JP2007207213A - Diagnostic information collecting method applied to real-time diagnosis of wireless device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To perform real-time diagnosis by exciting a diagnostic engine for collecting various kinds of required diagnostic information in occurrence of a potential problem in a wireless device system, diagnosing a detected fault speedily, and storing a diagnostic report on a wireless device. <P>SOLUTION: The diagnostic engine resident in the system is kept in a standby state normally. Then, the diagnostic engine is excited with various kinds of occurring events as triggers, required information is collected at a moment using a click method, and light-weigh diagnostic information is prepared and recorded using a delta method. In information collection having influence on real-time property, a criterion for determining the occurrence of the potential problem is previously learned and memorized using a learning method, detailed information is collected after detecting the occurrence of the potential problem using the learned criterion in real-time environment, and the fault is diagnosed and sent to a diagnostic server. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a diagnostic information collection method to be applied to real-time diagnosis in a real-time environment on a wireless device, a diagnosis engine to be laid down when the system is normal and to be activated when the system is operated or malfunctions, and diagnosis The present invention relates to a wireless device having a function of collecting diagnostic information and detecting and diagnosing defects using an engine, and a system for performing real-time diagnosis of the wireless device.

  In recent years, various real-time applications have been implemented on mobile phones, and many applications operate in a real-time environment. When a system is operating normally, a lot of diagnostic information can be obtained using conventional methods (eg, periodic monitoring, tracing, If it is collected by logging, it may affect the real-time nature of the system, resulting in a slow response of operations, disruption of communication between processes, and further freeze of the entire system. However, there is a technique for collecting effective diagnostic information that does not use the system resources such as CPU and memory and does not affect the real-time property of the system when monitoring the usage status of the system or detecting a malfunction occurring in the system. Absent.

  On a wireless device, it is necessary to collect a lot of diagnostic information such as system information, process information, function calls, events, memory allocation / release, etc. until the failure occurs in order to diagnose the failure that occurs. When collecting, the system performance is degraded, the real-time property of the system is affected, and a new failure is caused to the system. However, without these diagnostic information, it is difficult to diagnose problems that occurred on the wireless device, and when collecting diagnostic information, information on function calls and memory allocation / release that are particularly frequent are collected. There is a need for diagnostic information collection techniques that are sometimes applicable to real-time environments.

  Information necessary for accurately diagnosing a failure on a wireless device is collected without omission, and a system resource is limited. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt a method that does not collect information that does not need to be diagnosed. However, the necessary diagnostic information that does not affect the real-time property in order to diagnose various problems in the execution environment where the real-time property is severe cannot be easily collected without omission. Collecting all the information on the wireless device affects the real-time nature of the system and there is no place to store it on the device. When diagnosing problems, information such as system information (for example, system resources, CPU), process information (for example, status and memory usage), process start / end and function call trace are important. If there is no effective method for collecting this information, information necessary for diagnosis leaks or unnecessary information overflows on the memory. In a real-time system, it is not easy to determine which information or information generated at what time is necessary without using a lot of system resources.

  In addition, operations related to the collection of diagnostic information (eg, memory address when memory is allocated, allocated memory size) necessary for detecting defects such as memory leaks frequently occur (eg, memory allocation / release). Collecting all information without choosing to do affects the real-time nature of the system. Therefore, an effective method is required when collecting frequently occurring information.

  As described above, at present, there is no method for collecting various information generated on a wireless device so as not to affect the real-time property of the system, and a method for effectively storing the collected information in a limited memory. Therefore, it is difficult to identify the location and cause of the failure that occurred in the system, the same failure occurs repeatedly on many mobile phones, and mobile phone operators and mobile phone manufacturers On the other hand, since it is impossible to respond quickly, it is impossible to provide a service that can sufficiently satisfy mobile phone users.

  Therefore, the present invention provides a method for collecting diagnostic information so as not to affect the real-time property of the system on the wireless device, a method for effectively storing the collected information, and a method for diagnosing a problem when a problem occurs. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of using collected information and a wireless device that realizes these methods.

  A wireless device according to the present invention is a mobile phone equipped with a diagnostic engine for malfunctions caused on a system in a real-time environment, and lays a diagnostic engine capable of collecting various information necessary for diagnosis when the system is normal. Means for collecting diagnostic information to be collected or a diagnosis engine laid down when a system malfunction occurs, means for collecting information necessary for diagnosing a system malfunction by the diagnostic engine that has occurred, and collection It is characterized by having means for storing a large amount of information in a small memory.

  The means to lay down the diagnostic engine that can collect the information generated on the system when the system is normal is to lay down the diagnostic engine when it is not constantly running, if new information is not generated, When there is a change, a trigger method (trigger technology) is used to wake up the diagnostic engine that is laid down.

  On the wireless device, various events (for example, key events, telephone calls, data calls, hardware interrupts), process start / end, function call / exit, memory allocation / release, various problems (for example, memory leak, system crash, Trigger the diagnosis engine that is asleep on the system triggered by the occurrence of system freeze. Various faults that occur in the system serve as triggers for collecting system information such as system resources and process information such as process status. By providing these triggers, the diagnostic engine does not need to be running all the time, and if there is no information to collect, the diagnostic engine can be put to sleep, and the system performance can be improved without affecting the real-time nature of the system on the wireless device. Avoid falling. When there is information to be collected, the diagnostic engine laid down by the trigger is immediately awakened, and necessary diagnostic information is collected promptly.

  On a real-time system, many system resources (CPU and memory) cannot be used particularly when collecting diagnostic information when the system is normal. The means for collecting diagnostic information by the generated diagnostic engine collects information data that is desired to be collected instantaneously using a click method (click technology) without feeling any influence on the conventional system operation or operation. Click method completes conventional operations and actions completely as usual, and easily records without using any information necessary for diagnosis by using assembler of several cycles outside the operations and actions .

  The amount of data related to systems and processes on the wireless device is enormous, and even if it is collected when necessary (for example, when a failure occurs), a considerable amount of memory is required to store it. However, these pieces of information include many portions that do not change in content on the time axis. For example, a large number of processes are running on the system, but for mobile phone users, there is a mobile phone usage pattern every day, and process information does not change drastically. As a method of collecting information that is quantitatively large and little changed, a delta method (delta technique) is used to acquire and record information delta. In order to restore the original information data using the acquired difference information data, the base of the information data used when the difference is calculated is stored together with the delta of the information data.

  Even if the click method is used to collect diagnostic information such as memory leak detection on the wireless device, the CPU time is frequently used in addition to the conventional operation, which may degrade the performance of the real-time system. In this case, knowledge data for activating a diagnostic engine that learns necessary information and knowledge from an early stage (for example, during development) using a learning method (learning function) is stored. For example, for memory leak detection, the maximum memory size required for the application is learned in the course of various tests in the development stage, the learning result is saved, and the application is placed in a real-time environment in the field (on the user's hand). If the allocated memory after starting does not exceed the maximum size learned in the development stage, the diagnostic engine is put to sleep without collecting diagnostic information, and if it is significantly exceeded (for example, 20% or more), the diagnostic engine is Start up and collect memory leak information.

  As described above, according to the present invention, a diagnosis engine is resident in a wireless device as a system for collecting all information necessary for diagnosing a failure occurring in a real-time system on the wireless device, and the system is in a normal state. Lay the diagnostic engine in a waiting state, use the trigger method to wake up the diagnostic engine when it is necessary to collect information, and use the click method to record only the necessary information in an instant, For wireless information, the wireless device uses the delta method to obtain only the difference in information data for information that has a large amount of data, and uses the learning method to awaken the diagnostic engine that lays the information frequently. Learn and store at the pre-shipment stage, and sleep the diagnostic engine if it does not exceed the standards If you exceed the standards, you can collect effective diagnostic information without influencing the real-time nature of the system by awakening the diagnostic engine that is asleep and collecting diagnostic data. Diagnosis can be performed automatically in real time, and the user does not need to contact the customer support of the operator in most cases and does not need to be brought to the repair reception desk. Even when contacted by the customer support of the operator, the diagnostic information necessary for the support has already been analyzed in an easy-to-understand manner and reported to the diagnostic server, so that the customer can be dealt with immediately. In addition, when a bug in the software is found, detailed diagnostic information of the real-time system related to the bug is collected, classified, and analyzed in an easy-to-understand format, allowing the manufacturer to determine the bug immediately and accurately. Can be fixed immediately. For businesses and manufacturers, support costs for customers and products can be significantly reduced.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a system capable of realizing a diagnostic information collection method applied to the real-time property of a wireless device according to the present invention.

  In the diagnostic system shown in FIG. 1, the diagnostic engine 02, the information source 03, and the diagnostic information 04 are mounted on the wireless device 01. The diagnostic engine 02 collects necessary information from the information source 03 and stores it as diagnostic information 04. Diagnosis is performed using the diagnostic information 04 collected for the defect that has occurred, and the result of the diagnosis is reported to the diagnostic server 05 and the diagnostic database 06 via the wireless network 07.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating implementation of diagnostic information collection in a real-time environment of a wireless device. The diagnosis engine 02 is in a waiting state when the system is normal, and information generated using a trigger method is triggered when new information is generated from the information source 03, and the information collection module 10 is activated. The information source 03 is a real-time system on the wireless device, and the information generated from the information source 03 is various. Various events, process start / end, function call / exit, hardware interrupt, telephone, data call, process There are status, system status, various problems, etc. Trigger embodiments include hardware interrupts, system signals, messages, conventional system call replacement, standard function replacement, and assembler instruction insertion at the binary level.

  The information collection module 10 is a short program written by an assembler using a click method, and promptly collects generated information and records it as diagnostic information 04. The click method is implemented by inserting the light information collection module 10 in the above trigger embodiment without interrupting the conventional operation after triggering.

  If the amount of information to be collected is large, a delta of information is created using the delta method and stored as diagnostic information 04. The original information data used when creating the delta is stored in advance (for example, after the system is started). The delta method is also used to create small diagnostic reports. On the same wireless device, there are similarities in diagnostic reports, and a small diagnostic report can be created using the delta method.

  The delta method is performed by calculating a difference between information data using two versions (information data at a certain period and latest information data) at a binary level. The wireless device does not use time-consuming complex difference calculation algorithms because it does not affect the real-time property when collecting diagnostic information.

  FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a procedure for collecting diagnostic information in a real-time environment on the wireless device. In the example shown in FIG. 3, when the information generation 20 occurs from the information source 03 on the wireless device, the conventional operation 21 of the system is continued and the diagnostic information collection 23 is performed after the module activation 22 to collect the information, thereby creating a delta 24, the diagnostic information recording 25 is completed. When the amount of information is small, the collected information is stored directly through the diagnostic information record 25 without the need for the delta creation 24.

  The trigger for collecting information is specified as an event generated from an information source, process start / end, function call / exit, or system malfunction. Information to be collected when triggered is collected quickly by the information collection module realized by the click method. Do not touch information that was not triggered because it is not necessary for diagnosis. The information collection click method is implemented by providing the system with an assembler's light information collection module outside the information source. Implementation of trigger and click methods does not require system source code changes and system image rebuilds. The delta method is used to collect system information and create diagnostic reports, rather than being used to collect all information, and is implemented by a common delta creation module.

  System performance may be degraded when collecting diagnostic information for frequently repeated operations (eg, memory allocation and release) in a real-time system on a wireless device. In this case, avoid collecting such diagnostic information all the time, learn the criteria for potential problems (eg, potential memory leaks) in advance, and use the learned criteria to Can detect and warn of potential problems. Here, a memory leak will be described as an example. To determine potential memory leaks, learn by learning the status of dynamically allocated memory in your application. In learning, for example, the maximum memory size is learned as a learned reference as information necessary for determining a potential memory leak in the application. This learning is performed at the development stage or the shipping test stage. You can learn after the device is shipped. The learned reference data is stored on flash. When an application runs in a real-time environment, information is recorded in the same way as memory leak detection when there is memory allocation, and memory is stored using learned reference data stored when diagnosing potential memory leaks. Determine if a leak has occurred. A potential memory leak warning is issued when it is determined that the error has occurred, and detailed memory leak information is collected for the process. When the information is collected, a diagnostic report is created and saved, and memory leak information is not collected repeatedly for this process.

  FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of implementing diagnostic information collection using a learning function on a wireless device. In the example shown in FIG. 4, learning 30 is performed in advance (for example, at the development stage), and a reference 31 for determining occurrence of a potential problem is learned and learned. After the wireless device is shipped, a reference determination 32 is made as to whether a potential problem has occurred using the reference 31 learned in the conventional operation 21. After the occurrence of a potential problem is found, information necessary for diagnosing the potential problem discovered by repeating the operation of the diagnostic information collection 23 and the diagnostic information recording 25 is collected by the information collection module activation 22.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the diagnostic system which can implement | achieve the diagnostic information collection technique applied to the real-time property of the wireless device by this invention. It is a block diagram which shows an example which implements diagnostic information collection in the real-time environment of a wireless device. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of the procedure which implements diagnostic information collection in a real-time environment on a wireless device. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example which implements diagnostic information collection using a learning function on a wireless device.

Explanation of symbols

01 Wireless devices (cell phones, portable terminals)
02 Diagnostic Engine 03 Information Source 04 Diagnostic Information 05 Diagnostic Server 06 Diagnostic Database 07 Wireless Network 10 Information Collection Module 20 Information Generation 21 Conventional Operation 22 Module Activation 23 Diagnostic Information Collection 24 Delta Creation 25 Diagnostic Information Record 30 Learning 31 Learned Standard 32 Standard Judgment

Claims (5)

  Engine with at least one processor and memory, at least one real-time operating system and one software application in it, for diagnosing wireless devices in a real-time environment, via a wireless network or cable or memory card A wireless device diagnostic system comprising a diagnostic server and a diagnostic database for receiving and analyzing diagnostic results to be transferred.   A diagnostic information collection trigger method applied to real-time diagnosis on the wireless device according to claim 1. This method causes the diagnostic engine to go to sleep when the system is normal, and events (eg, key input, process start / end, function call, fault occurrence) that become diagnostic information in the system. The event that occurs when it occurs triggers the sleeping diagnostic engine to collect diagnostic information immediately.   A click method for collecting information required for real-time diagnosis in a real-time environment on the wireless device according to claim 1. This method allows the original system operation (eg key input, memory allocation and release) to be performed as usual, and information necessary for diagnosis (eg event, allocated memory address and size) is made real-time in the system. Record it momentarily with the sensation of clicking so as not to affect it.   The delta method which collects the diagnostic information required for real-time diagnosis in the real-time environment on the wireless device according to claim 1 by a differential method. The method collects diagnostic information data in a delta manner and stores it on the wireless device to reduce the use of system resources (eg, CPU, memory) on the wireless device.   A learning method for detecting potential malfunctions in a real-time environment on a wireless device according to claim 1. This method learns necessary knowledge (for example, memory allocation hip boundary) regarding the collection of diagnostic information (for example, memory leak detection) that affects real-time performance on the wireless device so that it does not affect the real-time performance of the system. Detect potential malfunctions.

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