Troubleshooting EDuke32 - EDukeWiki

# Troubleshooting EDuke32

From EDukeWiki
Revision as of 19:33, 13 February 2012 by Hendricks266 (talk | contribs) (absorb contents of http://forums.duke4.net/topic/2356-please-read-this-before-posting-bugs/)

The first step in troubleshooting EDuke32 is testing the most recent unstable version, automatically generated every 20 minutes if changes have been made to the source code.

## Basic Assistance

If you have a problem with EDuke32 or Mapster32, READ THE THREADS HERE FIRST to see if anyone else has experienced the same issue. Do not post a new thread if a thread for a similar problem already exists.

Always do a search for your problem before posting. Any new topics should clearly describe the problem in the title/summary.

If you find no previous reports of your issue, prepare to submit a bug report to the forum. For general help, follow the instructions below in a new thread at the forum link above. For a problem with a particular TC or mod, it may be better to contact its author directly depending on the circumstances and the nature of the error.

Please add the following information to any bug report:

1. You need to locate a file in your EDuke32 data called eduke32.log or mapster32.log depending on which program encountered the error. This file is overwritten every time the programs are run, so it is vital that the log file comes from an occasion when you encountered the problem and have not run the program again afterwards. Any log files should be posted as attachments or loaded on to http://pastebin.com/. Absolutely do NOT post logs as part of your post text itself!
2. Your system specifications. (OS, GPU, CPU, etc).
3. What version of EDuke32 you are running.
4. What you were doing at the time.
5. Be ready to upload or private message any modified con/sound/art/maps etc related to the above in the event an easy solution cannot be found.
6. Go to http://dukeworld.duke4.net/eduke32/synthesis and find the first build that exhibits the problem, and post the build numbers of the last working version and the first broken version.

This will help us and help you find solutions much more quickly and effectively.

## Crashes

If you encounter an actual program crash, try running the debug executables (eduke32.debug.exe or mapster32.debug.exe) included in the EDuke32 builds available from synthesis. If you encounter the crash again, look for a file named eduke32_or_mapster32.crashlog and include it when following the directions in the Basic Assistance section.

If you cannot find this file, please proceed to the Debugging section.

## Debugging

The most insidious types of bugs are those that occur randomly and with no apparent pattern. To help the developers in tracking down crashes happening this way, you could try running a debug version of the executable under GDB, the GNU debugger, until the crash happens.

If you are running Windows and do not already have GDB set up, follow the instructions to set up Building EDuke32 on Windows and it will be included. You do not have to compile EDuke32 yourself, instead you just have to install the compiler.

To debug the program, (synthesis build recommended) open a command prompt or terminal window and run this command, using Mapster32 as an example:

    gdb --args mapster32.debug.exe [additional arguments...]

and enter

    r

(run) at the GDB prompt. When the program crashes, you will be taken back to the prompt. Enter

    bt

(backtrace) there. This will print out the location where the crash occurred and serve as a first diagnostic to the developers.

Copy and paste the output gdb displays and send it to the developers so they can work on a fix. Pastebin.com is useful for this purpose.

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