Question

I have a project that compiles, loads and runs in the android device nicely. When I call the gdb server it also works fine. Then, when I call the gdb client to run through with breakpoints is when the message appears:

Error while mapping shared library sections:
/system/bin/linker: No such file or directory.

libandroid.so: No such file or directory.
liblog.so: No such file or directory.
libEGL.so: No such file or directory.
libOpenSLES.so: No such file or directory.
libGLESv2.so: No such file or directory.
libGLESv2_POWERVR_SGX540_120.so: No such file or directory.
...
warning: Unable to find dynamic linker breakpoint function.
GDB will be unable to debug shared library initializers
and track explicitly loaded dynamic code
warning: shared library handler failed to enable breakpoint

This is my current Android.mk file, for the case some additional setup might be missing:

LOCAL_PATH := $(call my-dir)
include $(CLEAR_VARS)

LS_CPP=$(subst $(1)/,,$(wildcard $(1)/*.cpp))
APP_MODULES := callbacks
APP_PLATFORM := android-14
APP_OPTIM:= debug

LOCAL_CFLAGS    := -DRAPIDXML_NO_EXCEPTIONS
LOCAL_CFLAGS    += -g
LOCAL_CFLAGS    += -ggdb
LOCAL_CFLAGS    += -O1

LOCAL_MODULE:=app3D
LOCAL_SRC_FILES := $(call LS_CPP,$(LOCAL_PATH))
LOCAL_LDLIBS    := -landroid -llog -lEGL -lOpenSLES -lGLESv2
LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES := android_native_app_glue png
LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES += /jni

include $(BUILD_SHARED_LIBRARY)

$(call import-module,android/native_app_glue)
$(call import-module,libpng)

Any suggestion about what is the reason for such weird error and how to get rid of it?

All comments and hints are deeply appreciated and welcome.

Answer 1

Use ndk-gdb instead of standard gdb. Launch it from your project root directory. Consider using --verbose option if you’d like to see what ndk-gdb is doing.
You must add this line to your AndroidManifest.xml also:

android:debuggable="true"

For instance, mine looks like:

<application
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/AppTheme"
    android:debuggable="true" >

your application.mk should define

APP_OPTIM := debug

With this you don’t have to add -g to your compiler flags, ndk-build will do so automatically.