Gonçalo,

Have you checked your /var/log/messages for lines like the following?

Out of Memory: Killed process [PID] [process name].

If you have lines like those, then it is the Linux kernel that is 
killing your process with SIGKILL.

Joel

Gonçalo Cabrita wrote, On 28/07/10 00:38:
> Hi Brian,
>
> I tried gdb and valgrind and both tell me that slam_gmapping is getting a SIGKILL and that's it.
>
> Tomorrow in the morning I'll install Ubuntu and ROS on my home Mac to see what happens.
>
> I'm running the same Ubuntu on my Mac that we have on the Eee PCs with the same version of ROS installed. The Eee PCs are able to run slam_gmapping without ever crashing (not so bad after all, although the maps do come out a bit weird).
>
> I'll let you know of my progress!
>
> Gonçalo Cabrita
> ISR - University of Coimbra
> Portugal
>
> On Jul 27, 2010, at 8:20 PM, Brian Gerkey wrote:
>
>> hi Gonçalo,
>>
>> It's odd that slam_gmapping is receiving a SIGKILL.  Can you try
>> running it in gdb, outside roslaunch?  Something like:
>>
>> $ roscd gmapping
>> $ gdb bin/slam_gmapping
>> ...
>> (gdb) r
>>
>> If it still dies from SIGKILL, then there's nothing that gdb is going
>> to be able to tell you.  If it dies from something else, then you
>> should try to get a backtrace from gdb.
>>
>> You might try running inside valgrind, to see if you get a different result:
>>
>> $ roscd gmapping
>> $ valgrind -v bin/slam_gmapping
>>
>> 	brian.
>>
>> 2010/7/27 Gonçalo Cabrita<goncabrita@gmail.com>:
>>> Thanks for your quick reply Brian.
>>> slam_gmapping is crashing randomly, it can crash a few seconds or a few
>>> minutes after it started. Also I've noticed that slam_gmapping crashing is
>>> causing the internet connection to crash as well.
>>>
>>> I did what you suggested and this is what I got:
>>> I did a launch file as instructed:
>>> <launch>
>>>    <master auto="start"/>
>>>    <node pkg="gmapping" type="slam_gmapping" respawn="false"
>>> name="slam_gmapping" output="screen" launch-prefix="xterm -e gdb --args">
>>>    </node>
>>> </launch>
>>> I open a roscore, set use_sim_time to true and then I launch slam_gmapping:
>>> $ roslaunch slam_gmapping.launch
>>> I get the gdb xterm window...
>>> (gdb) set logging on
>>> (gdb) run
>>> Now I start my rosbag play....
>>> The output in the gdb.txt file is:
>>> Starting program:
>>> /home/blazz/ros/stacks/slam_gmapping/gmapping/bin/slam_gmapping>  gdb_output
>>> [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
>>> [New Thread 0xb7fdcb70 (LWP 2249)]
>>> [New Thread 0xb77dbb70 (LWP 2250)]
>>> [New Thread 0xb6fdab70 (LWP 2251)]
>>> [New Thread 0xb65ffb70 (LWP 2258)]
>>> [New Thread 0xb5dfeb70 (LWP 2261)]
>>> [New Thread 0xb55fdb70 (LWP 2304)]
>>> [New Thread 0xb4dfcb70 (LWP 2305)]
>>> [Thread 0xb4dfcb70 (LWP 2305) exited]
>>> [Thread 0xb55fdb70 (LWP 2304) exited]
>>> [Thread 0xb5dfeb70 (LWP 2261) exited]
>>> [Thread 0xb65ffb70 (LWP 2258) exited]
>>> [Thread 0xb6fdab70 (LWP 2251) exited]
>>> [Thread 0xb77dbb70 (LWP 2250) exited]
>>> [Thread 0xb7fdcb70 (LWP 2249) exited]
>>> Program terminated with signal SIGKILL, Killed.
>>> The program no longer exists.
>>> The output doesn't give too much info... Does it help?
>>> Gonçalo Cabrita
>>> ISR - University of Coimbra
>>> Portugal
>>> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:40 PM, Brian Gerkey<gerkey@willowgarage.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> hi Gonçalo,
>>>>
>>>> A shot in the dark: you might be exhausting available memory.  In any
>>>> case, try running slam_gmapping in gdb to see what's causing it to die
>>>>
>>>> (http://www.ros.org/wiki/roslaunch/Tutorials/Roslaunch%20Nodes%20in%20Valgrind%20or%20GDB).
>>>>
>>>>         brian.
>>>>
>>>> 2010/7/27 Gonçalo Cabrita<goncabrita@gmail.com>:
>>>>> Hi everyone!
>>>>> I'm trying to generate a map according to the tutorials and I've ran
>>>>> into a
>>>>> bit of a problem. I'm trying to run slam_gmapping on my MacBook Core2Duo
>>>>> running Ubuntu 10.04 with ROS and I'm allways getting the same error,
>>>>> slam_gmapping crashes after a while after starting to run...
>>>>> ...
>>>>> *************RESAMPLE***************
>>>>> Deleting Nodes: 3 4 5 7 10 12 17 19 21 24 26 27 Done
>>>>> Deleting old particles...Done
>>>>> Copying Particles and  Registering  scans... Done
>>>>> update frame 422
>>>>> update ld=1.00063 ad=0.0320879
>>>>> Laser Pose= 5.26866 0.0983503 0.0260777
>>>>> m_count 4
>>>>> Average Scan Matching Score=110.945
>>>>> neff= 29.3825
>>>>> Registering Scans:Done
>>>>> /home/blazz/ros/ros/bin/rosrun: line 35:  1862 Killed
>>>>>   $exepath "$@"
>>>>> This is running on other machines in the lab but not in my Mac. I've
>>>>> tried
>>>>> re-installing ROS but the problem persists.
>>>>> What additional information should I provide to help solve this
>>>>> problem???
>>>>> Thanks for your help,
>>>>> Gonçalo Cabrita
>>>>> ISR - University of Coimbra
>>>>> Portugal
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> ros-users mailing list
>>>>> ros-users@code.ros.org
>>>>> https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>>>>>
>>>>>
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-- 
Research Associate
Ocean Systems Laboratory
Heriot-Watt University, UK