如何分析JVM崩溃时生成的大型核心转储

Question

My web application using Java one day crashed and generated a large core dump (5.5GB). I tried to use IBM Thread and Monitor Dump Analyzer for Java to analyze this core dump, but while reading the core dump, the console said:

Exception in thread "Thread-0" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Requested array size exceeds VM limit
at java.util.Arrays.copyOf(Arrays.java:3332)
at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.expandCapacity(AbstractStringBuilder.java:137)
at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.ensureCapacityInternal(AbstractStringBuilder.java:121)
at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.append(AbstractStringBuilder.java:569)
at java.lang.StringBuffer.append(StringBuffer.java:369)
at java.io.BufferedReader.readLine(BufferedReader.java:370)
at java.io.BufferedReader.readLine(BufferedReader.java:389)
at com.ibm.jinwoo.thread.FileTask.processThreadDump(FileTask.java:1858)
at com.ibm.jinwoo.thread.FileTask$ActualTask.<init>(FileTask.java:215)
at com.ibm.jinwoo.thread.FileTask$1.construct(FileTask.java:1368)
at com.ibm.jinwoo.thread.ThreadHandler$1.run(ThreadHandler.java:31)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

It seems that the core file is too large to analyze with this tool. Increasing the heap size with the option -Xmx10g did not work.

What tool can be used to analyze such large core file?

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Updated 2016-08-17 13:07: I tried to use Eclipse MAT tool but I encountered an following error when I tried to read the dump file.

Error opening heap dump 'jvm-core.13074'. Check the error log for further details.
Error opening heap dump 'jvm-core.13074'. Check the error log for further details.
Not a HPROF heap dump (java.io.IOException)
Not a HPROF heap dump

Do I need to do kind of pre-processing or something to make the dump file readable to Eclipse MAT tool?

Answer 1

I had great success with Eclipse MAT tool . You can also tweak its heap by changing .ini file in its installation folder as you would do in Eclipse. But make sure you have enough RAM available on your PC before loading a heap dump.

Answer 2

It seems that this core file is not for Java-related tools like Eclipse MAT tool or IBM Thread and Monitor Dump Analyzer for Java. The tools for the core file are gdb or pmap , pstack . I thought I can debug why application crashes JVM, but the core file seems to have little information about application-level things.