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<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2003</year><year>2011</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
      The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
      Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
      compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
      Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
      retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.
    
      Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
      basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
      the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
      under the License.
    
    </legalnotice>

    <title>Crashdump Viewer</title>
    <prepared></prepared>
    <docno></docno>
    <date></date>
    <rev></rev>
    <file>crashdump_ug.xml</file>
  </header>

  <section>
    <title>Introduction</title>
    <p>The Crashdump Viewer is an HTML based tool for browsing Erlang
      crashdumps. Crashdump Viewer runs under the WebTool application.
      </p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Getting Started</title>

    <p>The easiest way to start Crashdump Viewer is to use the
    provided shell script named <c>cdv</c> with the full path to the
    erlang crashdump as an argument. The script can be found in the
    priv directory of the <c>observer</c> application. This starts
    WebTool, Crashdump Viewer and a web browser, and loads the given
    file. The browser should then display a page named General
    Information which shows a short summary of the information in
    the crashdump.</p>

    <p>The default browser is Internet Explorer on Windows or else
    Firefox. To use another browser, give the browser's start command
    as the second argument to <c>cdv</c>. If the given browser name is
    not known to Crashdump Viewer, the browser argument is executed as
    a command with the start URL as the only argument.</p>

    <p>Under Windows the batch file <c>cdv.bat</c> can be used.</p>

    <p>It is also possible to start the Crashdump Viewer from within
    an erlang node by calling <seealso
    marker="crashdump_viewer#start/0">crashdump_viewer:start/0</seealso>. This
    will automatically start WebTool and display the web address where
    WebTool can be found. See the documentation for the WebTool
    application for further information about how to use WebTool.</p>

    <p>Point your web browser to the address displayed, and you should
      now see the start page of WebTool. At the top of the page, you
      will see a link to "CrashDumpViewer". Click this link to get to
      the start page for Crashdump Viewer. (Note that if webtool is on
      localhost, you must configure your web browser to have direct
      connection to the internet, or you must set no proxy for
      localhost.)
      </p>
    <p>From the start page of Crashdump Viewer, push the "Load
      Crashdump" button to load a crashdump into the tool. Then enter
      the filename of the crashdump in the entry field and push the
      "Ok" button. This will bring you to the General Information
      page, i.e. the same page as the <c>cdv</c> script will open in
      the browser.
      </p>
    <p>Crashdumps generated by OTP R9C and later are loaded directly
      into the Crashdump Viewer, while dumps from earlier releases first
      are translated by the Crashdump Translater. The Crashdump
      Translater creates a new file with the same name as the original
      crashdump, but with the extension <c>.translated</c>. If there is
      no write access to the directory of the original file, you will be
      asked to enter a new path and filename for the translated file.
      </p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Navigating</title>
    <p>The lefthand frame contains a menu. Menu folders can be
      expanded and collapsed by clicking the folder picture. When a menu
      item is clicked, the item information is shown in the big
      information frame. 
      </p>
    <p>The filename frame above the information frame shows the full
      name of the currently viewed Erlang crashdump.
      </p>
    <p>To load a new crashdump, click the "Load New Crashdump" button
      in the menu frame.
      </p>
    <p>The various information shown in the information frame will
      contain links to process identifiers (PIDs) and port
      identifiers. Clicking one of these links will take you to the
      detailed information page for the process or port in question. Use
      the "Back" button in your browser to get back to the
      startingpoint. If the process or port resided on a remote node,
      there will be no information available. Clicking the link will
      then take you to the information about the remote node.
      </p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Help</title>
    <p>Further help on how to use the Crashdump Viewer tool can be
      found in the tool's menu under 'Documentation':
      </p>
    <p>'Crashdump Viewer help' is a short document describing each
      information page and any additional information that might occur,
      compared to the raw dump described in 'How to interpret Erlang
      crashdumps'.
      </p>
    <p>'How to interpret Erlang crashdumps' is a document from the
      Erlang runtime system describing details in the raw
      crashdumps. Here you will also find information about each single
      field in the different information pages. This document can also
      be found directly in the OTP online documentation, via the Erlang
      runtime system user's guide.
      </p>
  </section>
</chapter>

