Hi Dave, et al.,
Having hacked my way around the self-sabotage on the temp file:
 #define mWARN( _m, _a...) do {		\
 		FILE * _sv_fp = fp;		\
 		fp = stdout;			\
 		error(WARNING, _m, ##_a);	\
 		fp = _sv_fp;			\
 	} while (0) 
That also removed the mysterious problem of having a duplicate error
message show up on the console.
My next problem is that I seem to be getting inconsistencies between
the data I can print and the data I can find mapping information about:
 crash> gdb set $tp = (struct cfs_trace_page *)0xffff8807fb590740
 crash> p $tp->page
 $7 = (cfs_page_t *) 0xffffea001bb1d1e8
 crash> p *$tp->page
 $8 = {
   flags = 144115188075855872, 
   _count = {
     counter = 1
   }, 
 [...]
   lru = {
     next = 0xdead000000100100, 
     prev = 0xdead000000200200
   }
 }
 crash> kmem 0xffffea001bb1d1e8
 kmem: WARNING: cannot find mem_map page for address: ffffea001bb1d1e8
 879b1d1e8: kernel virtual address not found in mem map 
So I can print out the page_t structure (renamed as cfs_page_t in Lustre)
at address 0xffff8807fb590740, but when I try to get kmem information about
it, it cannot find the  page.  What am I missing?
Thanks for hints/pointers!  Regards, Bruce