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Debugging memory allocation

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Daniel Laird

Debugging memory allocation

I have a really weird problem.

I connect a pipeline up as follows:

demux -> queue-> audio_sink
-> queue ->video_sink

And it runs for a while but then stops, when I look at my memory usage it seems to be huge and very close to 0 free.
If I then use mtrace (it works wuite well on an embedded system) I get loads, I mean loads of
'memory not freed addresses'

If I replace my sink with a fake sink I still seem to get a similar behaviour I was wondering how do I trace/debug memory allocation (buffer allocation) in GStreamer.
I have tried
export GST_DEBUG=GstBuffer:*
and it did not help

any advice/clues on how I can debug why my memory is being eaten, as I have removed my sink from the equation I can only presume mtrace is not as useful and therefore I need to be able to use Gstreamer debugging to help identify any memory leaks in my sink code

Hope someone can help
Daniel Laird

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Daniel Laird

Debugging memory allocation

All,

I am having real difficulty debugging memory allocation in my application.

Can anyone help

1.) How do I enable GST_BUFFER debug to that I can see what is going on

I usually do export GST_DEBUG=XXXX:[1-5] but using GST_BUFFER does not seem to work, I cant find anything in docs etc on how to turn on this debug using env variables.

2.) I use dynamic library loading and this seems to mean that both memwatch and mtrace are not too useful as I can not get the caller fields to be filled with anything other than a hex address which is not as helpful as I had hoped.
Using valgrind on a mips platform does not work either.

I would love to know how others are debugging memory leaks etc when using gstreamer on embedded devices. In the mean time finding out how to get GST_BUFFER debug to come out would be really helpful.

hope you can help
Daniel Laird

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Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are
powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and
easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development
software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging.
Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com
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Edward Hervey

Re: Debugging memory allocation

Administrator

On Thu, 2009-03-12 at 12:27 +0100, Daniel James Laird wrote:

You can figure out all available debugging categories by doing the
followoing:
gst-inspect-0.10 --gst-debug-help

The one you're maybe looking for are GST_REFCOUNTING, which will show
you all the refcounting going on on gstreamer objects (including buffers
and events). You basically want to see the refcount going back down to
0, causing the buffer to be released.
If you're creating your own buffers, don't forget to set
GST_BUFFER_MALLOCDATA(mybuffer) to the same value as
GST_BUFFER_DATA(mybuffer), else it won't get freed when the buffer is
released.

> 2.) I use dynamic library loading and this seems to mean that both
> memwatch and mtrace are not too useful as I can not get the caller
> fields to be filled with anything other than a hex address which is
> not as helpful as I had hoped. Using valgrind on a mips platform does
> not work either.
>
> I would love to know how others are debugging memory leaks etc when
> using gstreamer on embedded devices. In the mean time finding out how
> to get GST_BUFFER debug to come out would be really helpful.
>
> hope you can help
> Daniel Laird
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are
> powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and
> easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development
> software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging.
> Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com
> _______________________________________________
> gstreamer-devel mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gstreamer-devel

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and
easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development
software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging.
Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com
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Stefan Sauer

Re: Debugging memory allocation

In reply to this post by Daniel Laird

Daniel James Laird schrieb:

> All,
>
> I am having real difficulty debugging memory allocation in my application.
>
> Can anyone help
>
> 1.) How do I enable GST_BUFFER debug to that I can see what is going on
>
> I usually do export GST_DEBUG=XXXX:[1-5] but using GST_BUFFER does not seem to work, I cant find anything in docs etc on how to turn on this debug using env variables.
>
> 2.) I use dynamic library loading and this seems to mean that both memwatch and mtrace are not too useful as I can not get the caller fields to be filled with anything other than a hex address which is not as helpful as I had hoped.
> Using valgrind on a mips platform does not work either.
>
> I would love to know how others are debugging memory leaks etc when using gstreamer on embedded devices. In the mean time finding out how to get GST_BUFFER debug to come out would be really helpful.
>

1) Try to run as many usecases on x86 and use valgrind --tool=memcheck ...
2) try to split use cases on the target and compare memory usage
3) try the arm port of valgrind on the target

Stefan

> hope you can help
> Daniel Laird
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are
> powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and
> easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development
> software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging.
> Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com
> _______________________________________________
> gstreamer-devel mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gstreamer-devel
>