signals - GDB: Ctrl+C doesn't interrupt process as it usually does but rather terminates the program

Question

Normally when you run a program through GDB you can press Ctrl+C to interrupt it, e.g. if it gets stuck in an infinite loop and you want to get a backtrace.

I'm debugging a program (xmms2d as it happens) but in this program only, when I press Ctrl+C it gets treated as if GDB was not running - the program shuts down cleanly and then GDB tells me the program exited normally.

How do I get the usual GDB behaviour back, where Ctrl+C interrupts the program? Or is there another way to produce the same reaction in GDB as a Ctrl+C normally does?

Answer 1

I'll bet that xmms2d is using sigwait() to handle signals, which breaks gdb's ability to catch CTRL-C. See https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9039

I got an idea for a workaround by reading Continue to debug after failed assertion on Linux? -- when I'm ready to break in gdb, I run "kill -TRAP <pid>" from another terminal window.