[Semibug] determining exit status

[Dr. Robert Meier]

Mark,

I have found the following snigglet useful for
  catching process state changes to debug
  network problems.

	watch 'ps -eH -o pid,ppid,stat,command | grep dbus'

watch - repeat a command every 2 seconds
  ps - process states
  -eH - for every user, order as spawn tree
  -o ... - report process id, parent, state, and command
  grep ... select output

ps(1) -o option is very flexible, and so if I can often
  construct a suitable format and search string based on
  whatever clues/symptoms I know or suspect.
Some situations lend themselves to using
  watch(1) -e option to freeze the display on command error.

Hopefully helpful,
--
drb