If you've never seen a native crash before, start with Debugging Native Android Platform Code.
The sections below detail the most common kinds of native crash. Each includes
an example chunk of debuggerd output, with the key evidence that helps you
distinguish that specific kind of crash highlighted in orange italic text.
Aborts are interesting because they're deliberate. There are many different ways
to abort (including calling abort(3),
failing an assert(3),
using one of the Android-specific fatal logging types), but they all involve
calling abort. A call to abort basically signals the
calling thread with SIGABRT, so a frame showing "abort" in libc.so
plus SIGABRT are the things to look for in the debuggerd output to
recognize this case.
As mentioned above, there may be an explicit "abort message" line. But you
should also look in the logcat output to see what this thread logged before
deliberately killing itself, because the basic abort primitive doesn't accept a
message.
Older versions of Android (especially on 32-bit ARM) followed a convoluted path between the original abort call (frame 4 here) and the actual sending of the signal (frame 0 here):
pid: 1656, tid: 1656, name: crasher >>> crasher <<<
signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -6 (SI_TKILL), fault addr --------
Abort message: 'some_file.c:123: some_function: assertion "false" failed'
r0 00000000 r1 00000678 r2 00000006 r3 f70b6dc8
r4 f70b6dd0 r5 f70b6d80 r6 00000002 r7 0000010c
r8 ffffffed r9 00000000 sl 00000000 fp ff96ae1c
ip 00000006 sp ff96ad18 lr f700ced5 pc f700dc98 cpsr 400b0010
backtrace:
#00 pc 00042c98 /system/lib/libc.so (tgkill+12)
#01 pc 00041ed1 /system/lib/libc.so (pthread_kill+32)
#02 pc 0001bb87 /system/lib/libc.so (raise+10)
#03 pc 00018cad /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_android_abort+34)
#04 pc 000168e8 /system/lib/libc.so (abort+4)
#05 pc 0001a78f /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_fatal+16)
#06 pc 00018d35 /system/lib/libc.so (__assert2+20)
#07 pc 00000f21 /system/xbin/crasher
#08 pc 00016795 /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_init+44)
#09 pc 00000abc /system/xbin/crasher
More recent versions call tgkill(2)
directly from abort, so there are fewer stack frames for you to
skip over before you get to the interesting frames:
pid: 25301, tid: 25301, name: crasher >>> crasher <<<
signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -6 (SI_TKILL), fault addr --------
r0 00000000 r1 000062d5 r2 00000006 r3 00000008
r4 ffa09dd8 r5 000062d5 r6 000062d5 r7 0000010c
r8 00000000 r9 00000000 sl 00000000 fp ffa09f0c
ip 00000000 sp ffa09dc8 lr eac63ce3 pc eac93f0c cpsr 000d0010
backtrace:
#00 pc 00049f0c /system/lib/libc.so (tgkill+12)
#01 pc 00019cdf /system/lib/libc.so (abort+50)
#02 pc 000012db /system/xbin/crasher (maybe_abort+26)
#03 pc 000015b7 /system/xbin/crasher (do_action+414)
#04 pc 000020d5 /system/xbin/crasher (main+100)
#05 pc 000177a1 /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_init+48)
#06 pc 000010e4 /system/xbin/crasher (_start+96)
You can reproduce an instance of this type of crash using: crasher
abort
This is the classic native crash, and although it's just a special case of the next crash type, it's worth mentioning separately because it usually requires the least thought.
In the example below, even though the crashing function is in
libc.so, because the string functions just operate on the pointers
they're given, you can infer that strlen(3)
was called with a null pointer; and this crash should go straight to the author
of the calling code. In this case, frame #01 is the bad caller.
pid: 25326, tid: 25326, name: crasher >>> crasher <<<
signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 1 (SEGV_MAPERR), fault addr 0x0
r0 00000000 r1 00000000 r2 00004c00 r3 00000000
r4 ab088071 r5 fff92b34 r6 00000002 r7 fff92b40
r8 00000000 r9 00000000 sl 00000000 fp fff92b2c
ip ab08cfc4 sp fff92a08 lr ab087a93 pc efb78988 cpsr 600d0030
backtrace:
#00 pc 00019988 /system/lib/libc.so (strlen+71)
#01 pc 00001a8f /system/xbin/crasher (strlen_null+22)
#02 pc 000017cd /system/xbin/crasher (do_action+948)
#03 pc 000020d5 /system/xbin/crasher (main+100)
#04 pc 000177a1 /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_init+48)
#05 pc 000010e4 /system/xbin/crasher (_start+96)
You can reproduce an instance of this type of crash using: crasher
strlen-NULL
In many cases the fault address won't be 0, but some other low number. Two- or
three-digit addresses in particular are very common, whereas a six-digit address
is almost certainly not a null pointer dereference—that would require a 1MiB
offset. This usually occurs when you have code that dereferences a null pointer
as if it was a valid struct. Common functions are fprintf(3)
(or any other function taking a FILE*) and readdir(3),
because code often fails to check that the fopen(3) or
opendir(3)
call actually succeeded first.
Here's an example of readdir:
pid: 25405, tid: 25405, name: crasher >>> crasher <<<
signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 1 (SEGV_MAPERR), fault addr 0xc
r0 0000000c r1 00000000 r2 00000000 r3 3d5f0000
r4 00000000 r5 0000000c r6 00000002 r7 ff8618f0
r8 00000000 r9 00000000 sl 00000000 fp ff8618dc
ip edaa6834 sp ff8617a8 lr eda34a1f pc eda618f6 cpsr 600d0030
backtrace:
#00 pc 000478f6 /system/lib/libc.so (pthread_mutex_lock+1)
#01 pc 0001aa1b /system/lib/libc.so (readdir+10)
#02 pc 00001b35 /system/xbin/crasher (readdir_null+20)
#03 pc 00001815 /system/xbin/crasher (do_action+976)
#04 pc 000021e5 /system/xbin/crasher (main+100)
#05 pc 000177a1 /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_init+48)
#06 pc 00001110 /system/xbin/crasher (_start+96)
Here the direct cause of the crash is that pthread_mutex_lock(3)
has tried to access address 0xc (frame 0). But the first thing
pthread_mutex_lock does is dereference the state
element of the pthread_mutex_t* it was given. If you look at the
source, you can see that element is at offset 0 in the struct, which tells you
that pthread_mutex_lock was given the invalid pointer 0xc. From the
frame 1 you can see that it was given that pointer by readdir,
which extracts the mutex_ field from the DIR* it's
given. Looking at that structure, you can see that mutex_ is at
offset sizeof(int) + sizeof(size_t) + sizeof(dirent*) into
struct DIR, which on a 32-bit device is 4 + 4 + 4 = 12 = 0xc, so
you found the bug: readdir was passed a null pointer by the caller.
At this point you can paste the stack into the stack tool to find out
where in logcat this happened.
struct DIR {
int fd_;
size_t available_bytes_;
dirent* next_;
pthread_mutex_t mutex_;
dirent buff_[15];
long current_pos_;
};
In most cases you can actually skip this analysis. A sufficiently low fault
address usually means you can just skip any libc.so frames in the
stack and directly accuse the calling code. But not always, and this is how you
would present a compelling case.
You can reproduce instances of this kind of crash using: crasher
fprintf-NULL or crasher readdir-NULL
A FORTIFY failure is a special case of an abort that occurs when the C library
detects a problem that might lead to a security vulnerability. Many C library
functions are fortified; they take an extra argument that tells them how large
a buffer actually is and check at run time whether the operation you're trying
to perform actually fits. Here's an example where the code tries to
read(fd, buf, 32) into a buffer that's actually only 10 bytes
long...
pid: 25579, tid: 25579, name: crasher >>> crasher <<<
signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -6 (SI_TKILL), fault addr --------
Abort message: 'FORTIFY: read: prevented 32-byte write into 10-byte buffer'
r0 00000000 r1 000063eb r2 00000006 r3 00000008
r4 ff96f350 r5 000063eb r6 000063eb r7 0000010c
r8 00000000 r9 00000000 sl 00000000 fp ff96f49c
ip 00000000 sp ff96f340 lr ee83ece3 pc ee86ef0c cpsr 000d0010
backtrace:
#00 pc 00049f0c /system/lib/libc.so (tgkill+12)
#01 pc 00019cdf /system/lib/libc.so (abort+50)
#02 pc 0001e197 /system/lib/libc.so (__fortify_fatal+30)
#03 pc 0001baf9 /system/lib/libc.so (__read_chk+48)
#04 pc 0000165b /system/xbin/crasher (do_action+534)
#05 pc 000021e5 /system/xbin/crasher (main+100)
#06 pc 000177a1 /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_init+48)
#07 pc 00001110 /system/xbin/crasher (_start+96)
You can reproduce an instance of this type of crash using: crasher
fortify
The compiler's -fstack-protector option inserts checks into
functions with on-stack buffers to guard against buffer overruns. This option is
on by default for platform code but not for apps. When this option is enabled,
the compiler adds instructions to the function prologue to
write a random value just past the last local on the stack and to the function
epilogue to read it back and check that it's not changed. If that value changed,
it was overwritten by a buffer overrun, so the epilogue calls
__stack_chk_fail to log a message and abort.
pid: 26717, tid: 26717, name: crasher >>> crasher <<<
signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -6 (SI_TKILL), fault addr --------
Abort message: 'stack corruption detected'
r0 00000000 r1 0000685d r2 00000006 r3 00000008
r4 ffd516d8 r5 0000685d r6 0000685d r7 0000010c
r8 00000000 r9 00000000 sl 00000000 fp ffd518bc
ip 00000000 sp ffd516c8 lr ee63ece3 pc ee66ef0c cpsr 000e0010
backtrace:
#00 pc 00049f0c /system/lib/libc.so (tgkill+12)
#01 pc 00019cdf /system/lib/libc.so (abort+50)
#02 pc 0001e07d /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_fatal+24)
#03 pc 0004863f /system/lib/libc.so (__stack_chk_fail+6)
#04 pc 000013ed /system/xbin/crasher (smash_stack+76)
#05 pc 00001591 /system/xbin/crasher (do_action+280)
#06 pc 00002219 /system/xbin/crasher (main+100)
#07 pc 000177a1 /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_init+48)
#08 pc 00001144 /system/xbin/crasher (_start+96)
You can distinguish this from other kinds of abort by the presence of
__stack_chk_fail in the backtrace and the specific abort message.
You can reproduce an instance of this type of crash using: crasher
smash-stack
If you don't have a specific crash that you're investigating right now,
the platform source includes a tool for testing debuggerd called crasher. If
you mm in system/core/debuggerd/ you'll get both a crasher
and a crasher64 on your path (the latter allowing you to test
64-bit crashes). Crasher can crash in a large number of interesting ways based
on the command line arguments you provide. Use crasher --help
to see the currently supported selection.
To introduce the different pieces in a crash dump, let's work through this example crash dump:
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Build fingerprint: 'Android/aosp_flounder/flounder:5.1.51/AOSP/enh08201009:eng/test-keys'
Revision: '0'
ABI: 'arm'
pid: 1656, tid: 1656, name: crasher >>> crasher <<<
signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -6 (SI_TKILL), fault addr --------
Abort message: 'some_file.c:123: some_function: assertion "false" failed'
r0 00000000 r1 00000678 r2 00000006 r3 f70b6dc8
r4 f70b6dd0 r5 f70b6d80 r6 00000002 r7 0000010c
r8 ffffffed r9 00000000 sl 00000000 fp ff96ae1c
ip 00000006 sp ff96ad18 lr f700ced5 pc f700dc98 cpsr 400b0010
backtrace:
#00 pc 00042c98 /system/lib/libc.so (tgkill+12)
#01 pc 00041ed1 /system/lib/libc.so (pthread_kill+32)
#02 pc 0001bb87 /system/lib/libc.so (raise+10)
#03 pc 00018cad /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_android_abort+34)
#04 pc 000168e8 /system/lib/libc.so (abort+4)
#05 pc 0001a78f /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_fatal+16)
#06 pc 00018d35 /system/lib/libc.so (__assert2+20)
#07 pc 00000f21 /system/xbin/crasher
#08 pc 00016795 /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_init+44)
#09 pc 00000abc /system/xbin/crasher
Tombstone written to: /data/tombstones/tombstone_06
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
The line of asterisks with spaces is helpful if you're searching a log for native crashes. The string "*** ***" rarely shows up in logs other than at the beginning of a native crash.
Build fingerprint: 'Android/aosp_flounder/flounder:5.1.51/AOSP/enh08201009:eng/test-keys'
The fingerprint lets you identify exactly which build the crash occurred
on. This is exactly the same as the ro.build.fingerprint system property.
Revision: '0'
The revision refers to the hardware rather than the software. This is
usually unused but can be useful to help you automatically ignore bugs known
to be caused by bad hardware. This is exactly the same as the ro.revision
system property.
ABI: 'arm'
The ABI is one of arm, arm64, mips, mips64, x86, or x86-64. This is
mostly useful for the stack script mentioned above, so that it knows
what toolchain to use.
pid: 1656, tid: 1656, name: crasher >>> crasher <<<
This line identifies the specific thread in the process that crashed. In this case, it was the process' main thread, so the process ID and thread ID match. The first name is the thread name, and the name surrounded by >>> and <<< is the process name. For an app, the process name is typically the fully-qualified package name (such as com.facebook.katana), which is useful when filing bugs or trying to find the app in Google Play. The pid and tid can also be useful in finding the relevant log lines preceding the crash.
signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -6 (SI_TKILL), fault addr --------
This line tells you which signal (SIGABRT) was received, and more about
how it was received (SI_TKILL). The signals reported by debuggerd are SIGABRT,
SIGBUS, SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGSEGV, and SIGTRAP. The signal-specific codes vary
based on the specific signal.
Abort message: 'some_file.c:123: some_function: assertion "false" failed'
Not all crashes will have an abort message line, but aborts will. This is automatically gathered from the last line of fatal logcat output for this pid/tid, and in the case of a deliberate abort is likely to give an explanation of why the program killed itself.
r0 00000000 r1 00000678 r2 00000006 r3 f70b6dc8 r4 f70b6dd0 r5 f70b6d80 r6 00000002 r7 0000010c r8 ffffffed r9 00000000 sl 00000000 fp ff96ae1c ip 00000006 sp ff96ad18 lr f700ced5 pc f700dc98 cpsr 400b0010
The register dump shows the content of the CPU registers at the time the signal was received. (This section varies wildly between ABIs.) How useful these are will depend on the exact crash.
backtrace:
#00 pc 00042c98 /system/lib/libc.so (tgkill+12)
#01 pc 00041ed1 /system/lib/libc.so (pthread_kill+32)
#02 pc 0001bb87 /system/lib/libc.so (raise+10)
#03 pc 00018cad /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_android_abort+34)
#04 pc 000168e8 /system/lib/libc.so (abort+4)
#05 pc 0001a78f /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_fatal+16)
#06 pc 00018d35 /system/lib/libc.so (__assert2+20)
#07 pc 00000f21 /system/xbin/crasher
#08 pc 00016795 /system/lib/libc.so (__libc_init+44)
#09 pc 00000abc /system/xbin/crasher
The backtrace shows you where in the code we were at the time of
crash. The first column is the frame number (matching gdb's style where
the deepest frame is 0). The PC values are relative to the location of the
shared library rather than absolute addresses. The next column is the name
of the mapped region (which is usually a shared library or executable, but
might not be for, say, JIT-compiled code). Finally, if symbols are available,
the symbol that the PC value corresponds to is shown, along with the offset
into that symbol in bytes. You can use this in conjunction with objdump(1)
to find the corresponding assembler instruction.
Tombstone written to: /data/tombstones/tombstone_06
This tells you where debuggerd wrote extra information.
debuggerd will keep up to 10 tombstones, cycling through
the numbers 00 to 09 and overwriting existing tombstones as necessary.
The tombstone contains the same information as the crash dump, plus a
few extras. For example, it includes backtraces for all threads (not
just the crashing thread), the floating point registers, raw stack dumps,
and memory dumps around the addresses in registers. Most usefully it also
includes a full memory map (similar to /proc/pid/maps). Here's an
annotated example from a 32-bit ARM process crash:
memory map: (fault address prefixed with --->) --->ab15f000-ab162fff r-x 0 4000 /system/xbin/crasher (BuildId: b9527db01b5cf8f5402f899f64b9b121)
There are two things to note here. The first is that this line is prefixed with "--->". The maps are most useful when your crash isn't just a null pointer dereference. If the fault address is small, it's probably some variant of a null pointer dereference. Otherwise looking at the maps around the fault address can often give you a clue as to what happened. Some possible issues that can be recognized by looking at the maps include:
The second thing to note is that executables and shared libraries files
will show the BuildId (if present) in Android M and later, so you can see
exactly which version of your code crashed. (Platform binaries include a
BuildId by default since Android M. NDK r12 and later automatically pass
-Wl,--build-id to the linker too.)
ab163000-ab163fff r-- 3000 1000 /system/xbin/crasher ab164000-ab164fff rw- 0 1000 f6c80000-f6d7ffff rw- 0 100000 [anon:libc_malloc]
On Android the heap isn't necessarily a single region. Heap regions will
be labeled [anon:libc_malloc].
f6d82000-f6da1fff r-- 0 20000 /dev/__properties__/u:object_r:logd_prop:s0 f6da2000-f6dc1fff r-- 0 20000 /dev/__properties__/u:object_r:default_prop:s0 f6dc2000-f6de1fff r-- 0 20000 /dev/__properties__/u:object_r:logd_prop:s0 f6de2000-f6de5fff r-x 0 4000 /system/lib/libnetd_client.so (BuildId: 08020aa06ed48cf9f6971861abf06c9d) f6de6000-f6de6fff r-- 3000 1000 /system/lib/libnetd_client.so f6de7000-f6de7fff rw- 4000 1000 /system/lib/libnetd_client.so f6dec000-f6e74fff r-x 0 89000 /system/lib/libc++.so (BuildId: 8f1f2be4b37d7067d366543fafececa2) (load base 0x2000) f6e75000-f6e75fff --- 0 1000 f6e76000-f6e79fff r-- 89000 4000 /system/lib/libc++.so f6e7a000-f6e7afff rw- 8d000 1000 /system/lib/libc++.so f6e7b000-f6e7bfff rw- 0 1000 [anon:.bss] f6e7c000-f6efdfff r-x 0 82000 /system/lib/libc.so (BuildId: d189b369d1aafe11feb7014d411bb9c3) f6efe000-f6f01fff r-- 81000 4000 /system/lib/libc.so f6f02000-f6f03fff rw- 85000 2000 /system/lib/libc.so f6f04000-f6f04fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:.bss] f6f05000-f6f05fff r-- 0 1000 [anon:.bss] f6f06000-f6f0bfff rw- 0 6000 [anon:.bss] f6f0c000-f6f21fff r-x 0 16000 /system/lib/libcutils.so (BuildId: d6d68a419dadd645ca852cd339f89741) f6f22000-f6f22fff r-- 15000 1000 /system/lib/libcutils.so f6f23000-f6f23fff rw- 16000 1000 /system/lib/libcutils.so f6f24000-f6f31fff r-x 0 e000 /system/lib/liblog.so (BuildId: e4d30918d1b1028a1ba23d2ab72536fc) f6f32000-f6f32fff r-- d000 1000 /system/lib/liblog.so f6f33000-f6f33fff rw- e000 1000 /system/lib/liblog.so
Typically a shared library will have three adjacent entries. One will be
readable and executable (code), one will be read-only (read-only
data), and one will be read-write (mutable data). The first column
shows the address ranges for the mapping, the second column the permissions
(in the usual Unix ls(1) style), the third column the offset into the file
(in hex), the fourth column the size of the region (in hex), and the fifth
column the file (or other region name).
f6f34000-f6f53fff r-x 0 20000 /system/lib/libm.so (BuildId: 76ba45dcd9247e60227200976a02c69b) f6f54000-f6f54fff --- 0 1000 f6f55000-f6f55fff r-- 20000 1000 /system/lib/libm.so f6f56000-f6f56fff rw- 21000 1000 /system/lib/libm.so f6f58000-f6f58fff rw- 0 1000 f6f59000-f6f78fff r-- 0 20000 /dev/__properties__/u:object_r:default_prop:s0 f6f79000-f6f98fff r-- 0 20000 /dev/__properties__/properties_serial f6f99000-f6f99fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_vector] f6f9a000-f6f9afff r-- 0 1000 [anon:atexit handlers] f6f9b000-f6fbafff r-- 0 20000 /dev/__properties__/properties_serial f6fbb000-f6fbbfff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_vector] f6fbc000-f6fbcfff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_small_objects] f6fbd000-f6fbdfff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_vector] f6fbe000-f6fbffff rw- 0 2000 [anon:linker_alloc] f6fc0000-f6fc0fff r-- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc] f6fc1000-f6fc1fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_lob] f6fc2000-f6fc2fff r-- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc] f6fc3000-f6fc3fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_vector] f6fc4000-f6fc4fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_small_objects] f6fc5000-f6fc5fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_vector] f6fc6000-f6fc6fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:linker_alloc_small_objects] f6fc7000-f6fc7fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:arc4random _rsx structure] f6fc8000-f6fc8fff rw- 0 1000 [anon:arc4random _rs structure] f6fc9000-f6fc9fff r-- 0 1000 [anon:atexit handlers] f6fca000-f6fcafff --- 0 1000 [anon:thread signal stack guard page]
Note that since Android 5.0 (Lollipop), the C library names most of its anonymous mapped regions so there are fewer mystery regions.
f6fcb000-f6fccfff rw- 0 2000 [stack:5081]
Regions named [stack:tid] are the stacks for the given threads.
f6fcd000-f702afff r-x 0 5e000 /system/bin/linker (BuildId: 84f1316198deee0591c8ac7f158f28b7) f702b000-f702cfff r-- 5d000 2000 /system/bin/linker f702d000-f702dfff rw- 5f000 1000 /system/bin/linker f702e000-f702ffff rw- 0 2000 f7030000-f7030fff r-- 0 1000 f7031000-f7032fff rw- 0 2000 ffcd7000-ffcf7fff rw- 0 21000 ffff0000-ffff0fff r-x 0 1000 [vectors]
Whether you see [vector] or [vdso] depends on the architecture. ARM uses [vector], while all other architectures use [vdso].