Thunderbird:Backtraces On OS X

In order to get backtraces that make sense on OS X you need to have a build with debug symbols built-in, or you need to download symbols for the build you already have. Without a full set of symbols, the debugging tools (gdb/shark) will make incorrect guesses about the relationship between addresses in the binary and the parts of the program that they correspond to.

Option 1: Get a build with symbols

Nightly builds for OS X have the symbols built-in. We build nightlies for both the current stable branch, Thunderbird 3.1.x, as well as the current development branch. It is most useful to developers if you use the development branch (which should actually be more "stable" in terms of crashing, etc. than the older "stable branch"), but do what is comfortable for you:

• Thunderbird 3.1.x (built from the comm-1.9.2 branch): http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-1.9.2/
• Thunderbird trunk (3.3.x, built from the comm-central branch): http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central/

Since you are on OS X, you will want to download the ".mac.dmg" file.

For more information about Thunderbird binaries, see Binaries on MDC

Option 2: Get the symbols for the build you already have

• Download [1]

Invoke the script with the following command, using the real path to Thunderbird.app:

 python fetch-symbols.py /path/to/Thunderbird.app http://symbols.mozilla.org/thunderbird

You can read more about the Mozilla Symbol server and the above mechanism on the |MDC page on the symbol server.

How to use those Symbols!

Pointers to other pages that use the symbols:

• Thunderbird:Testing:Get_A_Debug_Thunderbird_Hang_Stack