A system, method, and computer program product for expediting the identification of computer program code that is the source of errors in the execution of a computer program. A debugger monitors a specified memory address, or group of addresses for updates, during execution of the computer program. In response to determining that a running computer program has updated the memory address, the processor executes a watchpoint handler to identify the source of errors in a computer program executing in a data processing system. The watchpoint handler gathers trace information associated with the faulty processing thread, and records the trace information to a memory location. The watchpoint handler may also apply filters to the trace information to identify the source of the error, saving valuable debugging time.