XPe memory dump file mess - please help!

[christian.schindler]

Hello all!

I read everything I found on this NG about dump file, minidump and
pagefile for XPe. It helped a lot but did not solve my dump file
proplem completely.

1.) Added "Save Dump" component
2.) Added "Disk Dump Drivers" component
3.) enabled pagfile (on my HAL, standard PC component) and set size to
16 MB
4.) Set registry for Minidump and Dumpfile in "CrashControl".

Is there something more? Did I miss a crucial point?

Finally I got my dump file, but following problems remain:

The Dumpfile and also the minidump are written to
c:\windows\DUMPxxxx.tmp in spite of the fact the Registry key in
CrashControl for Dumpfile is set to "d:\MEMORY.DMP" and Minidump to
"d:\Minidump"

XPe does not care about these settings - what else shall I do? There is
no EWF active on D:\ or C:\ (I deactivated EWF after first start)

Another thing that really annoys me is the size of the pagefile, if set
lower than 16MB is set to 1.5 times the amount of available RAM.
No matter if I later on set the registry key to e.g. 4 MB.


Thank you very much for your help!
Without this NG and it's contributors I think I'd already given up.
Regards, Chris.

 

[KM]

I read everything I found on this NG about dump file, minidump and

pagefile for XPe. It helped a lot but did not solve my dump file
proplem completely.

1.) Added "Save Dump" component
2.) Added "Disk Dump Drivers" component
3.) enabled pagfile (on my HAL, standard PC component) and set size to 16 MB
4.) Set registry for Minidump and Dumpfile in "CrashControl".

Is there something more? Did I miss a crucial point?

What was the problem if you finally got the dump file?

Finally I got my dump file, but following problems remain:

The Dumpfile and also the minidump are written to
c:\windows\DUMPxxxx.tmp in spite of the fact the Registry key in
CrashControl for Dumpfile is set to "d:\MEMORY.DMP" and Minidump to
"d:\Minidump"

I don't remember that exactly but I seem to have neither been able to create dump file on a non system partition (%SystemRoot%
partition).

MS tip from KB was: "For best performance, the recovery log file should be on the system drive. This prevents the crashdump engine
from copying the file from the system drive, where it is created, to another drive.".

Also, make sure at the bugcheck you've got valid pagefile at least the same size as amount of physical RAM plus 12Mb. The pagefile
must be on the system root partition.

XPe does not care about these settings - what else shall I do? There is
no EWF active on D:\ or C:\ (I deactivated EWF after first start)

Another thing that really annoys me is the size of the pagefile, if set
lower than 16MB is set to 1.5 times the amount of available RAM.
No matter if I later on set the registry key to e.g. 4 MB.

There are limits on the pagefile size. If you set it to less than 16Mb it will switch to default (1.5 times RAM).
Read through this thread:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group...rosoft.public.windowsxp.embedded&q=pagefile+s
ize%26qt_g%3D1%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#a7e301fc89589e4b

 

[christian.schindler]

Thanks for answering and for the link, I've already read it.

My dump- file problem is tightly coupled to the pagefile topic.
Since I am not a native speaker it's a little hard for me to express
what I want to achieve with XPe so I try again to make my points more
clear.

1.) I have a Sandisk chipdisk with 2 partitions. I want to create a
dump file on the second partition d:\. It is only possible to get a
dumpfile at all if pagefile is enabled - so I just must misuse the
pagefile for dump file creation. Ok, I have to go with this feature.

2.) I have or better should have EWF on partition c:\ which leads to
the problem that the pagefile should not be created on c:\ but on d:\
which is free for write acesses. It is written in this newsgroup
somewhere that it is not wise to use pagefiel on EWF protected
partitions - although it should be possible - where I am not sure if
pagefile bypasses EWF or uses Ram ovelay instead.

3.) I do not have enough space for pagefile on system partition c:\ -
I only have about 20MB left and I use 256MB of Ram so it's impossible
to make the pagefile the same size or even 1.5 times the ram size.

4.) In TD I can choose the size of pagefile from 2MB upwards - but
unless it's not at least 16MB it's igored - why is there written in TD
info that I can enter a size of at least 2 MB when all values up to
16MB are ignored?! BTW: I would only use pagefile for minidump which
has the size of 64KB so the smaller the pagefile the better.

5.) I set the registry keys for pagefile location and dumpfile location
but they are ignored! When I do it on XPp it works I can have pagefile
and Minidumps on Drive E:\ as well if I like.

This topic is quite strange I have to deal with my own lack of
knowledge, undocumented feaures of XPe and XPe bugs at the same time -
which leads to a huge amount of possible reasons for failure ;-)
So this NG is a very good help not to get insane on XPe. Thanks for
help once again!

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for answering and for the link, I've already read it.

My dump- file problem is tightly coupled to the pagefile topic.
Since I am not a native speaker it's a little hard for me to express
what I want to achieve with XPe so I try again to make my points more
clear.

1.) I have a Sandisk chipdisk with 2 partitions. I want to create a
dump file on the second partition d:\. It is only possible to get a
dumpfile at all if pagefile is enabled - so I just must misuse the
pagefile for dump file creation. Ok, I have to go with this feature.

2.) I have or better should have EWF on partition c:\ which leads to
the problem that the pagefile should not be created on c:\ but on d:\
which is free for write acesses. It is written in this newsgroup
somewhere that it is not wise to use pagefiel on EWF protected
partitions - although it should be possible - where I am not sure if
pagefile bypasses EWF or uses Ram ovelay instead.

Yes. Konstantin and I duscussed this problem. Altohugh pagefile write appears that are going trough EWF they are actually discarded,
and they are not going neither to disk or RAM. (We never concluded this trough debugger so far :-( )

3.) I do not have enough space for pagefile on system partition c:\ -
I only have about 20MB left and I use 256MB of Ram so it's impossible
to make the pagefile the same size or even 1.5 times the ram size.

What SP do you use?

4.) In TD I can choose the size of pagefile from 2MB upwards - but
unless it's not at least 16MB it's igored - why is there written in TD
info that I can enter a size of at least 2 MB when all values up to
16MB are ignored?! BTW: I would only use pagefile for minidump which
has the size of 64KB so the smaller the pagefile the better.

5.) I set the registry keys for pagefile location and dumpfile location
but they are ignored! When I do it on XPp it works I can have pagefile
and Minidumps on Drive E:\ as well if I like.

You should be able to move them in XPe also. I have no idea why it is not working for you :-(
http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/community/community/tips/xp/renamert/default.aspx

This topic is quite strange I have to deal with my own lack of
knowledge, undocumented feaures of XPe and XPe bugs at the same time -
which leads to a huge amount of possible reasons for failure ;-)
So this NG is a very good help not to get insane on XPe. Thanks for
help once again!

Yes it is good to know that you are not the only one with problems

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[KM]

Christian,

Actually I understood you at first place but your latest problem description is good anyway.

All I remember about the pagefile is that there is a minimum limit (I thought it is 16Mb) that you will have regardless of the
settings.
I guess when the pagefile concept was created (back to NT times) they never thought of embedded applications of the OS.
The point is that you will have to leave with that limit. It is XP Pro problem, not XPe specific.

Regarding the moving the minidump file to another partition. I did not spend enough time on it but I recall having similar problems
on XPe minlogon-based image. But I could do that with XP Pro and that left me a hope that it is doable (fixable) on XPe as well.
Unfortunately, I don't have enough time now to help you with this. If you figure out the source of the problem, let us know. Any
information is always appreciated here.

Regards,
KM

 

[christian.schindler]

Hi Slobodan!

What SP do you use?

SP1 for now, my XPe was shipped with SP1 and I never had to update it
yet - I almost belive in the credo "never change a running system" at
least for XPe since we use some very customized drivers and some
hardware near code I am not sure what sideeffects an update will have
and how many weeks of tracing them it will take - I have some bad
experience about that ;-)

Regards, Chris.

 

[christian.schindler]

Hi!

Fortunately this mindump is not life threatening for our project it
just would have been nice to have and since I don't have the time to
dig deeper on this topic at the moment and the fact that pagefile is
crucial for mindump which makes this solution a little less attractive
for use with CF or Chipdisk I have to postpone my tests for a while.
But if I get some solution I will post it, of course.
Regards, Chris.

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Chris,

If you need this for test purposes on your facilities then you use remote debugger to get these data.
If you need it for customer machine then this is another story.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[christian.schindler]

Hi Slobodan!

The idea was to have it on the customer machine. If it would have
chrashed with a BSOD (although this option is almost impossible, of
course;-)), with the minidump we'd the chance to get some more details
about it. But since pagefile is needed - it's not such a good idea.
Regards, Chris.

 

[KM]

Chris,

If the issue is still active...

I forgot to mention "Primitive: Dbghelp" component that you need in your image.

 

[christian.schindler]

Thanks, I'll try it out and pray that something will change!
Regards, Chris.

 

[christian.schindler]

Hi!
That did not help - but anyway thanks and a Happy New Year!

Chris.