Earlier versions of Java had no mechanism to handle/detect deadlock. Since JDK 1.5 there are some powerful methods added in the java.lang.management package to diagnose and detect deadlocks. The java.lang.management.ThreadMXBean interface is management interface for the thread system of the Java virtual machine. It has two methods which can leveraged to detect deadlock in a Java application.
- findMonitorDeadlockedThreads() – This method can be used to detect cycles of threads that are in deadlock waiting to acquire object monitors. It returns an array of thread IDs that are deadlocked waiting on monitor.
- findDeadlockedThreads() – It returns an array of thread IDs that are deadlocked waiting on monitor or ownable synchronizers.