How do I debug a tab crash in Google Chrome

Question

We have a single page application that randomly crashes the whole browser tab. I observed the memory for more than an hour but it wasn't increasing and everything looks just fine. Than out of a sudden after some more time passes, the tab crashes.

I looked for a crash dump in

C:\Users\cburgdorf\AppData\Local\Google\CrashReports

but the Chrome-last.dmp is totally outdated. Is there any place where I can look for additional information about the crash? Not to mention it's a hard to reproduce beast.

I wonder if I could start Chrome with windbg attached and wait (2 hours or so sigh) for the tab crash. Would that work?

UPDATE

All of you gave good answers and provided valueable advice for bug hunting. In the end I was able to reproduce the bug and get a clear crash dump using the following steps:

1.) windbg.exe -o chrome.exe
2.) reproduce crash
3.) .dump /ma C:\Path\To\A\CrashDump\File.dmp (as Paul pointed out)
4.) end session and load the crash dum with windbg
5.) use !analyze -v to extract valuable information

Answer 1

If you want analyze only specific tab, you should follow below steps.

• Open Chrome's Task Manager (View Background Pages option in menu).
• Right click on grid and activate Process ID column.
• And attach windbg to this pid.

Answer 2

Once WinDbg breaks in, use this command to create a full crash dump:

.dump /ma C:\Path\To\A\CrashDump\File.dmp

Answer 3

Follow the instructions on http://www.chromium.org/for-testers/bug-reporting-guidelines/reporting-crash-bug to report the renderer crash so the Chromium developers can debug it.

Answer 4

Could you try to use firebug in chrome and give me a log? http://getfirebug.com/wiki/index.php/Command_Line_API

upd. you need launch chrome with debug option.

  --enable-logging --v=1