A.6. What to report
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## A.6. What to report

You may need to include log, configuration or sample files in your bug report. If some of them are quite big then it is better to upload them to our HTTP server in a compressed format (gzip and bzip2 preferred) and include only the path and file name in your bug report. Our mailing lists have a message size limit of 80k, if you have something bigger you have to compress or upload it.

### A.6.1. System Information

- Your Linux distribution or operating system and version e.g.:

  - Red Hat 7.1

  - Slackware 7.0 + devel packs from 7.1 ...

- kernel version:

      uname -a

- libc version:

      ls -l /lib/libc[.-]*

- gcc and ld versions:

      gcc -v
      ld -v

- binutils version:

      as --version

- If you have problems with fullscreen mode:

  - Window manager type and version

- If you have problems with XVIDIX:

  - X colour depth:

        xdpyinfo | grep "depth of root"

- If only the GUI is buggy:

  - GTK version

  - GLIB version

  - GUI situation in which the bug occurs

### A.6.2. Hardware and drivers

- CPU info (this works on Linux only):

      cat /proc/cpuinfo

- Video card manufacturer and model, e.g.:

  - ASUS V3800U chip: nVidia TNT2 Ultra pro 32MB SDRAM

  - Matrox G400 DH 32MB SGRAM

- Video driver type & version, e.g.:

  - X built-in driver

  - nVidia 0.9.623

  - Utah-GLX CVS 2001-02-17

  - DRI from X 4.0.3

- Sound card type & driver, e.g.:

  - Creative SBLive! Gold with OSS driver from oss.creative.com

  - Creative SB16 with kernel OSS drivers

  - GUS PnP with ALSA OSS emulation

- If in doubt include lspci -vv output on Linux systems.

### A.6.3. Configure problems

If you get errors while running ./configure, or autodetection of something fails, read `config.log`. You may find the answer there, for example multiple versions of the same library mixed on your system, or you forgot to install the development package (those with the -dev suffix). If you think there is a bug, include `config.log` in your bug report.

### A.6.4. Compilation problems

Please include these files:

- config.h

- config.mak

### A.6.5. Playback problems

Please include the output of MPlayer at verbosity level 1, but remember to not truncate the output when you paste it into your mail. The developers need all of the messages to properly diagnose a problem. You can direct the output into a file like this:

    mplayer -v options filename > mplayer.log 2>&1

If your problem is specific to one or more files, then please upload the offender(s) to: http://streams.videolan.org/upload/

Also upload a small text file having the same base name as your file with a .txt extension. Describe the problem you are having with the particular file there and include your email address as well as the output of MPlayer at verbosity level 1. Usually the first 1-5 MB of a file are enough to reproduce the problem, but to be sure we ask you to:

    dd if=yourfile of=smallfile bs=1024k count=5

It will take the first five megabytes of 'your-file' and write it to 'small-file'. Then try again on this small file and if the bug still shows up your sample is sufficient for us. Please do not ever send such files via mail! Upload it, and send only the path/filename of the file on the FTP-server. If the file is accessible on the net, then sending the exact URL is sufficient.

### A.6.6. Crashes

You have to run MPlayer inside gdb and send us the complete output or if you have a `core` dump of the crash you can extract useful information from the Core file. Here's how:

#### A.6.6.1. How to conserve information about a reproducible crash

Recompile MPlayer with debugging code enabled:

    ./configure --enable-debug=3
    make

and then run MPlayer within gdb using:

    gdb ./mplayer

You are now within gdb. Type:

    run -v options-to-mplayer filename

and reproduce your crash. As soon as you did it, gdb will return you to the command line prompt where you have to enter

    bt
    disass $pc-32,$pc+32
    info all-registers

With older gdb versions, use disass $pc-32 $pc+32.

#### A.6.6.2. How to extract meaningful information from a core dump

Create the following command file:

    bt
    disass $pc-32,$pc+32
    info all-registers

Then simply execute this command:

    gdb mplayer --core=core -batch --command=command_file > mplayer.bug

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