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# Troubleshooting badly behaving apps | ||
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Despite the best efforts of Void Linux maintainers, it is possible that you will | ||
have issues with packages from the official repositories. On such cases, there | ||
are some steps you can follow in order to provide as complete a bug report as | ||
possible. | ||
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Some of these steps can even help you find the cause of the issue yourself! | ||
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## Look at error messages attentively | ||
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It is possible the program's output tells you why it errors out, so you can try | ||
to run it in a terminal. For example: | ||
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- Python programs complain loudly about missing modules or resources. | ||
- If you're using a compiled binary, and it can't find the libraries it depends | ||
on, your dynamic linker will tell you about it. | ||
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## Check for issues in the package database | ||
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You can use the `-a` flag for | ||
[xbps-pkgdb(1)](https://man.voidlinux.org/xbps-pkgdb.1) to run a complete check | ||
on all systems packages, which can detect any files that may have been altered | ||
when they shouldn't have been. You should attempt to reinstall all the packages | ||
listed in this step, using the `-f` flag for | ||
[xbps-install(1)](https://man.voidlinux.org/xbps-install.1). For example: | ||
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``` | ||
# xbps-pkgdb -a | ||
ERROR: p7zip: hash mismatch for /usr/bin/7z. | ||
ERROR: p7zip: files check FAILED. | ||
# xbps-install -f p7zip | ||
``` | ||
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After this is done, you should check if the issue persists. | ||
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## Strace the program | ||
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If the issue is caused by a program, you can run it under the | ||
[strace(1)](https://man.voidlinux.org/strace.1) utility to check if it's trying, | ||
for example, to access files that don't exist but that it expects to exist. | ||
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## Debug the program NEEDS WORK | ||
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If a look at `strace` wasn't enough, it is possible to use a debugger like | ||
[gdb(1)](https://man.voidlinux.org/gdb.1) to step through the program's | ||
execution. You can [install debug packages](../xbps/repositories/index.md) or | ||
use Void's [Debuginfod](https://sourceware.org/elfutils/Debuginfod.html) server. | ||
To use the Debuginfod server, you need to export the `DEBUGINFOD_URLS` | ||
environment variable with a value of `https://debugingod.s.voidlinux.org` or | ||
`https://debuginfod.elfutils.org/`. | ||
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GDB is especially useful when an application crashes abnormally, since it will | ||
stop execution at that point, and you can gather relevant information there. The | ||
syntax for using `gdb` is shown below, including the Debuginfod variable: | ||
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``` | ||
$ DEBUGINFOD_URLS="https://debugingod.s.voidlinux.org" gdb --args <program> [arguments] | ||
``` | ||
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Inside GDB, a usual session will run the following commands: | ||
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- `run` to start the application; | ||
- `set logging on`, to create a `gdb.txt` file which can be shared easily; | ||
- `backtrace`, to show the function calls made until the application got to that | ||
place; | ||
- `quit`, to close `gdb`. |