When hotspot crashes during the writing of the hs_err file, we call os::die(). On linux and bsd this causes a core file to be written (by calling ::abort()). This is good since we then have some record of what went wrong. On solaris, we call _exit() and no core file is created.

There are two cases during the hs_err writing where we call os::die(). First, if the writing hangs, the WatcherThread will call os::die(). Second, if we get too many errors during the writing we will call os::die(). In both these cases it would be very helpful to have a core file. Otherwise all you have to go on is something like this:

# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
# SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0xffffffff653848c0, pid=11823, tid=240
#
# JRE version: Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (7.0_12-b11)
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (24.0-b24 mixed mode solaris-sparc compressed oops)
# Problematic frame:
# C [libc.so.1+0x848c0]# [ timer expired, abort... ]