Java Diagnostics

Thread dumps and deadlocks (Tier 1)

jcmd <pid> Thread.print              # preferred; includes deadlock report
jcmd <pid> Thread.print -l           # also lists ownable synchronizers/locks
jstack <pid>                         # equivalent older tool

Do not use kill -3 <pid> / SIGQUIT as an unconditional fallback. On Unix, use it only after verifying that the target JVM has its thread-dump SIGQUIT handler installed and that stdout/stderr are captured. Explicitly exclude JVMs started with -Xrs / -XX:+ReduceSignalUsage, or with unknown/custom signal handling: without the JVM handler, SIGQUIT can terminate the process and produce a core dump. If signal handling cannot be verified, do not send the signal; resolve the jcmd/attach permissions instead. See the JDK launcher -Xrs documentation and Linux signal defaults.

Take 3 dumps, 5-10 seconds apart, to see what changes. A single dump is a snapshot, not a trend. Thread dumps include stack frames and thread names, which may contain request data; do not share publicly.

High CPU: map hot threads

top -H -p <pid>                      # find hot native thread ids (decimal)
printf '%x\n' <tid>                  # convert to hex, match "nid=0x..." in the dump

Check whether the hot thread is application code, GC threads (GC Thread, G1 Conc), or JIT compiler threads (C2 CompilerThread).

Deadlock

Thread.print ends with "Found one Java-level deadlock" and lists the lock cycle. Otherwise look for many threads BLOCKED on the same monitor (waiting to lock <0x...>) whose owner is itself waiting. Thread starvation shows pools with all threads WAITING/TIMED_WAITING in the same call (e.g., a connection pool getConnection, a blocking HTTP call) while the queue grows.

Virtual threads (JDK 21+)

Thread.print does not list virtual threads. Use:

jcmd <pid> Thread.dump_to_file -format=json threads.json
jcmd <pid> Thread.dump_to_file threads.txt

Thread.print shows only platform threads (virtual threads were verified missing on JDK 27, present in Thread.dump_to_file). Pinned virtual threads (blocked inside synchronized on JDK 21-23, or native frames on any version) can be investigated with the JFR event jdk.VirtualThreadPinned (see jfr). -Djdk.tracePinnedThreads=full (or short, which prints only the frames holding monitors) works only on JDK 21-23: on 21.0.12 it printed VirtualThread[#20,vt-pinned]/runnable@ForkJoinPool-1-worker-1 reason:MONITOR with the stack and <== monitors:1. JEP 491 removed it in JDK 24 (verified silent on 27: no output). From JDK 24, synchronized no longer pins; pinning remains for native frames and class initializers (a virtual thread sleeping inside a static initializer was reported by JFR on JDK 27 with pinnedReason = "VM call to Pin$Slow.<clinit> on stack"). On JDK 21-23 the same JFR event also works (verified on 21.0.12 for the synchronized case).

Reading tips

• States: RUNNABLE (on CPU or in native I/O), BLOCKED (monitor), WAITING/TIMED_WAITING (park, sleep, wait).

• RUNNABLE in socketRead0 is usually waiting on the network, not using CPU.

• Group threads by identical top frames to find the dominating pattern.