US Patent 9298535 Methods for hierarchically identifying root cause errors

A method associates errors by causal relationship in software systems where multiple threads share access to hardware and/or software components. Where a software object, such as a lock, is provided, a thread can place an error ID into the object if encountered while the first thread controls the object. A second thread can retrieve the error ID and associate it as a parent error for any time-out error encountered while waiting for the software object. Errors can be reported and displayed in a causal graph for determining root causes. Errors can have a severity that can facilitate the display of errors to a user. Root cause errors can be assigned the severity of the most severe of its child errors to assist a user in determining a root cause. Errors can further be displayed or masked based on the severity assigned to the errors and/or their parent or child errors.