I have to travel back in time and debug a VB6 form. It is used inside an application (not ours, Esri ArcMap.exe). I see VB6 has some debug capabilities, but nowhere do I see, like in .NET, the ability to "launch another app" or "attach" to a running application.
How can I debug my VB6 code while running inside a 3rd party application?
It's right there; you just didn't see it.
If your form is hosted inside a DLL (most likely from your description), you have two options, both of which can be set from the "Project"-> "Projectname Properties" dialog box, Debugging tab.
"Wait for components to be created"
When click on Run (F5), VB6 will alter the registry entries for your DLL so that they point to the VB6 debugger.
Launch your third-party program as usual.
When any program tries to create objects and forms hosted by your DLL, it will do so through the debugger.
"Start a program"
Same as before, plus VB6 will execute the command line entered in the dialog box.
It should be noted that VB6 must be run in full "As Administrator" mode, because it needs to write to normally-protected areas of the registry.
Don't worry about the third option. Let's just say that some things are better forgotten.
My first-hand knowledge is a little hazy (I've inherited a PC with all of this stuff configured, and I have no intention of ever setting it up again from scratch...), but here goes:
There is an ESRI VB6 add-in called ESRI Compile and Register, which is supposed to make this whole process a lot easier.
There's a lot of instructions on that link, but one of the key things is under Options->Support Visual Basic Debugger, which creates a file ESRIVBDebugHelper.exe.
In Project -> Properties -> Debugging tab, under Start Program, you enter the full path to this ESRIVBDebugHelper.exe. Then when you debug the VB6 application, it should spawn ArcMap and allow you to debug on the fly within the VB6 IDE.
Related
I am testing the standalone IntelliTrace recorder tool but struggle to use it for post-mortem debugging of a client WPF application.
I managed to record the data using the IntelliTrace recorder. However, when I view the created .itrace file in Visual Studio 2017 15.8.6 Enterprise, I cannot see any references to the code. VS tells me for all events that all threads execute only external or framework code.
The events that have been recorded are mostly WPF button click gestures. Even though the button click method itself is in BCL libraries, I was expecting to see click handler code. Furthermore, I also added a line to throw an exception in my app (which then of course is thrown in the code of the application), but for this, I also cannot see any code.
The collection plan did not make any difference. I was using the builtin ASP.NET Trace collection plan as it is supposed to be verbose, the default plan and a customized plan where I removed everything that is not important for the app under test.
The program database files are located next to the executables as I was executing the program from in its build output directory, so VS should not have any problems finding the pdbs.
The commandline I was using to start the collection is
C:\IntelliTrace\IntelliTraceSC.exe launch /cp:C:\IntelliTrace\collection_plan.ASP.NET.trace.xml /f:C:\IntelliTrace\test.itrace MyApp.exe
Am I missing something? What is required to see the actual code? Currently, I only see the sequence of events, which alone is pretty useless for debugging.
I am using the IntelliTrace collector version 14.0.24720.00.
You have to check your debbuger.
Try Right click on the project and under Configuration Properties -> Debugging there should be a row with Debugger type).
Can you try debugging with the type switched to mixed mode? It seems like you also have managed code running and it may be using the incorrect debugger if it is set to auto.
Are you still getting the same issue?
Also can you try debugging with Just My Code turned off. Tools -> Optio -> Debugging. Make sure Enabled Just My Code is unchecked. Does this issue still appear?
Also, try with:
Debug > Options > General > Uncheck "Enable Just My Code"
All the references that I mention has background in:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/dd264915(v=vs.120)
Hope it fix your issue
When running a console application in Visual Studio via "Start without Debugging" (Ctrl+F5), the console remains open at the end of the run asking to
Press any key to continue . . .
thus requiring to activate the window and hit a key. Sometimes this is not appropriate.
Why this matters:
At the very moment I write json serialisation code, my workflow goes like this:
adapt c# code
run a console app that writes file out.json
view out.json in the browser with a json viewer
do this again and again, no need to debug anything, just trimming serialisation and check output is good.
It is workflows like this, where the "press any ..." behavior is hindering as it requires the steps
activate the console window
press key
.
No answers:
Starting the application outside VS in a separate console is not an answer.
Saying, you dont need this.
I'm pretty sure that you cannot affect or change this behavior.
As you mention, it has nothing to do with your application itself, because it doesn't do it when you double-click on the EXE. You only see this effect when you run the app from within Visual Studio without the debugger attached.
Presumably, when you invoke Ctrl+F5, Visual Studio is running your app in a particular way that causes the console window to remain open. I can think of two ways it might be doing it:
%COMSPEC% /k "C:\Path\To\YourApplication.exe"
or
%COMSPEC% /c ""C:\Path\To\YourApplication.exe" & pause"
With either of these, the pausing behavior you're seeing is baked right into the command used to launch your app and is therefore external to your application. So unless you have access to the Visual Studio sources, you're not going to change it. Calling an exit function from your app won't have any effect because your app has already quit by the time that message appears.
Of course, I can't see why it really matters, aside from an issue of curiosity. This doesn't happen when you start the app with the debugger attached, which is what you'll be doing 99% of the time when you launch the app from the IDE. And since you don't ship Visual Studio along with your app, your users are going to be starting the app outside of VS.
In response to the updates made to your question, the best solution would be to change your app so that it is not a console application. This behavior doesn't affect standard Windows applications; when they get closed, they close for good.
If you do not require any output on the console window, then this is very simple to do: just change the "Application type" in your project's properties. A Windows Forms application will work just fine. If you do not display a window (aka form), one will not be automatically created. This is the difference between regular Windows applications and console applications, which always create a console window, whether you need one or not.
If you do need to display output on the console window, you have a couple of options:
Create and use a simple form with a ListBox or ListView control. Each line that you would normally output to the console, you add as a new item to the list control. This works well if you're not using any "advanced" features of the console.
P/Invoke and call the AllocConsole function to create a console that your Windows application can use. You do not need a form for this.
I found a solution that works if you are using python (I could not test anything else).
You need to go to
Tools -> Options -> Python Tools -> Debugging
Uncheck Wait for input when process exits normally.
I hope you can apply this somehow to your problem.
2020 UPDATE : Microsoft has listened.
It also closes the console in "Start Without Debugging" mode ;)
The setting is a little buried, but works :
Well, at least in Visual Studio 2010, typing
Console.ReadKey(true);
Removes the "Press any key to continue....."
According to the VS2019 documentation:
Automatically close the console when debugging stops: Tells Visual Studio to close the console at the end of a debugging session.
It works, but only if you make sure your project starts with the debugger on. This sounds trivial, but I was trying at first with a solution with two projects, one Console one to copy files to use in my app, the other to run the actual app. I set the Console one to Start without debugging because I don't need debugging on it, but that did not close it after it ran. Only when setting it to Start (with debugging) this option worked.
In vs2017 you have to uncheck the python environment setting under the vs-options:
in german: Auf Eingabe warten, wenn der Prozess normal beendet wird
I have a VB6 application, the installer is compiled using INNO Setup.
The installer runs fine. But in about 10% of computers when the user clicks the Icon to run the installed app, it doesn't start, no error message, only a Beep sound.
This is happening on XP and also Win 7.
I develop in XP and Win 7 and the application works OK, so I haven't been able to reproduce the issue.
The installer registers all ocx and dlls needed (afaik). (Well not completely all, it assumes MS run-time components should be there, but I guess an error message should show up if something is missing)
I was thinking some kind of user permissions, UAC, but even users in the admin group have had the issue.
Could you point me to what possible issues to look for and test in order to patch the app.
Thanks!
[FOLLOW UP]
Thanks to the tips, found out the manifest is causing the problem. I use it to make the controls look better:
http://www.vbaccelerator.com/home/vb/code/libraries/xp_visual_styles/using_xp_visual_styles_in_vb/article.asp
Now I'm trying to discover why. I have another application with the same manifest and that one works ok.
Haven't been able to get feedback on the event viewer yet.
The "beep crash" often points to an error in an application manifest such as an XML syntax error or namspace conflict. Event Logs will often provide a hint about this.
But I've found that people often try to use the Common Controls 6.0 Library without ensuring proper library loading sequence.
Before any Forms are openend you should load shell32 and then comctl32. The easiest way is a couple of no-op calls in Sub Main:
Option Explicit
Private Declare Sub InitCommonControls Lib "comctl32" ()
Private Declare Function IsUserAnAdmin Lib "shell32" () As Long
Private Sub InitCommonControlsVB()
IsUserAnAdmin
InitCommonControls
End Sub
Private Sub Main()
InitCommonControlsVB
Form1.Show
End Sub
Without this your program will usually work fine in Vista or Win7, but will fail on some XP service pack and patch levels. Part of this is due to changes over time in the Fusion subsystem that handles SxS activation and comctl32.dll patches.
Ignore those saying you need to call InitCommonControlsEx(), it isn't necessary unless you are constructing and using Win32 controls directly instead of VB6 and COM controls.
A few things to try to narrow it down:
Check the Windows Event Log for crash events
Check the Windows Event Log (in the Application section) for crash reports from your application. You can quickly get to the log viewer on Windows XP by clicking Start > Run, typing eventvwr and pressing Enter. On Windows 7, you can type "event viewer" in the search box that is in the Start menu. You can filter the events to only show error events from your program.
You might find a few error events on one of the computers where this problem has already occured, because it sounds like the error reporting feature is turned off on these computers (in which case "hard crashes" like access violations are logged in the Event Log instead of displaying an error dialog to the end-user, as long as a debugger isn't installed on the computer).
Make sure "Error Reporting" is turned at the OS level
As mentioned in the previous section, it sounds like the error reporting feature is turned off on these computers. In that case, a crash won't display any kind of message to the end-user at all and the application will just vanish suddenly. In Windows XP, you can check this setting (and turn it on) as follows:
Right-click "My Computer" and select Properties.
Open the Advanced tab and click the Error Reporting button.
Select the Enable Error Reporting option.
Click OK to all the open windows.
Add trace code to your application
You could also add some trace code to your application's start-up code, such as code to display a message box or write a message to the Windows Event Log or to a log file as soon as your application starts (for example, in the Form_Initialize event of your main form, or in a Sub Main routine).
This way you will be able to tell whether your application is crashing before or after the VB6 runtime is loaded: if you try to start the application and it disappears/crashes, and your startup message isn't logged, then you know it's crashing before it even has a chance to get to your application's startup code, which could indicate that a dependency of the VB6 runtime or the VB6 runtime itself is not installed properly.
Note that Windows XP and Windows 7 both ship with the VB6 runtime pre-installed, but it's possible for misbehaving installers to overwrite or remove files that are part of the VB6 runtime.
I'd like to humbly ask: How can I debug a wince executable(.exe) that has been stored on the wince device, using Visual Studio's debugging facility.
As we all know, using VS2005, we can create a Win32 Smart Device Project(.vcproj)，add our source files to it, compile, select a target device, and press F5, then the generated exe will be deployed to the wince device and gets attached to the VS2005 wince debugger. But I'd really like to know, if someone has a wince exe(call it stock) already in his wince-device and have source code corresponding to that exe, HOW DO I start debugging that stock exe directly WITHOUT compiling the source code? I cannot compile the source code perhaps because I'm missing some library source or other reason.
For PC program, I know I can open an exe as a project so to start debugging that exe. I can find the main() function and set a break point on its first statement, then F5 will stop at that break point.
Thank you in advance.
I often run into this problem as well; I wish the "exe project" created would allow changing the debugger to "Smart Device Native Debugger" (or somehow set the platform) -> Let me know if someone knows how to do that.
The two ways I have been able to work around this are:
New Project Method:
Create an empty "Smart Device" project with no source code.
Change the "Configuration Properties > Debugging > Remote Executable" to your "Stock EXE" that you put on the device, ie: \FlashDisk\MyApp.exe
F5 to debug, and choose "Yes" when it says "deployment errors, do you wish to continue".
Attach to Process Method:
Same as above, but, instead of editing "Remote Executable" just start the "Stock EXE" via rapistart.exe / running manually via screen. Then make sure the "Attach to Process" transport is set to "Smart Device" and you should be able to attach.
After this you need to manually load the pdb, choose src files, etc, as you would a normal PC app.
If you want to debug a .NET CF managed application then the following link should help:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/b1ksfbk7%28VS.80%29.aspx
I only used managed .NET CF but I found this link that has loads of goodies on how to debug both managed and native code on a Windows Mobile 5 in VS2005. Most of it should apply to Win CE as well:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa446524.aspx
I figure out the method lately after going through quite a lot of reading and experiment(so many tricky points that Microsoft does not clearly document). user2093823 kindly summarized the procedure.
Some historical screen shots:
I developed a small VBA procedure in MS Access 2003 module (just one public Sub)
The database is locked for me only, nobody else has access to the file.
My code works but there is a small bug I want to find and fix
I need to debug my VBA code. I put breakpoint at the first line of the procedure.
However, when I run this code, it never stops at the breakpoint and never enters to debug mode. Seems like VBA debugger is not working or disabled. I was not able to find any option how it is possible to disable/enable VBA debugger, I supposed it should be always enabled. Now I can debug this code only with the help of putting a lot of message boxes, but it takes a lot of time...
Please see:
ACC2002: Breakpoints Are Ignored in Visual Basic for Applications Code
Enable the Use Special Access Keys startup option.
To do so, follow these steps:
Open the database in which the breakpoint has been set.
On the Tools Menu, click Startup.
In the Startup dialog box, click to select the Use Special Access Keys
check box.
Click OK to close the Startup dialog box.
Close and then reopen the database.
Run the code that contains the breakpoint. Note that execution of the
code pauses at the breakpoint, as you
would expect.
Office 2010 Steps to resolve:
File
Options
Current Database
Make sure "Use Access Special" is checked.
Close and reopen Database.