[Python-Dev] How to debug python crashes

[Tim Golden]

On 14/05/2013 13:32, Philippe Fremy wrote:
> I have a reproducable crash on Windows XP with Python 2.7 which I would
> like to investigate. I have Visual Studio 2008 installed and I
> downloaded the pdb files. However I could not find any instructions on
> how to use them and was unsuccessful at getting anything out of it.
> 
> I checked the developer guide but could not find anything on debugging
> crashes. On internet, this seems to be also an underdocumented topic.
> 
> So, a few questions :
> - is there some documentation to help debugging crashes ?

I don't think there is. As you say, it's somewhat underdocumented. Maybe
someone else can point to something, but I'm not aware of anything.

> - are the pdb files released along python usable with Visual Studio and
> stock Python ? Or do you need a hand-compiled version ?


I actually have no idea whether you drop in the .pdb files, but if you
have VS anyway, it's easy enough to build and run within VS and let the
debugger drop you into the code when it crashes.

Are you in a position to post a reproducible test case to the tracker?
Or were you holding back until you'd done some analysis?

TJG