Crash when booting with umass device connected

[Paul B. Mahol]

On 7/15/08, Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists at tx.rr.com> wrote:
> --On Tuesday, July 15, 2008 11:23:09 +0200 "Paul B. Mahol"
> <onemda at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Look in Developers handbook for more info
>> /usr/share/doc/en/books/developers-handbook/index.html
>>
>> I think that textdumps are MFCed to STABLE.
>> Textdumps provide easy way for gathering backtraces.
>
> The problem is, I'm not getting dump files.  (And dumpdev is set to AUTO -
> the
> default.)  Savecore runs, but there's nothing to put in /var/crash.
>

First, do you see kdb prompt when system panics?
If not then you will need to recompile kernel with various debug stuff:
KDB, DDB, GDB, DEBUG=-g ...
Second do you have line with sw in /etc/fstab. If not,
it is possible to set dump device manually.
You should have following lines in /etc/rc.conf:

ddb_enable="YES"
ddb_config="/etc/ddb.conf"

But this one is required only if you want that textdumps are
taken automaticaly after system crash.
Exploring ddb(4) is also usefull.