Книга: Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Exam Preparation Kit

Troubleshooting Thread Synchronization Issues

Troubleshooting Thread Synchronization Issues

Multithreaded programming enables you to structure your software solutions based on separate code execution units for user interface interaction and background tasks. It is an advanced development technique that requires careful implementation of thread synchronization mechanisms. Deadlocks can happen, especially when using multiple synchronization objects in loops and subroutines. For example, thread One owns mutex A and waits for mutex B before releasing A, while thread Two waits for mutex A before releasing mutex B. Neither thread can continue in this situation because each depends on a resource being released by the other. These situations are hard to locate and troubleshoot, particularly when threads from multiple processes are accessing shared resources. The Remote Kernel Tracker tool identifies how threads are scheduled on the system and enables you to locate deadlocks.

The Remote Kernel Tracker tool enables you to monitor all processes, threads, thread interactions, and other system activities on a target device. This tool relies on the CeLog event-tracking system to log kernel and other system events in a file named Celog.clg in the %_FLATRELEASEDIR% directory. System events are classified by zone. The CeLog event-tracking system can be configured to focus on a specific zone for data logging.

If you have Kernel Independent Transport Layer (KITL) enabled on the target device, the Remote Kernel Tracker visualizes the CeLog data and analyzes the interactions between threads and processes. This is illustrated in Figure 3-4. While KITL sends the data directly to the Remote Kernel Tracker tool, it is also possible to analyze collected data offline.

Figure 3-4 The Remote Kernel Tracker tool

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