Memory Fault with Lawson Install

dnardi212 · #1 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004

We are a Lawson shop trying to upgrade our Lawson environment from an old version to a new one. When we run the install scripts on one of our systems (RP8400, HP-UX 11.i) we get a Memory Fault error and it core dumps. HP support has taken an output of TUSC and then pointed us to the application vendor, but the vendor hasn't been helpful as of yet.

Is there any way we can decipher what the install program is trying to do and determine what the program is dying on? We have stoppped all processes on the system to eliminate that a lack of memory exists.

The HP-UX version is just about a year old now, and has had some minor patches along the way. This is a production system, so down time and major patching is limited.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!

Perderabo · #2 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004

Here is a quick program:

Code:

#ifdef __STDC__
#define PROTOTYPICAL
#endif
#ifdef __cplusplus
#define PROTOTYPICAL
#endif

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>


#ifdef PROTOTYPICAL
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
#else
main(argc,argv)
char *argv[];
#endif
{
        char *p;
        brk(&p);
        *--p=1;
        exit(0);
}

It is specific to HP-UX. But copy that code into a file called memoryfault.c. Compile it with:
cc memoryfault.c -o memoryfault
and run it with:
./memoryfault

It will generate a memory fault. This is because it attempted a illegal sequence of operations. Adding memory or swap to your box will not fix my program. My program is broken. That's what a memory fault is.

A "memory fault" might be called a "segmentation fault" on another OS. Or even another shell. But the signal SIGSEGV was sent to process by the kernel. The shell detects this and displays the "memory fault" message.

Basicly the program attempted to write into a place that was not a writable memory segment. Your program might be doing that. Or it might be attempting a read from a location that is not in a readable memory segment.

But clearly, the program has a bug and it almost certainly involves referencing a pointer with an invalid value. And the author of the program is going to need to fix that.

dnardi212 · #3 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004

Thanks for your help! Your explaination is very helpful understanding what causes the error message.

We kinda' new there was a problem with the code, but we are not getting any help from the vendor as to what the problem is.

The closest we got....
when the program tries to update an existing file that it needs it bombs. But when we remove the file it is looking to update, it creates a new one and updates that one just fine. The code written to handle the pre-existing file appears to be buggy.

Thanks for getting back so quickly
Regards~

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