Re: why is 'perf record --call-graph' using addr2line?

[Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2026 at 09:24:47PM +0200, Noel Grandin wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I am running
> 
> $ perf record --call-graph=dwarf,32000 my_program.bin
> 
> quite a lot.
> 
> Until a couple of days ago, I would do this, hit ctrl-C, it would
> finish writing stuff to disk in a few seconds, and then I would
> proceed with using KDAB hotspot to analyse the data.
> 
> Then I did a routine 'apt update' of my ubuntu box, and now....
 
> Now, it takes 30+ minutes before perf exits, and it is spending all of
> that time running addr2line.

Are you sure? addr2line can be used when using '-s srcline' or '-s
srcfile', but then in 'perf report', not on record.

Doing some systemwide recording here I don't see such calls to
addr2line, be it the function inside perf or the addr2line utility:

root@number:/# perf probe -x ~/bin/perf addr2line
Added new event:
  probe_perf:addr2line (on addr2line in /home/acme/bin/perf)

You can now use it in all perf tools, such as:

	perf record -e probe_perf:addr2line -aR sleep 1

root@number:/# perf trace -e execve,probe_perf:addr2line perf record --call-graph=dwarf,32000
         ? (         ): perf/1708890  ... [continued]: execve())                                           = 0
^C[ perf record: Woken up 302 times to write data ]
root@number:/# ls -[ perf record: Captured and wrote 89.499 MB perf.data (5420 samples) ]
la perf.data
-rw-------. 1 root root 93924024 Feb  9 16:37 perf.data
root@number:/# ls -lah perf.data
-rw-------. 1 root root 90M Feb  9 16:37 perf.data
root@number:/# perf evlist -v
cpu/cycles/P: type: 0 (PERF_TYPE_HARDWARE), size: 144, config: 0 (PERF_COUNT_HW_CPU_CYCLES), { sample_period, sample_freq }: 4000, sample_type: IP|TID|TIME|CALLCHAIN|CPU|PERIOD|REGS_USER|STACK_USER|IDENTIFIER, read_format: ID|LOST, disabled: 1, freq: 1, precise_ip: 2, sample_id_all: 1, exclude_callchain_user: 1, sample_regs_user: 0xff0fff, sample_stack_user: 32000
dummy:u: type: 1 (PERF_TYPE_SOFTWARE), size: 144, config: 0x9 (PERF_COUNT_SW_DUMMY), { sample_period, sample_freq }: 1, sample_type: IP|TID|TIME|CPU|IDENTIFIER, read_format: ID|LOST, exclude_kernel: 1, exclude_hv: 1, mmap: 1, comm: 1, task: 1, mmap_data: 1, sample_id_all: 1, exclude_guest: 1, mmap2: 1, comm_exec: 1, ksymbol: 1, bpf_event: 1, build_id: 1
root@number:/#
 
> Any ideas?

Can you give more details? Do you have anything in ~/.perfconfig, etc?
 
> Thanks, Noel Grandin