How to use ProcDump to collect logs in case of TIBCO Statistica freeze or being unresponsive

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Article ID: KB0078297

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Updated On:

Products Versions
Spotfire Statistica 13.0 and higher

Description

ProcDump (procdump.exe) is a Microsoft Windows Sysinternals tool. It allows you to create dumps of the processes in any scenario that may arise while troubleshooting issues with TIBCO Statistica products.

Please note: When Procdump captures the dump file, it does not kill the running process.

Resolution

To create a dump with ProcDump, do the following:

  1. Download ProcDump from the Windows Sysinternals site here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procdump
  2. Create a folder where dumps will be stored (e.g. C:\Dumps\)
  3. Unzip the archive and put the procdump.exe into the created directory
  4. Open Windows command-line: Hit Start -> Run and type in cmd to open a Command Prompt. We recommend to run Command Prompt with administrative privileges (right-click|run as administrator), otherwise the utility might not find the required process
  5. In Command Prompt, switch to the newly created folder using the cd command:

    cd <path_to_folder> 

    For example cd C:\Dumps and then run the following set of commands:
    a. C:\Dumps>procdump -i and this will install ProcDump as the AeDebug postmortem debugger
    b. Then put this command:C:\Dumps>procdump -e -ma -t -w statist.exe
    c. Open Statistica and reproduce the hang and or crash
    d. Close it and the dump files should be saved in C:\Dumps location

  6. Compress the process dump into a .zip file
  7. Send the dump file to TIBCO Statistica Support

 

To create a dump with ProcDump to caputure a crash of any Statistica service:

Download ProcDump from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procdump  Once downloaded:

1.  Open an admin powershell.

2.  Create a directory:  mkdir c:\dumps  

3.  Start to capture:  procdump64.exe -ma -i c:\dumps

4.  After there are some crashes (in c:\dumps), disable it:  procdump64.exe -u

Follow steps 6 and 7 above.

 

Issue/Introduction

ProcDump is a command-line utility from Microsoft whose primary purpose is monitoring an application for CPU spikes and generating crash dumps during a spike that an administrator or developer can use to determine the cause of the spike. ProcDump also includes hung window monitoring (using the same definition of a window hang that Windows and Task Manager use), unhandled exception monitoring and can generate dumps based on the values of system performance counters. It also can serve as a general process dump utility that you can embed in other scripts.