Cygwin gdb-20020411-1 crashing and an (already) proposed solution

Cygwin gdb-20020411-1 crashing and an (already) proposed solution

[Ton van Overbeek]

While playing around with the gdb help menus recently I also got
frequent gdb crashes.
One scenario is the following:
- Start with gdb/insight on internal help.
- Bring up the global preferences and select 'Use Internet Browser ...'
  and close dialog with OK.
- Now select Help->Help Topics => Crash with an invalid page fault in
  Kernel32.dll

An other, simpler scenario which crashes most of the time is the following:
- Bring up the global preferences dialog and close it again
  by selecting cancel.
- Select an other non-gdb window on the desktop => crash.

Searching through the insight mail archives I found a message
from Ian Roxborough from 25 Feb 2002 describing exactly this
problem. See http://sources.redhat.com/ml/insight/2002-q1/msg00168.html.
The crashes have to do with using comboboxes in modal dialogs.
The proposed patch in Ian's message never made it into CVS.
With this patch to libgui/librarycombobox.tcl applied I could not
get gdb to crash any more.
The patch consists in deleting one line (wm transient ...) in
combobox.tcl. If the deletion of this line is not needed under
unix/Xwindows maybe the line could be garded with an
  if {$tcl_platform(platform) != "windows"} then { wm transient ...
After all Xwindows windowmanagers and the windowmanager in m$ windows
are completely different animals.

So I would like to ask 'the insight powers that be' to apply this
patch. It increases the stability of cygwin-gdb considerably.

Regards,

Ton van Overbeek

Re: Cygwin gdb-20020411-1 crashing and an (already) proposed solution

[Keith Seitz]

On Sun, 21 Apr 2002, Ton van Overbeek wrote:

> While playing around with the gdb help menus recently I also got
> frequent gdb crashes.
> One scenario is the following:
> - Start with gdb/insight on internal help.
> - Bring up the global preferences and select 'Use Internet Browser ...'
>   and close dialog with OK.
> - Now select Help->Help Topics => Crash with an invalid page fault in
>   Kernel32.dll

I cannot reproduce this. Mine brings up IE with the given page.

> An other, simpler scenario which crashes most of the time is the following:
> - Bring up the global preferences dialog and close it again
>   by selecting cancel.
> - Select an other non-gdb window on the desktop => crash.

This, on the other hand, IS reproducable. It does crash Tk.

> So I would like to ask 'the insight powers that be' to apply this
> patch. It increases the stability of cygwin-gdb considerably.

I am hesitant to apply this patch right now. It doesn't really fix
anything, and using it might actually make it much more difficult to find
the real cause of the problems causing us so much grief.

I will try to start investigating this, but don't expect anything quickly:
I've suddenly found myself with lots to do, and I'll be on the road next
week.

Any hints or help that anyone can provide on this is welcome.
Keith