Visual Basic 6 is crashing after a new build of my program. Whenever I Start (F5 or Ctrl-F5) my program after making changes to the code, VB6 crashes with the following message:
An unhandled win32 exception occured in VB6.EXE [XXXX].
I can't make any pattern out of XXXX. It's been 5168, 5012, 1488, etc; it changes every crash.
The JIT debugger then offers to let me debug VB6 in VS2010 (which shows nothing but a bunch of disassembly.) If I say no, VB6 shuts down. I can then open and Start my program immediately, and it runs just fine; my changes from before the crash were saved. Alternatively, I can make changes, save them, exit VB6, restart VB6, then run them without a problem. But it seems like as soon as I make any changes, a "crash" flag is set, and if I try and build it before restarting VB6, it simply dies.
I'm only having this problem with specific projects. Most projects work completely normally. It's just this one, and it's branch, that both act in the same manner.
Does anyone have any clue what's going on? Obviously, saving works. And building works. And running works. They just don't seem to work together.
I reinstalled VB6 to no avail.
I ended up on this page after installing VS2010, and just one of many VB6 project wouldn't compile.
Simply go to Project Properties / Compile tab, and uncheck "Create Symbolic Debug Info".
Hope it works for you.
Try to open vb6 project with compability mode as XP. We had some issues related to "make exe" command. Then I started to run VB6.exe with XP compability mode.
Since you're asking for any clues, possible clues may include:
The surprises VB6 experiences when run on Vista/7. Try running elevated/remove elevation.
Same, but applied to a third party ActiveX control you're using.
Not having the Service Pack 6 installed. Install it.
Subclassing issues. Make sure your subclassing, if any, is actually correct.
Whatever problems you'll never figure out. Try reinstalling.
Reinstall VB6, delete the workspace files and then create a new project adding in all your current code files. Then go out and get a job where they use a modern SDK :)
Related
I had a program that starts up a Windows Service when installed and deleted that Windows Service when uninstalled. However it refused to uninstall after I modified the installer by accident (my fault!). I couldn't even remove it from Programs and Features as it kept throwing an error 2715. I found this article that had a FixIt program: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/mats/program_install_and_uninstall
Using that, I managed to finally remove the program itself. Now however, when I try installing and uninstalling it again (to test my changes), the Windows Service that's attached doesn't get removed. In fact, it continues running. I checked the registry and indeed the key for the service is still there after the uninstall. I would need to manually stop it and do a sc delete to get rid of it. Any idea on how I can solve this?
Edit: I am able to replicate the issue on another computer. What I do is, I install the program there, and use the Fix It tool to remove it. Once this is done, I can easily replicate the issue as the service is never deleted after uninstalling. It works fine prior to this.
Some guesswork here because there's not enough info....
Eroor 2715 is a Windows Installer error, and I suspect it's related to you running a program (as you describe it) to start and stop services. I'm guessing that you run it as a cuatom action, and on uninstall you attempt to run it but it's missing because it's been uininstalled.
So:
That fixit cure is not for a broken MSI (which yours is) - it's for fixing corrupt registry data that prevents uninstall, not fixing a broken MSI uninstall.
You don't need to run code to start and stop and delete services. Most MSI-building tools have support to the the Windows Installer functionalty that does this for you, so stop doing it!
A more specific answer is difficult without knowing what you are using to build your MSI with, and how you're running your program, but the signs point to you running the program after it's been removed, and even if you get the program running properly there's no way to tell whether it is correct without seeing the code. But 2 is what you should be doing anyway.
I got a weird problem with my VB app that has got me very confused. I am updating an existing program. I had to add some processing queue capabilities. On my system, unit testing worked great but when I compile it and run it on a different computer (a network server machine) it first tries to open an office install. If I cancel this, the program seems to run fine. The problem is that this program will be run in the background and I can't be hitting cancel each time it runs.
So my question is this: what is going on here? I'm usually a java developer we eclipse so I'm used to being able to include all the needed libs into the jar files automatically. It doesn't seem like the case with VB6. it seems like it expects all the same libs to be on all the systems. Is there any way to tell what might be triggering this?
The only thing I can think of that is causing it is that I'm using the "OpenProcess" function in the kernal32 lib. that the only major change I have made.
any help would be very appricated. thanks!
EDIT:
It seems that multiple versions of word were installed on the system and it was screwing things up somehow. We uninstalled one and it fixed it.
I ran into this a while ago and it was related to my installer for the VB6 app overwriting some system files for Office that it shouldn't have. Any time one of the System dlls was accessed Windows would determine that something was wrong and the Office installer would start up.
The short-term fix was to let the Office Installer repair the broken chain of dlls.
The long-term fix was to never overwrite built-in Windows System dlls.
You could also check out the Microsoft Fix it Center.
I made a minor change to a legacy Visual C++ / MFC app built with VS 2008. I changed some UI resources in the .rc file and compiled without any problems, then deployed it on my client's system. However, the program which was previously doing fine now fails to run on exactly one of their servers. It works fine on my laptop and on their other servers, many of whom are basically identical to the one having the trouble.
The weird thing however is that there is absolutely no error message whatsoever. No message box, no errorlevel set (when run on command prompt), no Dr. Watson entry, no nothing.
It's an MFC app that does not really comprise anything very special. It does link in some external libraries – e.g., some old version of the Xerces C++ XML parser. But this is probably not too relevant, right?
The program has a class derived from CWinApp, and I tried to add some logging in its constructor. Based on this, it looks like not even this constructor is reached.
The server in question is running Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition Service Pack 2, and we are trying to run the program in a Remote Desktop session. (Because of the client's environment, I cannot easily test in a console session right now.)
I reverted my changes from version control, which did not help – but I do not know if I had built myself the previously installed version (which ran just fine even on this server) or if it had been built by someone else.
Have also tried to reinstall the Visual C++ runtime libraries and of course reboot Windows, but neither helped. Now I'm really running out of ideas... Any clues on what I could try or check?
Probably some error occurs but is surpressed e.g. empty catch() statement or similar.
You could try and install Debugging tools for Windows WinDbg to see if you could get more info when trying to run it. Since the download is rather small 25Mb maybe it is possible to install it on your client's PC.
But first check the eventview log for your app, maybe there is something in there that can shed some light.
it starts up windows installer with random applications on my machine . . after i click cancel a few times, it loads vb6 fine.
any ideas why this is happening?
To stop this behavior:
Start VB6
Open the Add-Ins dialog
Uncheck the "Visual Component Manager" Add-In
Source:
After VS2010, SP1, VB6 launches VS2010 installer
This is what a Windows Installer repair looks like. It means that something is broken in one of the installed products on your system. Ideally it's a one-off repair so you might be better off letting it runs its course and do the repair, except of course if it asks for a install CD that you don't have.
The Windows event log (Application) will have MsiInstaller entries saying what product and component has the problem.
It's possible a previous installation has not completed correctly.
Use the utility at the following link to remove any rogue installations files:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 (broken link Aug.2017, leaving URL for "historical purposes").
As PhilDW has pointed out this is a Windows Installer Self-Repair issue, and can often be resolved by allowing the self-repair to complete once. At other times the problem persists and it should be fixed by other means. Even when the self-repair completes and the problem goes away, it can still resurface once you launch the conflicting application. Windows Installer is not easy to deal with.
In your particular case you might be able to get away with a "workaround" rather than a fix. By locating the main VB6 EXE file on disk (in its main installation directory) and manually creating a shortcut to it on your desktop, you might be able to successfully launch VB6 via this new shortcut without the self-repair kicking in. It might be worth a try.
This shortcut trick will not remove the underlying problem, but might help to "bypass it". Just for the record: the reason this might work is that the new, manually created shortcut is not "advertised" and will not trigger a key-path check of the installed product when launched. This is Windows Installer's way to verify that a product is correctly installed. Note that even if the workaround works, self-repair might still result during application use because of faulty COM data being detected (which is very likely the cause of the whole problem you are seeing, but give the manually created shortcut a try).
There is a rather comprehensive "article" on self-repair here: How can I determine what causes repeated Windows Installer self-repair? which might help to track down the cause of the self-repair kicking off in the first place, but fixing it can be a rather complicated process (so try the workaround first). It is a long article because there are so many different ways self-repair can occur. The common denominator is that different installers on your system are fighting over a shared setting that they keep updating with their own values on each application launch in an endless loop. The last application to launch will overwrite the registry or file system with its own setting.
This worked for me, for VS2010 RC:
"Please wait while windows configures Microsoft Visual studio 2010 Ultimate."
THe work around that fixes the issue for me was to run the following via the admin cmd prompt.
Md "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\common7\IDE\FromGAC"
from http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-SG/vsprereleaseannouncements/thread/572a0f8a-16b0-4e1d-b581-16be36a9b564
This was also happned to me.
Whenever i tried to open vb6, it started windows installer to configure "Autocad".
Autocad had not broken. and it was working fine.
I tried removing and reinstalling Windows Installer, But it did not solved the issue.
Then i installed Microsoft's "Windows Installer Clean Up Utility 2" from given link.
Using this utility i removed the autocad from "Windows Installers" Database.
After that VB6 never started installer again.
Keep in mind 'removing any entry from installer's database may be risky, but i had no choice. So do it on your own risk.
Download "Windows Installer Clean Up Utility 2" (this is a deprecated, unsupported and unsafe tool to use - Aug.2017. I will leave the link in for "historical purposes", don't use it).
I have a VB6 app that formerly worked perfectly on a Vista machine as a scheduled task, but it will no longer open on the same machine. The app generates export files in a specified folder with no direct output on the screen. I get no errors, no missing references, just absolutely nothing.
The machine is running Vista Business 32-bit, UAC is disabled with a single administrator account, and automatic updates are turned off. The app resides in a non-protected folder, and the export files are put in a folder on the desktop. The client swears that the only change they made to that computer since I installed this app was installing Norton Antivirus, which has never caused problems before with our software.
In addition to the normal VB6 references, the app references Microsoft Scripting Runtime (scrrun.dll), and Microsoft DAO 3.6 (dao360.dll). Both of these files are present and registered on the target machine, along with all the other VB6 dependencies. I added MsgBox statements at the beginning of Sub Main() just to see if anything is being executed, and its not. Disabling Norton yielded no results, nor did reinstalling VB6 runtime to rule out any corrupted libraries. Not once did I get any messages, error or otherwise from my app.
I've never had an issue like this before and I'm completely stumped. Is there anything else that could be causing this?
Edit - The app does not run even when I run it manually, so the part about it being a scheduled task is irrelevant to my problem, sorry for including it.
The user has full administrator credentials, no compatibility mode was needed on the initial test which at the time, was done on this very machine I am having the problem on. For grins I tried compatibility mode for XP and 2000, still nothing.
Try to inspect - if you can access them - the Event Viewer messages. Maybe you will find some tell-tell signs in there...
You could try running the program in Windbg, a free standalone debugger from Microsoft. Compile your VB6 EXE into native code with symbols (create PDB files) and you will be able to debug your application in Windbg.
I would guess one of two things will happen.
Windbg will fail to load the EXE. Presumably with an error message that will identify your problem.
Windbg will load the EXE, and you can single-step through to see what happens.
Here's a 2006 blog post by a Microsoft guy about using Windbg with VB6, and 2004 blog post by another Microsoft VB guy with a brief introduction to Windbg.
Has the user changed their password? That will cause the scheduled task to fail until they re-enter the password on the task.
Have you tried running the process directly, instead of as a scheduled task? I'm far from an expert, but it may be that any errors being generated are not showing up because the program is running as a task.