Strange sigsegv while calling java code from c++ through jni

Question

Following code is pretty boiler plate code that runs fine as is, but when run in gdb crashes. As such I won't care about that, but this is reduced version of my bigger program which also crashes with or without gdb. Any help on what I'm doing wrong here would be tremendously appreciated.

It crashes in in the very last call to JVM "jobject hbase_configuration = env->CallStaticObjectMethod(cls, create_mid);"

I have tried calling HBaseConfiguration.Create many times through JNI through different things, and in all cases it crashes. The stack trace on gdb does not seem very helpful, I Can't get any symbols out of it, despite having compiled with -g.

#include <string>
#include <glog/logging.h>
#include <jni.h>
// (edit - this was hidden in the original post).

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
  JavaVM *jvm;
  JNIEnv *env;
  JavaVMInitArgs vm_args;
  JavaVMOption options[5];

  vm_args.nOptions = 5;
  vm_args.version = JNI_VERSION_1_6;
  vm_args.options = options;
  vm_args.ignoreUnrecognized = 1;


  JNI_GetDefaultJavaVMInitArgs(&vm_args);

  options[0].optionString = "-Djava.class.path=hbase-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:activation-1.1.jar:asm-3.1.jar:avro-1.7.1.cloudera.2.jar:commons-beanutils-1.7.0.jar:commons-beanutils-core-1.8.0.jar:commons-cli-1.2.jar:commons-codec-1.4.jar:commons-collections-3.2.1.jar:commons-configuration-1.6.jar:commons-daemon-1.0.3.jar:commons-digester-1.8.jar:commons-el-1.0.jar:commons-httpclient-3.1.jar:commons-io-2.1.jar:commons-lang-2.5.jar:commons-logging-1.1.1.jar:commons-math-2.1.jar:commons-net-3.1.jar:ftplet-api-1.0.0.jar:ftpserver-core-1.0.0.jar:ftpserver-deprecated-1.0.0-M2.jar:guava-11.0.2.jar:hadoop-annotations-2.0.0-cdh4.1.1.jar:hadoop-auth-2.0.0-cdh4.1.1.jar:hadoop-common-2.0.2-alpha.jar:hadoop-common-2.0.2-alpha-tests.jar:hadoop-hdfs-2.0.0-cdh4.1.1.jar:hadoop-test-2.0.0-mr1-cdh4.1.1.jar:hbase-0.92.1-cdh4.1.0.jar:hbase-0.92.1-cdh4.1.0-sources.jar:hbase-0.92.1-cdh4.1.0-tests.jar:high-scale-lib-1.1.1.jar:hsqldb-1.8.0.10.jar:jaxb-api-2.1.jar:jaxb-impl-2.2.3-1.jar:jersey-core-1.8.jar:jersey-json-1.8.jar:jersey-server-1.8.jar:jets3t-0.6.1.jar:jline-0.9.94.jar:jsch-0.1.42.jar:jsp-api-2.1.jar:jsr305-1.3.9.jar:junit-4.10.jar:kfs-0.3.jar:log4j-1.2.17.jar:metrics-core-2.1.2.jar:paranamer-2.3.jar:protobuf-java-2.4.1.jar:servlet-api-2.5.jar:tools.jar";
  options[1].optionString = "-verbose:jni";
  options[2].optionString = "-Xcheck:jni:pedantic,verbose";
  options[3].optionString = "-Xdebug";
  options[4].optionString = "-Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=4242,server=y,suspend=n";
  vm_args.nOptions = 5;
  vm_args.version = JNI_VERSION_1_6;
  vm_args.options = options;
  vm_args.ignoreUnrecognized = 1;


  // Load and initialize a Java VM, return a JNI interface 
  // pointer in env.
  long result = JNI_CreateJavaVM(&jvm, (void **)&env, &vm_args);
  if (result == JNI_ERR) {
    LOG(ERROR) << "Failed to create a JVM";
    return false;
  }

   jclass cls = env->FindClass("org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseConfiguration");
  if (cls == NULL) {
    LOG(ERROR) << " Could not find class org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseConfiguration";
    return false;
  }

  jmethodID create_mid = env->GetStaticMethodID(
      cls, "create", "()Lorg/apache/hadoop/conf/Configuration;");
  if (create_mid == NULL) {
    LOG(ERROR) << "Could not find static method create in HBaseConfiguration";
    return false;
  }

  LOG(INFO) << "Creating conf";
  jobject hbase_configuration = env->CallStaticObjectMethod(cls, create_mid);

  LOG(INFO) << "Created conf";
  return 0;
}

Stack trace looks like:

#0  0x00007ffff134a722 in ?? ()
#1  0x00007ffff12e8410 in ?? ()
#2  0x0000000700000000 in ?? ()
#3  0x00007fffffffd150 in ?? ()
#4  0x00007fffffffd108 in ?? ()
#5  0x000000000060e800 in ?? ()
#6  0x000000077fbcaa30 in ?? ()
#7  0x000000000000001b in ?? ()
#8  0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()

Answer 1

This was indeed what technomage had suggested in the comments. The gdb crash was a red herring because of jvm throwing SIGSEGV which was meant to be handled by jvm.

Once I tell gdb "handle SIGSEGV nostop", it works just fine and I was able to debug my larger program.