On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:06:29 +0800 (GMT-8)
Jonathan Anand Fernandes <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi all-
>
> I haven't used Ethereal for about 2/3 weeks, but I am a bit confused
> by the fact that Ethereal seems to be "hanging". Someone else seemed to
> have had the same problem earlier this month, with the "loading
> etherXXXX" window.
>
> Thinking perhaps that it was some new bug, I upgraded to version
> 15. These are my settings :
> ethereal 0.8.15, with GTK+ 1.2.8, with libpcap 0.4, with libz 1.1.3, with
> UCD SNMP 4.0.1
>
> If I am not mistaken, I think it was Justin McNutt who had some
> "etherXXXX" problems too. (If you managed to fix your problem, please send
> me a mail :-) )
The "etherXXX" file is the temporary file that Ethereal creates when capturing
packets. It gets renamed/copied to the filename that you provide if you actually
save your capture file.
Justin's problem was due to an infinite loop bug in the ICQ dissector. It
was fixed for 0.8.15.
> I find it strange because :
> 1. 3 weeks ago I had no problems with Ethereal hanging
> 2. I am working on a private LAN, when I do 'ping' captures using Ethereal
> there seems to be no problem, however when using "real" data from the main
> school network, Ethereal hangs. (I am not sure how relevant this
> observation is)
You probably have some packet time on the LAN which triggers a bug in one
of the dissectors.
> 3. I think it was Justin again who mentioned having saved the etherXXXX
> trace. Would that help ? I could easily make a copy available on the Web,
> however I don't know how to save the etherXXXX file. :-P
>
The etherXXXX file should be in a temporary location, which is system and
possibly user-specific. Look in /tmp or /var/tmp, or in the location
that your environement variable $TMPDIR points to, if it is set.
Once you locate the file, use tethereal to give us an idea of where the
hanging starts:
tethereal -V -r filename
And when it hangs, show us the last portion of the text displayed so that
we can determine the dissector and the approximate location of the
loop.
If tethereal never stops spitting out text, i.e., it continues to print text
inside the loop, then save the output to a file and interrupt it:
tethereal -V -r filename 2>&1 | tee -i out
And then send us the appropriate text.
Please send the info to ethereal-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxx, instead of the
ethereal-users list. Thanks.
--gilbert
