Java binary, can't redirect stderr on VM crash

[Patrick Wright]

Hi all

I'm trying to track down a VM crash related to some part of the 2D
stack. I've already written 2D-dev and they asked me to narrow it
down. I have a question about how bin/java handles error output on a
VM crash.

Problem: I'm testing from the CLI, bash, on Ubuntu 8.10. I need to run
my test program once for every font on the full font list for the JRE.
However, when the program crashes (on working with the font), I get
several dozen lines of VM crash output, and I'm not able to redirect
this to a file. This is painful and I have many fonts to test to try
and track the problem down.

Example crash output starts like:
*** glibc detected *** /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/bin/java: free():
invalid next size (fast): 0xb4cc7288 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6[0xb7f753f4]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(cfree+0x96)[0xb7f77456]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/i386/libfontmanager.so[0xb4d37073]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/i386/libfontmanager.so[0xb4d3cec0]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/i386/libfontmanager.so[0xb4d3f42d]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/i386/libfontmanager.so[0xb4d3f530]


I've tried redirect like
java -cp out/production/Samples RenderFontTest "AR PL UMing CN" &>/tmp/err.txt
java -cp out/production/Samples RenderFontTest "AR PL UMing CN" 2>/tmp/err.txt
java -cp out/production/Samples RenderFontTest "AR PL UMing CN" 2>&1
>/tmp/err.txt

In all cases, the crash report goes to the console. This happens with
both Sun JDK 6 and OpenJDK 6. And the output is _long_.

Versions involved:

tuxdistro at ubuntu-desktop:~
$ /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/bin/java -version
java version "1.6.0_0"
IcedTea6 1.3.1 (6b12-0ubuntu6) Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_0-b12)
OpenJDK Client VM (build 1.6.0_0-b12, mixed mode, sharing)
tuxdistro at ubuntu-desktop:~

$ java -version
java version "1.6.0_10"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_10-b33)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 11.0-b15, mixed mode, sharing)

tuxdistro at ubuntu-desktop:~
$ bash -version
GNU bash, version 3.2.39(1)-release (i486-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Is the bin/java binary forking a process off?


TIA, please redirect me if there's a better place to ask.
Patrick

PS: my bash-fu is very weak, sadly