What causes the message "elfcore: core dump failed for process" to be generated? (Doc ID 1314947.1)

Last updated on JULY 29, 2016

Applies to:

Solaris Operating System - Version 8 6/00 U1 and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Goal

What activity on a system causes the kernel warning (kern.warning) message "WARNING: elfcore: core dump failed for process <PID>; address space is changing" to be generated in the /var/adm/messages file?

This message is generated when a process has its executable code overwritten on disk by a new version.  One typical way for this to happen is when a developer creates a new binary of the application and installs it without ensuring that all of the processes using the previous version have exited.

Solution

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