On 2007.07.27 23:34:35 +0100, Andrew Doran wrote:
> You need to adjust the max coredump size with ulimit -c. Without looking
> that probably needs to be done in the shell before you start firefox, not
> before gcore.

Oops, how embarrassing.  OK, I've put up a core file at

    http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~bsd/tmp/firefox-bin.core.gz (10MB)

> > Interestingly, running the gcore actually deparked the process and
> > it continued like nothing had happened.
> 
> That's positive in that it suggests there is an undiscovered sync issue in
> the pthread library / kernel. Unfortunatley it also suggests a bug in the
> way gcore works, it shouldn't have visible effects for the process which is
> being dumped. :-)

I've been able to reproduce this several times now.

A more positive spin might be that gcore serves as a workaround
to resume parked processes!

Brian.

-- 
  Brian de Alwis | Software Practices Lab | UBC | http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~bsd/
      "Amusement to an observing mind is study." - Benjamin Disraeli