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Using kernelver to identify crashed DM3 DSPs

Introduction: 

Sometimes it is necessary to determine whether a particular DSP on a Dialogic® DMV series Media Board has crashed.  This is used for troubleshooting purposed to help track the root cause of a crash.  The kernelver utility, which is included in the Dialogic System Release software, can help to accomplish this task.

Background: 

Usually such a request will come at the request of Dialogic technical support, in attempts to track down certain types of issues -- stuck voice channels, missing events, etc.  A possible cause for such issues would be if a DSP crashed on the board, thus preventing the firmware from sending data up to the host.  

Kernelver is a useful tool to identify crashed DSPs because it forces a response from the DSP.  If a valid response is given, the DSP is healthy.  If no valid response is given, the DSP has crashed.

Details: 

Each DM3 board type has a different number of DSPs -- usually around 8-12.  Because of this, a good first step would be to test boards when they're known to be healthy, as a proper response should come back from each DSP.

To test a board:

0) Ensure that the board is still in the failed state.  Do not restart Dialogic services, as this will reset the board's firmware and invalidate this test.

1) Find the logical ID of the board (using DCM for Windows, or listboards for Linux)

2) Run kernelver on all DSPs of the board

Ex: kernelver -b1 -p1

kernelver -b1 -p2

kernelver -b1 -p3

.

.

kernelver -b1 -p11  // As an example from DMV1200BTEP, some boards will have fewer DSPs than this, some may have more

3) If you're unsure how many DSPs the board has, run through all the processors until an error message is received instead of a valid kernel version.

4) Note any processors that return invalid results

Product List:

Dialogic® DMV-series Media Boards

Glossary of Acronyms 

DSP -- Digital Signal Processor

Related Documentation: 

Diagnostics Guide:

http://www.dialogic.com/~/media/manuals/docs/dm3_diagnostics_win_v7.pdf