iPhone (SIGBUS) Issue

Chris Danielson — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:08:57 +0000

If you’ve ever done any iPhone development, you’ve probably had an accident with the (nonatomic, retain) methods. These methods are difficult to use in the case where you’re working with multiple threads. Our application does not do this, but we do utilize the OpenGL ES 1.1 framework. Have a look at the following console log from the other night when my brother was beta testing our application with some friends at a bar.

View Code IPHONE_CONSOLE_LOG

Process:         myExampleApp [800]
Path:            /var/mobile/Applications/5D234CF0-1234-4E2F-9A7F-14175F39A0B6/myExampleApp.app/myExampleApp
Identifier:      myExampleApp
Version:         ??? (???)
Code Type:       ARM (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [1]
 
Date/Time:       2009-07-19 23:20:40.285 -0700
OS Version:      iPhone OS 3.0 (7A341)
Report Version:  104
 
Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x00000008
Crashed Thread:  0
 
Thread 0 Crashed:
0   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x30011940 objc_msgSend + 20
1   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x3001313c objc_setProperty + 160
2   myExampleApp                          0x000126e6 -[GameUIView setBasicObj:] (GameUIView.m:36)
3   myExampleApp                          0x0000f694 -[GameUIView setupView] (GameUIView.m:404)
4   myExampleApp                          0x0000ec42 -[GameUIView start] (GameUIView.m:173)
5   myExampleApp                          0x00002816 -[CoreViewController playGame] (CoreViewController.m:79)
6   myExampleApp                          0x00005e80 -[SplashGLUIView touchesEnded:withEvent:] (SplashGLUIView.m:606)
7   UIKit                             0x309a60d4 -[UIWindow _sendTouchesForEvent:] + 520
8   UIKit                             0x309a5464 -[UIWindow sendEvent:] + 108
9   UIKit                             0x30936e3c -[UIApplication sendEvent:] + 400
10  UIKit                             0x30936874 _UIApplicationHandleEvent + 4336
11  GraphicsServices                  0x32046964 PurpleEventCallback + 1028
12  CoreFoundation                    0x30254a70 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 2296
13  CoreFoundation                    0x30254164 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 44
14  GraphicsServices                  0x3204529c GSEventRunModal + 188
15  UIKit                             0x308f0374 -[UIApplication _run] + 552
16  UIKit                             0x308eea8c UIApplicationMain + 960
17  myExampleApp                          0x000020b6 main (main.m:14)
18  myExampleApp                          0x0000202c start + 44

The core method here that is the issue is implemented as:

View Code OBJC

//in the .h file.  
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSObject *basicObj;
 
//in the .m file.
@synthesize basicObj;
 
- (void)setupView
{
   if (self.basicObj != nil) {
		[self.basicObj release];
		self.basicObj = nil; //line 404, this is where the error is located.
   }
}

As you can see, the issue appears to be based on how we access the basicObj object. The definition of a SIGBUS error, is pretty straight forward. We are generically having some sort of memory issue.

As of this writing, I’m still doing extensive testing and I’ll update this post if I find a better solution. Here is what I’ve found to work. I’m beginning to wonder if there is a funny timing issue with the “release” methodology. I’ll make sure to post back here if I find there to still be an issue or I find a better solution. Comments are appreciated.

View Code OBJC

- (void)setupView
{
   if (self.basicObj != nil) {
		[basicObj release];
		basicObj = nil;
}

Chris Danielson's Blog » SIGBUS

iPhone (SIGBUS) Issue