Using am profile trace on system_server

[Naseer]

We have an issue on our board where system_server uses high CPU after
about 3-4 hrs of running monkey. I am trying to debug this by
profiling.

When system_server was not using much CPU I was able to run am profile
trace on it and got a meaningful result in traceview. However, when
system_server is using high CPU, the generated trace file is large
(~8MB) and traceview gives the following type of error -

ThreadData: 'android/os/MessageQueue.pullNextLocked (J)Landroid/os/
Message;' call time (59560) is less than previous time (59581) for
thread '[95] SearchDialog'


Does this mean the trace file I got is useless ? Is there any other
way to find out which thread in system_server is consuming the most
CPU from this trace file ?

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[Atul Raut]

Hi Naseer,

Something I found out see its useful for you or not.

http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/traceview.html

Regards

atul 

[Naseer Ahmed]

Yes, I am attempting to use traceview.

[David Du]

You can make a test program to do this task, just like "Top".

[Dianne Hackborn]

If you have the device sitting there using a lot of CPU, it is a lot easier to use "top -t -m 10" to see what thread is using the time, then attach the debugger and just see what the thread is doing.  This is not a "profile to see why things are slow" situation, but "debug to see who is spinning."

--
Dianne Hackborn
Android framework engineer
hac...@android.com

Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails.  All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them.