idb: unable to determine length of string variable

[tsaue]

I am trying to use the debugger idb, version 7.3.2, together with ifort version 8.0 on a Linux machine, that is I attach to a running process using

idb -gdb -pid 1561 dirac.x

where the executable dirac.x was compiled with -g and -traceback.
I get the warning

Attaching to program: dirac.x, process 1561
Reading symbols from dirac.x...WARNING: unable to determine length of string variable.
WARNING: unable to determine length of string variable.

What does this mean ?

I seemingly attach to the process and it crashes. However, I have no succes
in getting information about where:

(idb) where
#0 0x87336f3 in _intel_fast_memcpy.A () in dirac.x
#1 0x86f9dc0 in for__format_value () in dirac.x
#2 0x86e78e5 in for_write_seq_fmt_xmit () in dirac.x
#3 0x86e7090 in for_write_seq_fmt () in dirac.x
#4 0x82420b1 in quit (text=) at gptrygve.F:277
#5 0x842ef17 in mpi_errtrap (comm=(MPI_Comm *) 0xb757e260, err=(int *) 0x87dade0) at mpi_errtrap.c:83
#6 0x86a849c in MPIR_Error () in dirac.x
#7 0x8822da8 in dirac.x

It appears as if the symbol table was not properly generated.

Does anybody have some hints and suggestions ?

All the best,
Trond Saue

[jimdempseyatthecove]

Trond,

Are you attaching to the process after it crashes?

If so, see if you can start the process (pause before it crashes), attach to it, see if debugger working, then resume the process.

Jim

[Steven_L_Intel1]

This thread is from 2004 - there's a newer thread from someone else with the same symptom.