7. check the a.txt file to find the possible crash reason. usually it will point to the actual crash line number of the source code.