Memory Dump Patents (Class 714/38.11)
  • Patent number: 9274922
    Abstract: A processor-implemented method for diagnostic testing using an expected result parameter is provided. The processor-implemented method may include establishing a known system environment associated with a function under test and setting the expected result parameter corresponding to the function under test and the known system environment. A call is issued by the processor to execute the function under test. Before returning to the caller, the function under test compares an expected result value to an actual result value. The function under test determines an error based on the actual result value being different from the expected result value and performs a low-level diagnostic based on the determined error. Then the processor receives a return value from the function under test based on the issued call.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2016
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Joel L. Masser
  • Patent number: 9262404
    Abstract: A requirements testing system facilitates the review and analysis of requirement statements for software applications. The requirements testing system automatically generates test artifacts from the requirement statements, including test scenarios, test conditions, test hints, and expected results. These test artifacts characterize the requirements statements to provide valuable analysis information that aids understanding what the intentions of the requirement statements are. The automation of the generation of these test artifacts produces numerous benefits, including fewer errors, objectivity, and no dependency on the skills and experience of a creator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: ACCENTURE GLOBAL SERVICES LIMITED
    Inventors: David E. Ingram, Brian Ahern, Shubhashis Sengupta, Anurag Dwarakanath, Kapil Singi, Anitha Chandran
  • Patent number: 9223668
    Abstract: A fabric trace hook is disclosed to enable debugging operations of agents operating in a peer-to-peer integrated on-chip system fabric. The fabric trace hook, embedded within the IOSF, includes programmable triggering and capturing logic, timestamp capability, and a security feature to disallow tracing of proprietary transactions. The fabric trace hook may operate in a lossy or lossless mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 29, 2015
    Assignee: INTEL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Ki Yoon, Robert De Gruijl, Chai Ziv, Michael Klinglesmith
  • Patent number: 9219800
    Abstract: According to embodiments, method, systems, and computer program products are provided for a web server transmitting a response to an access request. An access request for a web application program deployed on a web server is received, where a response corresponding to the access request is composed with a script. A test script is transmitted. A response time of the test script is received. The response time includes a time that the test script is executed in a browser of a client and a time that the test script is transferred over a network. Different responses are transmitted to different types of scripts included in the response corresponding to the access request in accordance with the response time of the test script.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 22, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Bin Jia, Ying Liu, E Feng Lu, Yan Rong Shen, Jia Wu, Zhen Zhang
  • Patent number: 9218270
    Abstract: A method and system of testing coded features is provided that provides deterministic test results. The method includes building an instance of the hosted application using a minimum set of information required for the instance of the hosted application. A coded feature to be tested is deployed to the created instance of the hosted application and tests are run against the deployed coded feature.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 22, 2015
    Assignee: Digital River, Inc.
    Inventors: Mark Thomas Klunder, Oleg Yeshaya Ryaboy
  • Patent number: 9208056
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for matching and attributing code violations. One of the methods includes receiving a plurality of snapshots of a code base, including data representing a revision graph of the snapshots of the code base and data representing respective violations in each of the plurality of snapshots. A plurality of transitively matched violations in the code base are generated, wherein each transitively matched violation represents a respective sequence of matching violations from a first violation of a first snapshot to a second violation of a second snapshot, wherein each transitively matched violation identifies a respective first violation representing an initial occurrence of a coding defect in the code base and a respective second violation representing a last occurrence of the coding defect in the code base.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2015
    Inventors: Anders Starcke Henriksen, Ricardo Pescuma Domenecci
  • Patent number: 9195461
    Abstract: An aspect includes run-time instrumentation reporting. An instruction stream is executed by a processor. Run-time instrumentation information of the executing instruction stream is captured by the processor. Run-time instrumentation records are created based on the captured run-time instrumentation information. A run-time instrumentation sample point of the executing instruction stream on the processor is detected. A reporting group is stored in a run-time instrumentation program buffer. The storing is based on the detecting and the storing includes: determining a current address of the run-time instrumentation program buffer, the determining based on instruction accessible run-time instrumentation controls; and storing the reporting group into the run-time instrumentation program buffer based on an origin address and the current address of the run-time instrumentation program buffer, the reporting group including the created run-time instrumentation records.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Mark S. Farrell, Charles W. Gainey, Jr., Marcel Mitran, Chung-Lung K. Shum, Brian L. Smith
  • Patent number: 9104796
    Abstract: The present arrangements relate to analyzing a software error. At least one dump file created in response to a crash of software executing on a processing system can be accessed. Based on the dump file, a base version of at least one software module that was loaded when the crash occurred can be identified. Based on the dump file, maintenance that has been applied to the at least one software module also can be identified. A report recommending new corrective maintenance to be applied to the at least one software module can be generated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2015
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Samuel J. Smith, Mark A. Woolley, Andrew Wright
  • Patent number: 9064055
    Abstract: The present invention provides a software development method, system and computer program product. Generally, a computer program product for software development assistance includes a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith such that the computer readable program receives from a server over a computer communications network both a software update for software installed in an end user device, and also test cases and a testing tool. The test cases are loaded in memory of the end user device and executed in the end user device with the execution tool with respect to the software update. Execution information produced by the execution of the test cases is collected and transmitted back to the server from the end user device. Optionally, a new test case for the software update can be created within the memory of the end user device the new test case can be executed along with the received test cases with the execution tool in the end user device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 26, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 23, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Xiao Wei Hu, Xia Zhang, Dan Han
  • Patent number: 9047083
    Abstract: A method of reducing power consumption of a server cluster of host systems with virtual machines executing on the host systems is disclosed. The method includes recommending host system power-on when there is a host system whose utilization is above a target utilization, and recommending host system power-off when there is a host system whose utilization is below the target utilization. Recommending host system power-on includes calculating impact of powering on a standby host system with respect to reducing the number of highly-utilized host systems in the server cluster. The impact of powering on is calculated by simulating moving some virtual machines from highly utilized host systems to the standby host system being recommended to be powered on. Recommending host system power-off includes calculating impact of powering off a host system with respect to decreasing the number of less-utilized host systems in the server cluster.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2015
    Assignee: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Alok Kumar Gupta, Minwen Ji, Timothy P. Mann, Tahir Mobashir, Umit Rencuzogullari, Ganesha Shanmuganathan, Limin Wang, Anne Marie Holler
  • Publication number: 20150149830
    Abstract: As the file system of an operating system program might be damaged by a crash, the file system is usually used neither for the selection of data to be dumped from a memory nor for the analysis of the dumped data, and all data contained in one or several areas of the memory are dumped. In order to preserve the integrity of the file system and enable its use after the crash, the memory is divided into a primary and a secondary memory section during a memory setup, file system data are transferred from the primary memory section to the secondary memory section widely out of the control of the operating system program, and a read access of a dump program is directed to the secondary memory section in order to select file system data to be dumped after the crash using error data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 12, 2014
    Publication date: May 28, 2015
    Inventors: Victor Rafael Escobar Olmos, Jakob Christopher Lang, Angel Nunez Mencias, Albert Schirmer, Jochen Schweflinghaus
  • Patent number: 9043653
    Abstract: An approach for introspection of a software component and generation of a conditional memory dump, a computing device executing an introspection program with respect to the software component is provided. An introspection system comprises one or more conditions for generating the conditional memory dump based on operations of the software component. In one aspect, a computing device detects, through an introspection program, whether the one or more conditions are satisfied by the software component based on information in an introspection analyzer of the introspection program. In addition, the computing device indicates, through the introspection program, if the one or more conditions are satisfied by the software component. In another aspect, responsive to the indication, the computing device generates the conditional memory dump through the introspection program.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: James I. Martineau, Lorelei M. McCollum, Micheal S. McCowan
  • Publication number: 20150127991
    Abstract: A debugging and diagnostics system allows users to take lightweight process snapshots of running debuggee processes so the users may analyze those snapshots at a later time. The snapshot mechanism allows debugging tools to compare an original process or one or more process snapshots or to compare any of a series of snapshots to each other. The snapshot mechanism further allows users to inspect a snapshot of process memory while allowing the original process to continue running with minimal impact. A user may do historical debugging using process snapshots of a debuggee process taken over time. This allows the user to view the state of the debuggee process as it existed when the snapshot was taken. The lightweight process snapshot is less invasive because it does not require a full copy of the memory and allows the original process to run un-interrupted while specific collections and inspections are completed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 8, 2014
    Publication date: May 7, 2015
    Applicant: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC.
    Inventors: Jackson Davis, Tae Hyung Kim, Colin A. Thomsen, Steve Carroll
  • Patent number: 9003226
    Abstract: Computer program product and system to limit core file generation in a massively parallel computing system comprising a plurality of compute nodes each executing at least one task, of a plurality of tasks, by: upon determining that a first task executing on a first compute node has failed, performing an atomic load and increment operation on a core file count; generating a first core file upon determining that the core file count is below a predefined threshold; and not generating the first core file upon determining that the core file count is not below the predefined threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael E. Aho, John E. Attinella, Thomas M. Gooding
  • Publication number: 20150095710
    Abstract: A method for debugging a program having a plurality of threads includes identifying, for each thread, a target point at which the program terminated and a staging point previously executed in the thread. The method further includes executing each thread from the staging point to the target point and determining, for each thread, a staging time based upon the executing of each thread from the staging point to the target point. The method further includes executing each thread from its staging point based on the staging time of the thread so that the plurality of threads will reach the crash location at approximately the same time such that the program threads execute in a similar pattern to the execution that caused the crash.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 27, 2013
    Publication date: April 2, 2015
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Cary L. Bates, Lee N. Helgeson, Justin K. King, Michelle A. Schlicht
  • Patent number: 8996911
    Abstract: Computer program product and system to limit core file generation in a massively parallel computing system comprising a plurality of compute nodes each executing at least one task, of a plurality of tasks, by: upon determining that a first task executing on a first compute node has failed, performing an atomic load and increment operation on a core file count; generating a first core file upon determining that the core file count is below a predefined threshold; and not generating the first core file upon determining that the core file count is not below the predefined threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 31, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael E. Aho, John E. Attinella, Thomas M. Gooding
  • Patent number: 8990630
    Abstract: A server having a plurality of system boards, comprising: a panic processing unit configured to stop (panic) the server; a system board information storage unit configured to store information to identify a system board having a memory used by a kernel; a system board detaching processing unit configured to detach the system board having the memory used by the kernel before server stoppage; and a reboot processing unit configured to reboot the server using system boards other than the separated system board among the plurality of system boards, after detaching the system board having the memory used by the kernel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 3, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 24, 2015
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Hiroshi Kondo, Ryo Tabei, Kenji Gotsubo
  • Patent number: 8972793
    Abstract: An apparatus and a method for determining error generation in a mobile terminal are provided. More particularly, an apparatus and a method for analyzing and reporting an error of a device driver in real-time without a separate debugging apparatus in a mobile terminal are provided. The apparatus includes a dumper and an analyzer. When an error-generating device exists, the dumper retrieves error information used for analyzing an error generating cause from a register range of the error-generating device, and receives dumped information corresponding to the retrieving of the error information. The analyzer analyzes the dumped information to determine the error generating cause.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 21, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2015
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Soon-Yong Cho
  • Publication number: 20150052403
    Abstract: A tracing and debugging system may take a snapshot of an application in response to an event, and may continue executing the program after the snapshot is captured. The snapshot may be stored and retrieved later in a debugging tool where a programmer may browse the snapshot or the snapshot may have some other analysis performed. The snapshot may contain a subset of the state of the application, such as call stacks, portions of source code, the values of local and global variables, and various metadata. The snapshot may be defined in a snapshot configuration that may include an event description and data to be collected.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 19, 2013
    Publication date: February 19, 2015
    Applicant: Concurix Corporation
    Inventors: Charles D. GARRETT, Alexander G. Gounares
  • Publication number: 20150046754
    Abstract: A circuitry of a computer is configured to monitor an update state in a prescribed period of time of a plurality of units of management of data stored in the memory device for each of the plurality of units, to select a target unit as a target of dumping that outputs data from among the plurality of units on the basis of a monitoring result of the update state, and to dump data corresponding to the selected target unit.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 11, 2014
    Publication date: February 12, 2015
    Inventors: Yuichi Nagahama, Hidetoshi Seto, Yasuo UEDA, Hideyuki Niwa, Yasuaki Ishimatsu, TAKU IZUMI, Hiroyuki KAMEZAWA, Kenji Kaneshige, Ken Ichikawa
  • Patent number: 8949675
    Abstract: Techniques for error report processing are described herein. Error reports, received by a developer due to program crashes, may be organized into a plurality of “buckets.” The buckets may be based in part on a name and a version of the application associated with a crash. Additionally, a call stack of the computer on which the crash occurred may be associated with each error report. The error reports may be “re-bucketed” into meta-buckets to provide additional information to programmers working to resolve software errors. The re-bucketing may be based in part on measuring similarity of call stacks of a plurality of error reports. The similarity of two call stacks—a measure of likelihood that two error reports were caused by a same error—may be based in part on functions in common, a distance of those functions from the crash point, and an offset distance between the common functions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Dongmei Zhang, Yingnong Dang, Song Ge
  • Publication number: 20150006963
    Abstract: Reducing memory dump data size by: (i) receiving a memory dump data including a set of stack(s), including at least a first stack which includes a current stack portion; (ii) removing from the memory dump data a first removed data portion that comes from a portion of the first stack to yield an optimized memory dump data; (iii) determining respective ranking values for a plurality of ranked data portions from the set of stacks; and (iv) selecting a ranked data portion from the current stack portion of the first stack to be a first removed data portion based, at least in part, upon the ranking values.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 24, 2013
    Publication date: January 1, 2015
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Franziska Geisert, Jakob C. Lang, Angel Nunez Mencias, Jochen Schweflinghaus
  • Publication number: 20150006962
    Abstract: A viral condition is identified in a system that causes input/output operations to be restricted during the viral condition. Crash dump data is enabled to be written to a particular region of volatile memory during the viral condition. Further, extraction of the crash dump data to fixed memory is initiated during the viral condition.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 27, 2013
    Publication date: January 1, 2015
    Inventors: Robert C. Swanson, Robert W. Cone, Madhusudhan Rangarajan, Mallik Bulusu, Robert Bahnsen
  • Publication number: 20140380102
    Abstract: In an embodiment, a data processing system comprises a storage system coupled to a unit under test comprising a heap memory, a static memory and a stack; second logic operable to perform: detecting one or more changes in a first state of the heap memory and the static memory; storing, in the storage system, as a state point of the unit under test, the one or more changes in the first state of the heap memory and the static memory; third logic operable to perform: receiving a request to change the memory under test to a particular state point; in response to the request, loading the particular state point from the storage system and applying the particular state point to the heap memory and the static memory to result in changing the heap memory and the static memory to a second state that is substantially equivalent to the first state.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 18, 2014
    Publication date: December 25, 2014
    Inventors: Jonathan Lindo, Jeffrey Daudel, Arpad Jakab, Suman Cherukuri
  • Publication number: 20140372806
    Abstract: A virtual machine system includes a first storage unit, a second storage unit, and a processor. The first storage unit includes a storage area allocated for a first virtual machine to operate. The second storage unit stores information stored in the first storage unit. The processor executes a process including detecting a failure of a first virtual machine, generating a second virtual machine when a failure of the first virtual machine is detected and making the second virtual machine perform storing information stored in the first storage unit into the second storage unit, and deleting the second virtual machine when the storing by the second virtual machine is completed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 27, 2014
    Publication date: December 18, 2014
    Inventors: Masakazu Yabe, YUSUKE KUDOU
  • Patent number: 8904243
    Abstract: Example event management systems and methods are described. In one implementation, a method monitors an application implemented using one or more processors. The method identifies activity data associated with operation of the application. The activity data is stored in a cyclic buffer. Upon detection of an error event associated with the operation of the application, the activity data in the cyclic buffer is written to a log file.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 2, 2014
    Assignee: SAP SE
    Inventors: Tero Loimuneva, Teemu Tamminen
  • Patent number: 8892952
    Abstract: A method for testing using a preserve status parameter in a computing system includes setting, by a calling process in the computing system, the preserve status parameter; issuing a call to a function under test by the calling process in the computing system; executing the function under test in the computing system, wherein data in a memory area accessed by the function under test during execution is preserved by the set preserve status parameter, such that the computing system does not reuse the memory area while the data in the memory area is being preserved; determining if an error occurred during execution of the function under test; in the event an error is determined to have occurred during execution of the function under test, making the data in the memory area available for inspection; and releasing the memory area for reuse by the computing system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Eugenie L. Alexander, Arthur J. Bariska, Jr., Matthew T. Cousens, Eileen S. Kovalchick, Joel L. Masser, Kevin D. McKenzie, Eileen P. Tedesco
  • Patent number: 8892954
    Abstract: The subject matter of this specification can be implemented in, among other things, a computer-implemented method for application lifecycle management. The method includes receiving crash reports from a first version of an application at multiple initial computing devices. The first version of the application is from a first group of versions. The method further includes determining that the crash reports include more than a threshold amount of crash reports. The method further includes determining that a second version of the application from a second group of versions corrects a cause of the crash reports. The method further includes providing instructions to the initial computing devices to retrieve updates to the application from the second group of versions rather than the first group of versions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2014
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Jessica Lynn Gray, Michael Noth, James Kason Keiger, Siyang Xie
  • Patent number: 8874970
    Abstract: Embodiments are configured to improve the stability of a Web browser by identifying plug-in modules that cause failures. Data in memory at the time of a failure is analyzed, and a failure signature is generated. The failure signature is compared to a database of known failure signatures so that the source of the failure may be identified. If a plug-in module to a Web browser is identified as the source of a failure, options are presented to the user who may update the plug-in module with code that does not produce a failure or disable the plug-in module altogether.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Joseph E. Benedek, Roberto A. Franco, Quji Guo, J. Craig Hally, Reid T. Holmes, Roman Pamucci, Edward J. Praitis, Christopher T. Sager, Brian D. Wentz
  • Patent number: 8862793
    Abstract: A storage system includes a disk and a controller module (CM). The CM includes a main control unit and a sub control unit that distribute and execute processing in the CM. Further the CM includes a plurality of channel adapters (CAs) that receive commands related to the input and the output of the data stored in the disk from a host computer. The main control unit requests the sub control unit to copy dump data of a first CA among the plurality of CAs when detecting abnormality of the first CA while copying dump data of a second CA among the plurality of CAs according to abnormality of the second CA.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2014
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventor: Shun Ando
  • Patent number: 8839045
    Abstract: An approach is provided in which a network hardware adapter stores offload information in a shared memory area that is located on a host system. The offload information includes connection information that was offloaded to the network hardware adapter by an application executing on the host system. An operating system (e.g., a network device driver) detects a network adapter error corresponding to the network hardware adapter and, in turn, retrieves the offload information stored in the shared memory area. As such, an analysis application utilizes the retrieved offload information to debug the network adapter error.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Francisco Jesus Alanis, Omar Cardona, Jeffrey Paul Messing
  • Patent number: 8839044
    Abstract: An approach is provided in which a network hardware adapter stores offload information in a shared memory area that is located on a host system. The offload information includes connection information that was offloaded to the network hardware adapter by an application executing on the host system. An operating system (e.g., a network device driver) detects a network adapter error corresponding to the network hardware adapter and, in turn, retrieves the offload information stored in the shared memory area. As such, an analysis application utilizes the retrieved offload information to debug the network adapter error.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 5, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Francisco Jesus Alanis, Omar Cardona, Jeffrey Paul Messing
  • Publication number: 20140258785
    Abstract: A method for identifying a storage location for a requested storage address. The method includes receiving a request to view data at a storage address and determining the requested storage address corresponding to a plurality of storage locations. The method includes determining whether the requested storage address identifies memory related to a dump file being analyzed by a dump formatter. Then, in response to determining the requested storage address identifies memory related to the dump file being analyzed by the dump formatter, the method includes identifying one of the plurality of storage locations. The method includes directing the request to the identified storage location.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 5, 2013
    Publication date: September 11, 2014
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Stephen J. Burghard, David J. Harman, Mark A. Woolley, Andrew Wright
  • Patent number: 8799716
    Abstract: Detection of heap dump occurrence is facilitated through maintenance of a heap dump location registry. The heap dump location registry indicates tools for which heap dump occurrence is to be detected. Based on periodically referencing the heap dump location registry, it is determined whether heap dump of a tool of the one or more tools has occurred. In one embodiment, startup and shutdown events of the tool are tracked to update execution status and process identifiers in the heap dump location registry, and the periodically references determines based on the indicators whether heap dump has occurred for the tool. In another embodiment, a heap dump location for heap dumps of the tool is obtained from the registry and the heap dump location is checked for the presence of heap dump files, which presence indicates occurrence of a heap dump for the tool.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 5, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Ahamed Jalaldeen, Ashish Mungi
  • Patent number: 8788886
    Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for verifying memory dump operations and scan dump operations. A memory specification is analyzed and parsed to generate a script for performing a memory dump operation. To verify the memory dump operation, first, a set of values are written to one or more memories of a SoC. Next, the script is executed to perform the memory dump operation, and then an output bitstream from the operation is compared to the set of values. The scan dump operation involves taking a snapshot of a model of a SoC in an emulator. A scan dump operation is performed, and an output bitstream from the operation is compared to the snapshot. The memory and scan dump operations are invoked using commands in a first language, and the commands are translated into a second language to perform the operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 22, 2014
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Andrew K. Chong, Heon Cheol “Paul” Kim
  • Patent number: 8776093
    Abstract: An application programming interface (API) that leverages operating system instrumentation to provide a chain of threads and processes may alleviate some debugging complications. Specifically, the chain may start with the first thread in the process that experienced the original failure and end with the last thread upon which the first thread directly or indirectly depends. The API may aid debugging efforts by classifying all threads related or dependent upon an original failed thread into specific categories of failures, requesting further information from the originating OS concerning specific failed threads, and using that information to debug the failed application or process more thoroughly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 8, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Corneliu I. Lupu, Gerald Francis Maffeo, Michael Hans Krause, Stephan A. Doll, Vamshidhar R. Kommineni, William Hunter Hudson, Yi Meng
  • Patent number: 8776028
    Abstract: A method and system for testing and logging execution events of software delivered to a user. The user can launch and run the software product while having the support and a necessary input from the product developer. A software product is provided from a first remote server and executed on a user computer, while execution statistics are collected and analyzed by a second remote server. The software product is used in a virtual execution environment. The software product is executed on a Guest Operating System (GOS) also installed on the user computer. A hypervisor-level monitoring of tested software products and GOSs is implemented.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 8, 2014
    Assignee: Parallels IP Holdings GmbH
    Inventors: Anton A. Enakiev, Alexander G. Tormasov, Alexey B. Koryakin, Serguei M. Beloussov
  • Patent number: 8769342
    Abstract: A system and method for efficiently and easily capturing data dumps generated by a network device is disclosed. In one embodiment, a storage management device is disposed between a network device and a storage device. The network device is programmed with a virtual address that is associated with the storage management device. Upon generating a data dump, the network device writes the data dump to the virtual address where the storage management device receives the data dump and redirects it to a long-term storage location. Additionally, the storage management device can generate a record of each data dump that indicates the network device that generated the data dump and where the data dump was stored.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Glen Tindal, Jeffery A. Schenk
  • Publication number: 20140181593
    Abstract: The present arrangements relate to analyzing a software error. At least one dump file created in response to a crash of software executing on a processing system can be accessed. Based on the dump file, a base version of at least one software module that was loaded when the crash occurred can be identified. Based on the dump file, maintenance that has been applied to the at least one software module also can be identified. A report recommending new corrective maintenance to be applied to the at least one software module can be generated.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2012
    Publication date: June 26, 2014
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: SAMUEL J. SMITH, MARK A. WOOLLEY, ANDREW WRIGHT
  • Patent number: 8762790
    Abstract: A method and system for collecting data for diagnosing a failure of a computer hardware device. After an indication of the failure of the computer hardware device that results in a full system crash is received, an address translation table of a central processing unit (CPU) of the computer hardware device is collected. A format of call stack frames of an operating system (OS) image of the computer hardware device is retrieved. Based on the collected address translation table and the retrieved format of the plurality of call stack frames, the call stack frames are retrieved and output to a computer file.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 7, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 24, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Doyle J. McCoy
  • Publication number: 20140149799
    Abstract: Creating an operating system dump. A main memory of a computer system is divided into at least three contiguous memory areas, comprising a primary memory area, a secondary memory area and a data memory area. A first instance of an OS (operating system) is booted into the main memory, a second instance of the operating system is loaded into the secondary memory area using the active first instance of the operating system, execution of the first active instance of the OS is stopped if a critical execution error occurs, and the computer system is re-started using the loaded second instance of the operating system which becomes the active instance of the OS. A dump of the primary memory area is created, and a third instance of the operating system is loaded into the primary memory area.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 26, 2013
    Publication date: May 29, 2014
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Reinhard Buendgen, Michael Holzheu, Jakob C. Lang, Angel Nunez Mencias, Albert Schirmer, Jochen Schweflinghaus, Martin Schwidefsky
  • Patent number: 8732531
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus includes a processing device and a management device managing the processing device, wherein the processing device includes a first storage device for storing a first program, a first processor that executes the first program, detects an error occurring in the processing device, and extracts partial information which is part of information stored in the first storage device when the error is detected in the processing device through the execution of the first program, and a first control device that transmits the extracted partial information to the management device, and wherein the management device includes a second control device connected to the first control device and that receives the transmitted partial information from the processing device; and a second storage device that stores the received partial information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2014
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventor: Jinsuke Nakai
  • Publication number: 20140129880
    Abstract: In a computer system, a memory dump of a multi-threaded process can be created to contain information on all the threads without terminating the process, if the process uses user threads.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 8, 2012
    Publication date: May 8, 2014
    Inventor: Narendran Gopalakrishnan
  • Patent number: 8719642
    Abstract: A method for saving crash dump files of a virtual machine (VM) on a designated disk is disclosed. The method includes associating, by a hypervisor that virtualizes a plurality of virtual machines (VMs), each VM of the plurality of VMs with a crash dump disk that is solely dedicated to the VM, wherein each crash dump disk is located separate from its associated VM. The method further includes configuring, by the hypervisor, an OS of each VM with a crash file path to the crash dump disk associated with the VM, and configuring, by the hypervisor, each VM of the plurality of VMs to generate crash dump files for the VM upon a crash event of the VM and store, via the crash file path, the generated crash dump files to the crash dump disk associated with the VM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: Red Hat Israel, Ltd.
    Inventor: Dor Laor
  • Patent number: 8719638
    Abstract: A processor recognizes a request from a program executing on a first hardware thread to initiate software code on a second hardware thread. In response, the second hardware thread initiates and commences executing the software code. During execution, the software code uses hardware registers of the second hardware thread to store data. Upon termination of the software code, the second hardware thread invokes a hypervisor program, which extracts data from the hardware registers and stores the extracted data in a shared memory area. In turn, a debug routine executes and retrieves the extracted data from the shared memory area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 17, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Richard Louis Arndt, Giles Roger Frazier
  • Patent number: 8719639
    Abstract: A virtual machine control system includes a dump target setting module that sets a flag that represents that a memory area is a dump target to each memory area that has been used by a guest OS, a dumping module that dumps to a file the memory area to which the dump target setting module sets the flag, and that removes the flag from the memory area about which dumping is completed, and a virtual machine control module that controls implementation of the guest OS, which operates on the virtual machine, and stops the implementation of the guest OS until the dumping module removes the flag from the memory area when the guest OS tries to access the memory area to which the dump target setting module sets the flag.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 11, 2009
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventor: Kenichirou Shimogawa
  • Patent number: 8707305
    Abstract: For failure management for multiple operating systems in a virtual environment, an external virtual machine or agent is provided that has been granted rights to full physical memory space to perform a crashdump for the machine. To avoid exposing secret information during a crashdump, private information for a virtual machine or partition is encrypted prior to generating a dump. The storing of crashdump information for virtual machines may avoid storing crashdump information for virtual machines that are stateless. Instead of having an (unstable) operating system running within a virtual machine perform a crashdump, the provision of an external agent, e.g., an external virtual machine, to perform the crashdump avoids many limitations associated with a normal dump when performed by a crashed operating system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 22, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Matthew Douglas Hendel
  • Patent number: 8694832
    Abstract: A processor recognizes a request from a program executing on a first hardware thread to initiate software code on a second hardware thread. In response, the second hardware thread initiates and commences executing the software code. During execution, the software code uses hardware registers of the second hardware thread to store data. Upon termination of the software code, the second hardware thread invokes a hypervisor program, which extracts data from the hardware registers and stores the extracted data in a shared memory area. In turn, a debug routine executes and retrieves the extracted data from the shared memory area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Richard Louis Arndt, Giles Roger Frazier
  • Patent number: 8677374
    Abstract: In a method for managing resources in a virtualized computing environment, a command to initiate execution of an operating system image dump process for a logical partition of the virtualized computing environment is received while the logical partition is in a process of terminating. One or more resources that are allocated to the logical partition that will not be utilized by the logical partition during execution of the operating system image dump process are determined. A notification to a hypervisor program in the virtualized computing environment is sent. The notification identifies the one or more resources. One of the one or more resources is reallocated. The operating system image dump process is executed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 18, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Vishal C. Aslot, Brian W. Hart, Anil Kalavakolanu, Evelyn T. Yeung
  • Patent number: 8671405
    Abstract: Techniques for creating crash data in a virtualized environment are disclosed. In an embodiment of the present disclosure the techniques can be used when a guest operating system within a virtual machine may not have a sufficient mechanism for generating crash data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 11, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Nicholas, Rich Yampell, Jacob Oshins, Rene Antonio Vega