Enable atrace annotations

Streamline can capture Android trace points that atrace generates.

About this task

Streamline converts application-generated atrace macros into either string annotations or counter charts. Streamline also lists any Android ATRACE_TAG_* macros that you enable as available events in an Atrace section in the Select Counters dialog box.

Before you begin

  • To collect atrace, your Android device must be rooted and use a Linux kernel version of 3.10 or later.

  • You must have set up and run Streamline with Android device root user access. See Profile your system for instructions on how to do this.

  • To notify running applications that atrace annotation tags are enabled, you must install the notify.dex file on your device in the same directory as gatord. The Java source code for notify.dex is available from either:

Procedure

  1. In the Start view, select your device type as TCP.

    Note

    TCP device type is required to collect and configure atrace counters.

  2. Click Select Counters.

  3. Drag the events from the Atrace counter section from the Available Events column to the Events to Collect column.

    Note

    If you expect to see atrace events in this dialog box but none are displayed, click the Warnings tag to see why atrace support is disabled. Ensure your device is compatible and configured as described in the Before you begin section of this topic.

  4. Click Save.

Next steps

Start the capture. In the Streamline GUI, click Start capture.

In your capture, string annotations or counter charts are created from your atrace macros. You can learn more about annotations and where they appear in the Timeline and Log views in the Annotate your code section of the the Streamline User Guide.