crash log interpretation - where to start

[aaike]

I'd like to get a better understanding of the crash log's (in 10.3.2) but I don't know how / where to start looking.

The help centre isn't of much help here... It says st. like 'It's possible you dont understand the log... but a technician will' ;-)

Anyone experience with this?

 

[Captain Code]

Most of the time the crash log displays data about memory variables and which functions in the program crashed it and where. You'll have to know some programming to fully understand what it means.

Ex:

*** malloc[527]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0xbfffea40; This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an allocated block;

That means the program is trying to delete memory in a way it shouldn't.
0xbfffea40 is the position the pointer is pointing to in physical memory(RAM).

 

[aaike]

In crash logs I also see 'Application Enhancer' show up quite often, but according to the info on Unsanity's website this doesn't necessarily mean that AE caused the crash, how can I see if it did or not?

 

[Arden]

Well, what does it say AE did?

I had a problem with using an older version of Application Switcher Menu (which utilizes AE) with Panther, causing my Dock to crash and restart constantly. The solution was to update ASM. You should try the same with AE.