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Run-Time Errors

BullseyeCoverage run-time functions may report one of the following error codes to the user or to the file named by environment variable COVERR, if set.

Error 0: success

Measurements were successfully written to the coverage file.

Error 2: wrong coverage file

The COVFILE environment variable (or COVFILELIST) does not specify the same coverage file as was used to instrument the object file named in the error message. You must use the same coverage file at run-time and build time. Set COVFILE (or COVFILELIST) to the coverage file used to instrument the object files in the executable reporting this error.

Whenever you copy an instrumented executable to a different computer, also copy the coverage file at the same time.

Under Windows, after changing the COVFILE or COVFILELIST environment variable, restart all command prompts and IDEs.

To reduce the likelihood of this error, reuse the same coverage file for each build. There is no advantage to deleting the coverage file before rebuilding.

Coverage files are identified by an ID number. The error message indicates the missing coverage file (expected-ID). Unless COVFILELIST is set, the error also identifies the file searched (actual-ID).

BullseyeCoverage version error 2: wrong coverage file. Use same coverage file for building and running. Expected fileId=expected-ID (coverageFileName). Object objectName compileTime (object-ID). Actual fileId=actual-ID path

This error message includes the name of the coverage file coverageFileName used at build-time. This information is useful only if you have not renamed any coverage files after building. There is no requirement that the coverage filename matches at build-time and run-time.

You can determine the cause of this error by looking up the expected-ID in the the log file named below, which is located on the build computer. The content of this log file persists as long as BullseyeCoverage is installed.

Windows:	`%LOCALAPPDATA%\BullseyeCoverage\fileLog`
Unix-like system:	`$HOME/.BullseyeCoverage/fileLog`

On Windows, you can use notepad to view the log. Search for the expected-ID using the menu command Edit Find.

C:\> notepad "%LOCALAPPDATA%\BullseyeCoverage\fileLog"

On Unix-like systems, you can use more to view the log. Search for the expected-ID using the / command.

$ more $HOME/.BullseyeCoverage/fileLog

If you find the expected-ID is associated with a filename that occurs again later, then the likely cause of the error is that the missing coverage file was deleted (and then recreated). For example, in the log shown below, the coverage file was overwritten.

2013-01-16 13:07:33	528bc97e	/workspace/test.cov	covc
2013-01-16 14:06:22	6012dd6f	/workspace/test.cov	covc

If the expected-ID does not occur in the log, then the likely cause of this error is that some of the code was instrumented on a different account, with a different coverage file.

You can display the file ID of a coverage file with the covmgr command. For example:

C:\> covmgr -p -f test.cov
File-id: 528bc97e

You can enable diagnostic mode so that during building you can see the actual COVFILE environment variable setting, and verify the path where BullseyeCoverage creates or finds the coverage file. Run the Coverage Browser and use the menu command Tools Options. On the Build tab, enable Diagnostic mode. In your build log, look for lines as shown below:

COVFILE=path
fileId=file-ID
creating path
opening path
object objectName object-ID ...

If this error persists, delete all coverage files and do a clean rebuild without BullseyeCoverage. If you see error 2 again, then you did not rebuild everything that was previously instrumented. Do not rebuild with BullseyeCoverage until you have eliminated all previously instrumented code.

Error 3: file lock error

The file locking function fcntl returned an error. The value given by errno= in the error message indicates the operating system error code. You can look up this error code in your compiler's errno.h header.

The error EDEADLK (errno=35 on Linux) indicates a problem with the file system containing the file named in the error. In particular, file locking implementations for the Network File System (NFS) are known problematic. Relocate the coverage file to the local file system.

Error 4: object missing

The instrumented code contains information about a version of an object file that is not present in the coverage file. This error happens when the coverage file is copied and then modified by instrumenting. It is recommended to maintain one master coverage file for building and instrumenting. Do not overwrite or delete the master. If you make copies of the master for running tests, use covmerge to bring the measurements back, rather than copying and overwriting the master.

Another possible cause of this error is the object file named in the error was overwritten more than 4 times over a period spanning more than 5 days.

Delete all copies of the object file named in the error message, all libraries which might contain the object file, and delete the executable file named in the error message, if any. Then rebuild.

Error 6: corrupt file

The coverage file is corrupt.

Error 7: object mismatch

The instrumented executable does not match the coverage file. Rebuild the instrumented executable with coverage build enabled.

Error 8: atexit failed

Function atexit returned an error code. On Windows, make sure the TMP environment variable specifies a valid, writable directory. Remove the files BullseyeCoverage*.dll, from this directory.

Error 13: thread creation failed

The auto-save background thread cannot be created. You can either ignore this error, or disable auto-save by setting environment variable COVAUTOSAVE to 0.

Error 15: cannot find coverage file

Neither of the environment variables COVFILE and COVFILELIST are set. Set the COVFILE environment variable to the full path of the coverage file.

Error 16: cannot open coverage file

The run-time cannot open the file named by COVFILE or COVFILELIST. The file might not exist, or there might be a permission problem opening the file in the context of the instrumented executable. Set the COVFILE environment variable to the full path of the coverage file that you used when building and set the file permissions to allow access from any user.

Error 17: coverage file empty

Set the COVFILE environment variable to the full path of the coverage file used when building. The coverage file named in the error incorrectly contains no build information. This file was probably improperly created with the covmgr command. During instrumentation the coverage file is populated with data identifying sources and functions. At run-time only the measurements are written.

Error 18: not a BullseyeCoverage file or wrong version

The coverage file named in the error specifies a file which is either not a file created by BullseyeCoverage, or was written by an incompatible version of BullseyeCoverage. Check that COVFILE specifies the full path of the coverage file most recently created by BullseyeCoverage when you built the instrumented executable with coverage build enabled.

Error 20: no coverage

No probes have been encountered. There was no instrumented code encountered in the executable image. The code was either never instrumented, or was excluded from measurement. Remove any exclusions. See Integrating With Your Build Process.

Error 21: COVNOSAVE is set

The COVNOSAVE environment variable is set to 1. No coverage was saved.

Error 22: busy

Function cov_write is busy. Function cov_write returned immediately because a previous caller in another thread was busy in cov_write and it was not possible to wait for the previous caller to finish.

Error 23: memory corrupt in .bss

Instrumentation data in the .bss (uninitialized data) section is corrupt. The most common cause of this error is the program under test wrote to an erroneous memory address, for example due to a wild pointer or buffer overrun. To diagnose the problem, add calls to cov_check to your program to determine where this error first occurs.

Error 24: memory corrupt in .const

Instrumentation data in the .const (read-only data) section is corrupt. The .const section contains read-only data such as in the example shown below.

static const int abc = 123;

Possible causes of this error are:

The .const section is not properly configured or initialized. Check your linker options, particularly those affecting memory layout and organization. Make sure you have .const memory initialization enabled.
The BullseyeCoverage instrumentation was encountered during startup before the read-only section was initialized. Any C/C++ code that runs before the .const section initialization should be excluded from instrumentation. See Excluding Code.
The .const section is not protected and was improperly overwritten. Add calls to cov_dumpData() at various places in your program to see when it first returns this error code. Continue adding more calls until you narrow down one statement before which cov_dumpData() returns 0 and after which returns this error code.

Error 26: cannot open file

The small footprint embedded run-time library configuration cannot open the output file BullseyeCoverage.data-pid.

Error 27: invalid file descriptor

The open function returned an invalid file descriptor, one of the values 0, 1 or 2. This error happens when the program under test closed one or more of these reserved file descriptors. To solve this issue, do not close file descriptor 0, 1, or 2.

Error 28: wait for thread failed

The auto-save thread failed to terminate cleanly. Disable auto-save by setting the COVAUTOSAVE environment variable to 0. Alternatively, add libcov-noThread.a to your link command and rebuild.

Error 29: read error

The read function returned failure.

To diagnose i/o failures, add the function below to your program. Substitute the actual path of the coverage file for test.cov. This function demonstrates whether your i/o functions are working properly. Call this function from various locations in the program, including the very first and last statements. BullseyeCoverage requires working i/o functions. It is up to you to resolve any problems this diagnostic function indicates.

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
void diag()
{
	int fd = open("test.cov", O_RDWR, 0);
	if (fd == -1) {
		perror("open");
	} else {
		if (lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_SET) == -1) {
			perror("lseek");
		} else {
			char buf[51];
			if (read(fd, buf, sizeof(buf)) < 0) {
				perror("read");
			} else {
				printf("read successful\n");
			}
		}
		if (close(fd) != 0) {
			perror("close");
		}
	}
}

Error 30: write error

The write function returned failure.

To diagnose this error, add the function below to your program. This function demonstrates whether your write function is working properly. Call this function from various locations in the program, including the very first and last statements. BullseyeCoverage requires working i/o functions. It is up to you to resolve any problems this diagnostic function indicates.

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>
void diag()
{
	int fd = open("diag.txt", O_CREAT | O_TRUNC | O_WRONLY, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);
	if (fd == -1) {
		printf("open failed\n");
	} else {
		if (write(fd, "hello world\n", 12) == 12) {
			printf("no errors\n");
		} else {
			printf("write failed\n");
		}
		close(fd);
	}
}

Error 31: seek error

The lseek function returned failure.

See the diagnostic method for error 29.

Error 32: close error

The close function returned failure.

See the diagnostic method for error 29.

Error 33: allocation failure

The run-time was unable to allocate memory.

Updated: 26 Sep 2023