init.exe: Caught segmentation fault, core dumped - what is the source of this error

Question

On my embedded device, I have this error showing up after kernel boot:

init.exe: Caught segmentation fault, core dumped

But I cannot understand why is this happening? If I do battery cut( i.e. reboot my device foricbly) then the device boots and comes up fine.

Any pointers will be extremely helpful. Is this some transient low level memory issue?

It is linux 2.6.31 on Arm architecture.

Nowhere near enough information. What Unix is this? What type of init is this? What is the device?
Sorry, but there is not nearly enough information to answer this question. There probably is something wrong with your firmware, or with your software (maybe it's not initializing memory properly and picking up some old garbage that's set to a safe bit pattern upon reset), or even with your hardware. Good luck with debugging.

swisscheese · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-29 11:07:58Z

The output mentions it dumped core. Try doing:

gdb -c [corefile]

Then at the (gdb) prompt, do:

(gdb) bt

To get a backtrace. If the binary was not stripped, you might be in luck and at least have something to google for :-)

PS: The core file might be core.PID, where PID was the PID of init.exe when it died.

sc.

1 Answer