System resource limits

The Java™ virtual machine (VM) can fail to produce dump files because insufficient system resources are available.

The failure can be identified in the JVMDUMP012E message issued by the VM, for example:
JVMDUMP032I JVM requested System dump using '/home/test/core.20090302.104740.
2171156.0001.dmp' in response to an event
JVMDUMP012E Error in System dump: cannot find core file: "No such file or 
directory".
If you see this message, check ulimit -Hc is set high enough.

Check that your environment is configured to allow the VM to produce dump files correctly. The system dump agent must be configured to target a directory. Both the user running the Java application and the group the user is in must have execute and write permissions for that directory. This can be set using the IBM_COREDIR environment variable.

The VM might still be unable to produce dumps under some circumstances. For example, if there is not enough memory available at the time the dump file is taken, you might see the following message:
JVMDUMP006I Processing dump event "gpf", detail "" - please wait.
JVMDUMP032I JVM requested System dump using '/home/test/xa64/core.20090227.063319.
1343.0001.dmp' in response to an event
JVMDUMP012E Error in System dump: insufficient system resources to generate dump, 
errno=12 "Cannot allocate memory"

In this case, set the -Xrs:sync option. The information helps you disable the VM dump agents and configure the operating system to produce a system dump file instead.