recently I encountered a problem. Every time when I make some changes in page after I debug it on device when going to said page the app minimizes (crashes) and after about 30-50 seconds in output window I get
The program 'XXX' has exited with code -1073741819 (0xc0000005) 'Access violation'.
But when I uninstall and then debug again It works. I already tied reseting phone. Is it something with my debbuger or more likely with my code?
Edit:
Right now sometimes it occurs and sometime it doesnt ... I'll need to inspect code more. Is there a way to obtain more debug info with Access violation information?
I'll post as answer so others can see it easily.
You can see the dump of debug on the test device, Follow this
link.
Basically the link explains how to turn on "Save Information option" from Feedback application inside Settings of your device. After that when you debug the app, you will find dump file of your application inside,Phone -> Documents ->Debug.
Please post a sample of your code. I had similar problems when I tried using {unsafe code} and included pointers. They are extremely useful, but often lead you to memory problems (reading from a NULL pointer or something like that), so check if that's your problem.
Good luck
Related
I apologize but I don't know the official name of the system I'm referring to, here is a screen shot showing the dialogs (note: Don't confuse "Shell" w/ Windows Shell, in this case "Shell" is the name of the my process that is crashing):
Two questions:
What is the name of the system/technology shown in the screen shot? Not the application that is crashing, but the system that is handling the crash, collecting the dump file and sending it.
If I have an application that for some reason I can't handle or catch all exceptions for, is there a way to redirect the sending of the crash data to a recipient I specify? Or register a handler or something? For example, if it were my application crashing and the user clicks the ''Send information'' button can I send that info to my email address or some other endpoint?
Most of your question has already been answered by #HansPassant:
That is the WER dialog, the crash activated Windows Error Reporting. A component written by Microsoft, it sends crash info to a server in Redmond. Microsoft uses it to fix the kind of bugs that they can fix. But most likely in your case it is your bug, they won't fix it. But you can get the info that WER gathered about it by following these guidelines.
Note that you need a code signing certificate to complete the registration and you need a few extra steps to identify your application. You'll only get small dumps (< ~1 MB), which sometimes don't help (often don't help for .NET).
#HansPassant also pointed out how to handle a crash yourself:
Or you create your own service, that must get started with SetUnhandledExceptionFilter() so you get the crash info before WER does.
However, there are a few more options to get the dump:
there is a Registry key called LocalDumps, which you can use to save dumps on a local disk. Please consider turning that on only if you need it, otherwise it'll easily fill your customer's hard disk. This works very fine if the crash is reproducible at the customer's site but not on your machine.
use a free library like CrashRpt (open source; please check the license) or Doctor Dump. This perhaps has the disadvantage that you need to set up a server to collect the data.
see more options which I described in the answer How do I take a good crash dump for .NET, which also works well for native applications.
I have a VB6 application that I provide support for. This application works on both Windows XP and Windows 7. Some users were migrated from Windows XP to Windows 7 using the User State Migration tool. These users now receive a generic "Application has crashed" Windows error message when they open certain screens (forms) in the application. My assumption is that there is a missing dll/ocx reference, but I'm having trouble tracking it down.
I've tried many/varied troubleshooting techniques:
Full uninstall and reinstall of my application
Manually re-registering all dll's and ocx's that I know are used
Running Process Monitor on a broken computer and a working computer to compare what dll's and ocx's are accessed. The answer might be here but even after filtering out most of the background noise the amount of data is overwhelming. At a minimum I reviewed all of the calls right before it crashes and all of the calls that were not successful. All of the non-successful calls match between working and non-working.
Installed the Windows Debugger Tools and captured a crash dump. Analyzed the crash dump with DebugDiag. DebugDiag says the exception is in msvbvm60.dll. I tried building a PDB file for my exe and loading it in DebugDiag to get more detail about where the exception is occuring but DebugDiag doesn't want to accept the PDB (might be doing something wrong here, but it just seems to ignore it. This same PDB file works fine when I do remote debugging, however.)
I recompiled my VB6 program without any optimizations in PCode. I've read online that sometimes building in PCode, while bad for performance, will tell you the real exception.
Used the above created PDB file to remote debug the VB6 application. The debugger says that the application crashes after the new window has been created, on a line that sets MousePointer = vbHourGlass... To me it seems unlikely that this is the real cause of the error. There are at least 20 other locations in the program where this same line is called and all work fine.
(Forgot about this one)
Used Dependency Walker and profiled the application on both a working and non-working computer. All errors found by dependency walker were the same between the two computers. There were no additional dependencies found on a working computer, and all missing dependencies on the non-working computer were also missing on the working one.
None of these actions changed my error message or showed me what the error is (unless it really is the mouse cursor issue)... There are no entries in the Windows Event Log related to the app crash.
The non-working and working computers all have the same base Windows 7 image, the only difference is whatever is being changed by USMT, which further convinces me that this is some kind of quirky configuration change or a missing dll/ocx or perhaps an unregistered dll/ocx.
Any ideas or thoughts on how I can track down the root cause of the issue would be greatly appreciated.
Update 1 - Response to questions
#MarkHall I have tried running it as admin, though not with UAC off. The application runs fine on a Windows 7 box as a non-admin with full UAC. Windows XP was 32-bit, Windows 7 is 64-bit, but again it works just fine on a like for like box where the user was not migrated from Windows XP.
#Beaner It's possible that it stores settings somewhere that have been corrupted, but the remote debugging leads me to think that it's more likely something else since it seems to die on a step related to the UI, which then makes me think it's probably a missing dll/ocx reference.
#Bob77 The application is installed into Program Files (x86). While many of the libraries do reside in the same folder, they are all registered.
Peter, often I've noticed that the debugger will indicate a line of code that is actually incorrect, depending on WHERE in the actual assembly language the fault occurs. You should look REAL close around your statement that sets the cursor to vbHourGlass. Your exception is PROBABLY happening BEFORE that line of code, but that line is what the debugger thinks is the actual faulted line of code.
Since you said it happens when a window OPENS, I'd look real close at any ocx's you may have referenced on the form, but perhaps NOT actually being used, or called. You might have one there that you don't intend to be there, that could be causing security issues, or something on Win7? Edit the .frm file by hand if you have to, and look at all the GUIDs the form references.
It is possible that one machine is using PER-USER registration, and the other is using PER-SYSTEM registration?? I don't know...
I would take a much closer look at the form that you are trying to open, and be VERY cautious of everything you are doing in the form load events, and so on. This sounds like it could be something as stupid as Windows Aero being enabled on one system, and not another, or some other sort of "Theme" setting that is throwing the VB Form Rendering routine into a hissyfit... Perhaps even something as stupid as a transparent color index in the icon you selected for that from?
If you are still developing this app, (or at least maintaining it), create an entirely NEW form, and re-create all the controls, etc, on the form (resist the temptation to copy/paste them from the old one...), and then see if THAT does the trick. Then, copy all the event code to the new form one event at a time, with at LEAST enough event code to make the form function, even if it's just a "dead form", that loads no data, or whatever the form is supposed to do. Check and debug after each change, and you WILL find it eventually. Of course, make sure you isolate one of the defunct systems to have a platform that you can duplicate the issue on, or then it's just guessing. I find that using something like Acronis w/ Universal Restore is a great option to then take the image file into a good HV, like VirtualBox, and then restore that image as a VM, so you can debug without interfering with your actual users. This sounds like a lot of work, but then again, so is re-writing an application that already exists, right? :)
Failing THAT... /* and */ are your friends!! (Well, we're dealing with VB, so ' would be your best friend! heh... But I'd start commenting out all the code on the form until that sucker opens. Then once it opens, start putting one line back at a time, and re-running it... That's called "VooDoo Debugging", but sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do...
THANKS A LOT PETER! :) Now you got ME so involved in this, I feel like I'M the one debugging this sucker! Like if it was MY code I was trying to fix! :)
Let me know if any of this helps... I am actually quite interested in what you discover.
I'm trying to debug an application on an embedded device running an old version of Linux/Qtopia. I asked for help on QT forums but the people there don't know about old software and embedded systems. I'd really like some help with debug strategies.
My program will crash after the main window has been constructed, i.e. some time into the event loop. But depending on the order of functions in the constructor, sometimes it will run only from the console and sometimes it will only run from the icon. Despite my best efforts I can't narrow down what is causing the problem.
There is no seg fault or signal but my program does not continue and the destructor does not get called. It seems to me that one of the first things that would happen in the event loop is a resize event and when this is called could vary if you ran from the console or icon. Also, the various widgets in my GUI would be initialised and drawn so that is also a potential source of error, if I haven't set up something properly.
My debugging options are limited as the area where the crash actually occurs is not under my control. I tried logging to a file and printing to stderr but this was no help. When I got to the state where it runs from the icon but not console, I tried running in gdb and strace but it ran OK - the classic problem of debug software initialising differently.
My next thought is to try to force a core dump and then analyse that. How do I force a core dump ? Is there a better strategy ?
Logging to a file or to a communication port (serial port, etc.) is probably the simplest way to see what is happening and maintaining the normal runtime (i.e. not in a debugger).
You say that logging to a file and printing to stderr was no help. Why not? Are you printing relevant debugging information to the file? Are you using the Linux/Qtopia sources and adding debug logging?
Assuming you have sources for all of the code you are running, it should be just a matter of adding debug logging in the right places to pinpoint where the problem is occurring.
For my work, I need to create a service that will detect an abnormal program termination and, instead of displaying a message to the user (default behavior), send the generated core dump to a remote server.
I'm pretty sure this can be done, but I have absolutely no clue on where to start. Is there any API/registry settings for this ?
Thank you.
One method is to install an Unhandled Exception Filter and then write a minidump from it which you can then upload to some place of your choosing. I wouldn't totally disregard Windows Error Reporting -- that's an addition to any crash reporting of your own. If your application is for public release then registering for Windows Error Reporting is well worthwhile as you get information about which crashes users are encountering in the wild and when crashes have been fixed you can add a response code to point them to a new version or other relevant information.
Another tool that may be useful depending on how your application is deployed in your organisation is to run Adplus on a user's machine which will collect together crash dumps. This is more useful for one-off crashes that seem to affect an individual user but aren't reproducible in a development environment.
Some other useful links:
http://www.debuginfo.com/articles/effminidumps.html - some useful sample code
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/debug/postmortemdebug_standalone1.aspx
It seems my question was either obvious or stupid (both ?) but anyway, i found some interesting pages after some researches.
Here are the links I found useful:
Track application crashes and disable Windows Error Reporting at the same time!
Disable error reporting
We've been plagued for several years by occasional reports from customers about a non-descript error message "Cannot set allocations" that appears on startup of our app. We have never been able to reproduce the problem in our own test environments so far. I have now run out of ideas for attempting to track this down. Here's a collection of observations that have accumulated over time:
Error message text reads "Cannot set allocations" (note absence of punctuation).
The window title simply reads "Error" (or the localized equivalent).
The "Cannot set allocations" text is always in English regardless of OS locale.
I have so far not been able to locate the DLL or EXE containing the message text.
Google is chock full of reports of this error for a variety of different products - but no solutions.
The only unifying aspect between the affected products I could make out so far was that they all appear to come in the form of DLLs that load into third-party processes (such as addins for Visual Studio or Windows Explorer shell extensions).
Our app is actually a shareware COM-addin for MS Outlook, written in Delphi (i.e. native code - no .NET).
The prime suspect in our case is the third-party licensing wrapper that we're using which decrypts and uncompresses our DLL into memory on the fly. Obviously I couldn't simply give an unprotected version of our app to the affected customers to verify this suspicion. Maybe the other vendors that this has been reported against are using similar products.
Debug versions of the protection wrapper supplied to us by the licensing vendor yielded no results: The log files looked exactly the same as from sessions where the error did not occur. Apparently the "inner" DLL gets decrypted and uncompressed all right but for some reason still fails to get loaded by the host process.
By creating an unprotected "loader" DLL we have been able to pinpoint the occurrence of the error somewhere behind the LoadLibrary call that is supposed to load our DLL into memory.
Extensive logging and global exception hooks in our own code (both the unprotected loader and the protected "core"-DLL) yielded no results at all. The error is obviously raised somewhere else.
The problem described in this earlier question of mine was very probably prompted by the same issue. This was before we created the unprotected loader stub.
The error only occurs at about 1-2% of our customers - whereas typically all installations at any affected customer's site are affected the same.
Sometimes the error goes away after we release a new version but often it will come back again after a couple of weeks or months.
Once the error has started to occur on a machine it does so consistently.
The error never occurs while connected to the affected machine via remote access (e.g. VNC, RDP, TeamViewer, etc.) and none of the affected customers are within travel distance from us so all we have to go by is log files and "eye-witness reports".
One customer reported that the error message dialog apparently was non-modal, i.e. he was able to simply move the dialog box to the side and continue working with the application (minus the functionality that our DLL would have provided). Not sure whether this is universally true in all other occurrences, too.
In some cases customers have been able to permanently rid themselves of the error by disabling or uninstalling other addins from other vendors that were sharing the host application with our own product.
The error has so far been observed on Windows XP, Vista and 7.
During the last few weeks we had a surge of reports from Outlook 2003 / Windows 7 users. Could the situation have been made worse by a recent Windows/Office-update?
Does anyone have any experience with this error at all?
Or any more ideas for investigating this?
I have only recently had this happen, which prompted my search and I ended up here. I can tell you that with me for sure it is in windows 7 home premium BUT ONLY WITH IE9 (which I hate by the way) it reduces the user back to the dummy stage and assumes that we have to be repeated flagged about everything.It will keep asking you if you want to disable add ons to speed up load times but usually on things that aren't really the things slowing the browser down in the first place,it is there is too much garbage loading in the first place.But back to the "Cannot set allocations", I for one have never expirianced it in any other browser which is not to say it doesn't happen with them.
This is going to be pure guess-work, but it sounds like maybe your third-party licensing software is trying to load your DLL at a particular location in memory, which - on these failing systems - happens to already be occupied by something else, perhaps a global hook DLL.
If you have a customer who is willing to work with you a bit, it might shed some light on the situation to get a crash dump (e.g., with ADPlus or maybe simpler with Sysinternals' ProcDump) when the error message is showing. That would show what modules are loaded and possibly the callstack (if it is from a message box at the time of the error as opposed to one that is catching an exception after the problem).
I also have experienced the "Cannot set allocations" issue. Royal pain. I had disabled Java, since I did not seem to need it, I used add/remove programs to remove Java from my system. Then I stated to get those errors. I have reinstalled, but disabled Java in IE explorer. Now I do not get the error anymore. Not a programmer, don't know why this happened. Maybe a clue for someone.
Win 7 - 64bit OS IE Explorer 10. Hope this helps someone figure this out. John
I've seen this happen. In my case a global hook dll created a large memory file mapping, perhaps to the memory the licensing dll was counting on.
I see "Cannot set Allocations" when I open google chrome only. Also after that, chrome closes with a msg saying "Whoa chrome has crashed..."
Still no solution :(
Also not a programmer, but it always happens when I open Chrome. It opens second window with error message 'cannot set allocation'. I usually close it and go on my way. if i don't it usually causes a crash. doesnt happen on any other browsers.