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Introduction
When we refer to a "system crash", we mean a situation where the system has detected an unrecoverable error, and has restarted itself.
The errors that cause crashes are typically detected by processor hardware, which automatically branches to special error handling code in the ROM monitor. The ROM monitor identifies the error, prints a message, saves information about the failure, and restarts the system.
Prerequisites
Requirements
There are no specific requirements for this document.
Components Used
This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions.
The information in this document was created from the devices in a specific lab environment. All of the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. If your network is live, make sure that you understand the potential impact of any command.
Conventions
For more information on document conventions, see the Cisco Technical Tips Conventions.
Getting Information About the Crash
When the router crashes, it is extremely important to gather as much information as possible about the crash before you manually reload or power-cycle the router. All information about the crash, except that which has been successfully stored in the crashinfo file, is lost after a manual reload or power-cycle. The following outputs give some indication and information on the crash.
If you have the output of a show version, show stacks, show context, or show tech support command from your Cisco device, you can use to display potential issues and fixes. To use , you must be a registered customer, be logged in, and have JavaScript enabled.
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Command |
Description |
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show version |
This command first appeared in Cisco IOS® Software Release10.0. The show version EXEC command displays the configuration of the system hardware, the software version, the names and sources of configuration files and software images, the router uptime, and information on how the system has been restarted. IMPORTANT: If the router is reloaded after the crash (for example, if it has been power-cycled or the reload command has been issued), this information will be lost, so try to collect it before reloading! |
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show stacks |
This command first appeared in Cisco IOS Software Release 10.0. The show stacks EXEC command is used to monitor the stack usage of processes and interrupt routines. The show stacks output is one of the most indispensable sources of information to collect when the router crashes. IMPORTANT: If the router is reloaded after the crash (for example, through power-cycle or the reload command), this information will be lost so try to collect it before reloading! |
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show context |
This command first appeared in Cisco IOS Software Release 10.3. The show context EXEC command is used to display information stored in nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) when an exception occurs. Context information is specific to processors and architectures, whereas software version and uptime information are not. Context information for different router types could therefore differ. The output displayed from the show context command includes:
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show tech-support |
This command first appeared in Cisco IOS Software Release 11.2. This command is useful in collecting general information about the router when you report a problem. It includes:
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console log |
If you are connected to the console of the router at the time of the crash, you will see something like this during the crash: *** System received a Software forced crash *** signal= 0x17, code= 0x24, context= 0x619978a0 PC = 0x602e59dc, Cause = 0x4020, Status Reg = 0x34008002 DCL Masked Interrupt Register = 0x000000f7 DCL Interrupt Value Register = 0x00000010 MEMD Int 6 Status Register = 0x00000000 Keep this information and the logs before it. Once the router comes up again, do not forget to get the show stacks output. |
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If the router is set up to send logs to a syslog server, you will see some information on what happened before the crash on the syslog server. However, when the router is crashing, it may not be able to send the most useful information to this syslog server. So most of the time, syslog output is not very useful for troubleshooting crashes. |
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The crashinfo file is a collection of useful information related to the current crash, stored in bootflash or flash memory. When a router crashes due to data or stack corruption, more reload information is needed to debug this type of crash than just the output from the normal show stacks command. The crashinfo is written by default to bootflash:crashinfo on the Cisco 12000 Gigabit Router Processor (GRP), the Cisco 7000 and 7500 Route Switch Processors (RSPs), and the Cisco 7200 series routers. For the Cisco 7500 Versatile Interface Processor 2 (VIP2), this file is stored by default to bootflash:vip2_slot_no_crashinfo where the slot_no is the VIP2 slot number. For the Cisco 7000 Route Processor (RP), the file is stored by default to flash:crashinfo. For more details, see Retrieving Information from the Crashinfo File. |
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core dump |
A core dump is a full copy of the router's memory image. This information is not necessary for troubleshooting most types of crashes, but it is highly recommended when filing a new bug. You may need to enable some debugs to add more information into the core dump such as debug sanity, scheduler heapcheck process, and memory check-interval 1. For more details, see Creating Core Dumps. |
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rom monitor |
The router might end up in ROM monitor after a crash when its config-register setting ends with 0. If the processor is a 68k, the prompt will be ">". You can get the stack trace with the k command. If the processor is a reduced instruction set computing (RISC), the prompt will be "rommon 1>". Get the output of stack 50 or show context. |
Types of Crashes
The show version and show stacks commands provide you with output that gives you an indication of the type of the crash that occurred, such as bus error, or software forced crash. You can also get crash type information from the crashinfo and show context commands. For some later Cisco IOS Software versions, the crash reasons are not clearly indicated (for example, you see "Signal = x" where x is a number). Refer to Versatile Interface Processor Crash Reason Codes to translate this number into something meaningful. For example, "Signal = 23" translates to a software forced crash. Follow these links to troubleshoot the specific type of crash your router is experiencing:
Router Module Crashes
Sometimes, only a specific router module crashes, and not the router itself. Here are some documents that describe how to troubleshoot crashes on some router modules:
Examples of Output which Indicate the Crash
Router#show version Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software IOS (tm) RSP Software (RSP-PV-M), Version 12.0(10.6)ST, EARLY DEPLOYMENT MAINTENANCE INTERIM SOFTWARE Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc. Compiled Fri 23-Jun-00 16:02 by richv Image text-base: 0x60010908, data-base: 0x60D96000 ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 12.0(19990806:174725), DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE BOOTFLASH: RSP Software (RSP-BOOT-M), Version 12.0(9)S, EARLY DEPLOYMENT RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1) Router uptime is 20 hours, 56 minutes System returned to ROM by error - a Software forced crash, PC 0x60287EE8 System image file is "slot0:rsp-pv-mz.120-10.6.ST" cisco RSP8 (R7000) processor with 131072K/8216K bytes of memory. R7000 CPU at 250Mhz, Implementation 39, Rev 1.0, 256KB L2, 2048KB L3 Cache Last reset from power-on G.703/E1 software, Version 1.0. G.703/JT2 software, Version 1.0. X.25 software, Version 3.0.0. Chassis Interface. 1 EIP controller (6 Ethernet). 1 VIP2 R5K controller (1 FastEthernet)(2 HSSI). 6 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s) 1 FastEthernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s) 2 HSSI network interface(s) 2043K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory. 20480K bytes of Flash PCMCIA card at slot 0 (Sector size 128K). 16384K bytes of Flash internal SIMM (Sector size 256K). No slave installed in slot 7. Configuration register is 0x2102 Router#show stacks Minimum process stacks: Free/Size Name 5188/6000 CEF Reloader 9620/12000 Init 5296/6000 RADIUS INITCONFIG 5724/6000 MDFS Reload 2460/3000 RSP memory size check 8176/9000 DHCP Client Interrupt level stacks: Level Called Unused/Size Name 1 163 8504/9000 Network Interrupt 2 14641 8172/9000 Network Status Interrupt 3 0 9000/9000 OIR interrupt 4 0 9000/9000 PCMCIA Interrupt 5 5849 8600/9000 Console Uart 6 0 9000/9000 Error Interrupt 7 396230 8604/9000 NMI Interrupt Handler System was restarted by error - a Software forced crash, PC 0x602DE884 at 05:07:31 UTC Thu Sep 16 1999 RSP Software (RSP-JSV-M), Version 12.0(7)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2) Compiled Mon 06-Dec-99 19:40 by phanguye Image text-base: 0x60010908, database: 0x61356000 Stack trace from system failure: FP: 0x61F73C30, RA: 0x602DE884 FP: 0x61F73C30, RA: 0x6030D29C FP: 0x61F73D88, RA: 0x6025E96C FP: 0x61F73DD0, RA: 0x6026A954 FP: 0x61F73E30, RA: 0x602B94BC FP: 0x61F73E48, RA: 0x602B94A8
When a crashinfo is available in bootflash, the following is displayed at the end of the show stacks command:
***************************************************
******* Information of Last System Crash **********
***************************************************
Using bootflash:crashinfo_20000323-061850. 2000
CMD: 'sh int fas' 03:23:41 UTC Thu Mar 2 2000
CMD: 'sh int fastEthernet 6/0/0' 03:23:44 UTC Thu Mar 2 2000
CMD: 'conf t' 03:23:56 UTC Thu Mar 2 2000
CMD: 'no ip cef di' 03:23:58 UTC Thu Mar 2 2000
CMD: 'no ip cef distributed ' 03:23:58 UTC Thu Mar 2 2000
...
Router#show context
System was restarted by error - a Software forced crash, PC 0x602DE884 at
05:07:31 UTC Thu Sep 16 1999
RSP Software (RSP-JSV-M), Version 12.0(7)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Compiled Mon 06-DEC-99 19:40 by phanguye
Image text-base: 0x60010908, database: 0x61356000
Stack trace from system failure:
FP: 0x61F73C30, RA: 0x602DE884
FP: 0x61F73C30, RA: 0x6030D29C
FP: 0x61F73D88, RA: 0x6025E96C
FP: 0x61F73DD0, RA: 0x6026A954
FP: 0x61F73E30, RA: 0x602B94BC
FP: 0x61F73E48, RA: 0x602B94A8
Fault History Buffer:
RSP Software (RSP-JSV-M), Version 12.0(7)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Compiled Mon 06-DEC-99 19:40 by phanguye
Signal = 23, Code = 0x24, Uptime 3w0d
$0 : 00000000, AT : 619A0000, v0 : 61990000, v1 : 00000032
a0 : 6026A114, a1 : 61A309A4, a2 : 00000000, a3 : 00000000
t0 : 61F6CD80, t1 : 8000FD88, t2 : 34008700, t3 : FFFF00FF
t4 : 00000083, t5 : 3E840024, t6 : 00000000, t7 : 00000000
s0 : 0000003C, s1 : 00000036, s2 : 00000000, s3 : 61F73C48
s4 : 00000000, s5 : 61993A10, s6 : 61982D00, s7 : 61820000
t8 : 0000327A, t9 : 00000000, k0 : 61E48C4C, k1 : 602E7748
gp : 6186F3A0, sp : 61F73C30, s8 : 00000000, ra : 6030D29C
EPC : 602DE884, SREG : 3400E703, Cause : 00000024
Error EPC : BFC00000, BadVaddr : 40231FFE
Information to Collect if You Open a TAC Service Request
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If you still need assistance after following the troubleshooting steps above, and want to open a service request with the Cisco TAC, be sure to include the following information for troubleshooting a router crash: |
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Please attach the collected data to your service request in non-zipped, plain text format (.txt). You can attach information to your service request by uploading it using the TAC Service Request tool (registered customers only) . If you cannot access the Service Request tool, you can attach the relevant information to your service request by sending it to attach@cisco.com with your case number in the subject line of your message. Note: Please do not manually reload or power-cycle the router before collecting the above information unless required to troubleshoot a router crash, as this can cause important information to be lost that is needed for determining the root cause of the problem. |
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Related Information
- Less Common Types of System Crashes
- Troubleshooting Router Hangs
- Hardware Troubleshooting Index Page
- Technical Support - Cisco Systems
| Updated: Nov 28, 2006 | Document ID: 7900 |