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I've reported a VLC bug and included the output of gdb's bt full, but the response from a project representative is that the trace is "incomplete". How can I produce a trace that would be usable to a developer? Their documentation and bug feedback say nothing about how to do this.

l0b0
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    You should ask the developer about that, as only him can give you the answer (by the way, I've followed the link and I think he's been really unhelpful). – dr_ Aug 30 '18 at 07:21
  • @dr01 I was hoping there would be a generic answer, which would also be helpful to others trying to report similar issues. – l0b0 Aug 30 '18 at 07:28
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    If you can reproduce the bug on debian, ubuntu, or fedora (and probably others), instead of archlinux, you wouldn't need to compile VLC but just install the appropriate debug symbols package. Sadly, archlinux does not provide these it seems. – meuh Aug 30 '18 at 09:49

1 Answers1

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Following the link that you provided, the only meaningful part to your question is that they are asking for a symbolic stack trace. However, it is not helpful in explaining how to do it.

(e.g. for those who do not know or remember, a symbolic stack trace can be obtained only by compiling the binary with debug info)

I find this other VLC page more helpful in that subject, and a much better one instead of the one linked to.

Debug - VLC

When compiling VLC media player, you can must compile a debug binary using --enable-debug on the ./configure script.

In the case being discussed, and according to the previous mentioned links, I replaced here can for must.

What it is used for

Of course, the binary compiled in debug mode will or should behave like the release one (more or less). Differences are:

  • developers can cause VLC to crash when it reached a suspicious state for development purpose, while release version will not in the same suspicious state

  • binary backtraces are meaningful in this mode since symbols are embedded in it.

    How to enable it

As said above, you basically just have to add CFLAGS="-g" CXXFLAGS="-g" --enable-debug parameters at the ./configure stage.

For stepping into code, better is to do CFLAGS="-g -Og" CXXFLAGS="-g -Og" also add --disable-optimizations and not use --enable-release. Replace -Og with -O0 to prevent compiler from optimizing out variables.

So after compiling a debug binary, you can now send a bug report describing what you were doing that lead to the crash and the "gdb bt full" to the developer(s).

See also: VLC - Report bugs

Rui F Ribeiro
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