Best Practices: Resolve
Intel® VTune™
Profiler BSODs, Crashes, and Hangs in Windows* OS
Intel® VTune™
BSODs, Crashes, and Hangs in Windows* OS Profiler
Scenario
When you use
Intel® VTune™
to profile target applications on Windows systems, if you experience problems with an unresponsive UI or tool crashes, the following suggestions can help you get better clarity on the root causes. Verify if one of these scenarios apply to your environment. If you need further assistance,
contact us to get help.
Profiler
BSOD from Incompatible
Intel® VTune™
Profiler Driver or Windows Update
BSOD from Incompatible
Intel® VTune™
Driver or Windows Update Profiler
What is happening?
Intel® VTune™
runs well on a Windows system. After an update to the OS,
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
crashes for certain analysis types, while others are unavailable.
Profiler
Why is it happening?
Sometimes, the latest version of
Intel® VTune™
may be one update behind the latest version of Windows OS. The changes contained in the Windows update can then cause an incompatibility with VTune Profiler drivers, particularly with the stack sampling driver for hardware-event based sampling (HEBS) collections. Ideally, you should upgrade to the latest version of
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
after every time you update Windows OS. This ensures that all relevant drivers are installed.
Profiler
When you install
Intel® VTune™
on an unsupported version of Windows, the installer does not install incompatible drivers. This disables HEBS and stack collection. However, you may still be able to run hotspots or threading analyses that use user-mode sampling. If you proceed to upgrade Windows to a newer, unsupported version, the user-mode sampling collections attempt to use unavailable drivers and cause
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
to crash.
Profiler
Every time you upgrade to the latest version of Windows OS, uninstall your existing version of
Intel® VTune™
and install the latest available version.
Profiler
BSOD from Driver Conflict
BSOD from Driver Conflict
What is happening?
A BSOD occurs due to a driver conflict that affects
Intel® VTune™
drivers.
Profiler
Why is it happening?
Sometimes, there can be a conflict between
Intel® VTune™
drivers and graphics or third-party drivers. This can likely happen if the
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
drivers are out of date.
Profiler
Update all
Intel® VTune™
drivers by installing the latest available version.
Profiler
VTune Profiler UI turns Unresponsive or 'Hangs'
VTune Profiler UI turns Unresponsive or 'Hangs'
What is happening?
During symbol resolution stage,
Intel® VTune™
stalls or hangs without any response.
Profiler
Why is it happening?
Several reasons can cause
Intel® VTune™
to hang during the collection and finalization phase.
Profiler
PDB File Retrieval
When symbol resolution happens in the finalization process,
Intel® VTune™
may have to retrieve and process large
Profiler
.pdb
files. If used within Microsoft Visual Studio,
Intel® VTune™
uses the Visual Studio settings to find symbol files and any additional paths provided in
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
settings. However, if
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
uses a symbol server, the resolution waits on updates and therefore slows down. Depending on the size of the
Profiler
.pdb
files, this may cause
Intel® VTune™
to stall or hang.
Profiler
If your analysis requires symbols for system libraries, use a local cache (like the location defined in Visual Studio) instead of a symbol server. Also, remove large
.pdb
files from the symbol location you provide to
Intel® VTune™
if these files are not required for your analysis.
Profiler
Synchronization with other Processes
Certain processes like virus scanners or synchronization/back-up utilities can interfere with data collection and finalization in
Intel® VTune™
. Virus scanners can cause problems in the process that
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
uses for software-based analysis types, such as threading. Some synchronization utilities can cause finalization to fail if the backup happens as
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
is processing it.
Profiler
Exclude the
pin.exe
process from your virus scanning software or disable the scan when running a
Intel® VTune™
collection. Also, pause synchronization and/or back-up utilities until
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
finalization is complete.
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
Profiler Crashes during a Collection
Intel® VTune™
Crashes during a Collection Profiler
What is happening?
Intel® VTune™
crashes in the middle of a collection operation.
Profiler
Why is it happening?
A crash can happen if
Intel® VTune™
attempts to instrument or attach to a privileged process or service.
Profiler
Run
Intel® VTune™
as an administrator. You can then profile processes with elevated privileges. You can also configure
Profiler
Intel® VTune™
to profile specific modules. See the
Profiler
Advanced
section in the WHAT pane for this purpose.
Other Techniques to Enable Data Collection
Other Techniques to Enable Data Collection
What is happening?
Intel® VTune™
does not perform data collection in some specific situations.
Profiler
Why is it happening?
Certain specific actions can cause data collection to fail. See if one of these suggestions helps to resolve your issue.
Problem
| Suggestion
|
---|---|
User-mode sampling for Threading analysis is too slow or creates too much overhead.
| Run Threading analysis with Hardware-Event Based Sampling (HEBS) and context switches enabled. This provides the context switch data necessary to understand thread behavior.
|
Hotspots analysis is unavailable with HEBS and stack collection enabled.
| Disable stack collection. To correlate hotspots with stacks, run a separate hotspots analysis with user-mode sampling enabled.
|
Intel® VTune™
hangs or crashes when attaching to a running process.
Profiler | Run
Intel® VTune™
with the application in paused state. Resume data collection when the application gets to an area of interest.
Profiler |
Data collection crashes when using the Instrumentation and Tracing Technology (ITT) API.
| Create a
custom analysis. Disable the checkbox to analyze user tasks, events, and counters. Identify if the API is causing the crash.
|
Get Help
The suggestions described in this topic can help resolve several crashes or stalls. If you are still facing issues, contact us so we may better assist you.
- Contact Customer Support.
- Discuss in the Analyzers developer forum.
- See if the issue has been addressed in theIntel® VTune™release notes.Profiler