I have a c++ program compiled with MinGW which links to libmicrohttpd to run a webserver. It normally functions correctly, but I am trying to do some robustness testing and for my current test I have tried to disable the network interface. This results in the program crashing with the dialog box: "MyProgram.exe has stopped working - A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."
Rather than debug the program and potentially its dependencies, for my purposes, it would be fine if it would just crash silently without making the dialog box (I have another component that is meant to restart it). Is this possible to do via some sort of manifest or Windows API call?
It turns out there is a Windows API function called SetErrorMode. Passing the parameter SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX will prevent the error dialog from being displayed on a crash.
There is also the RegisterApplicationRestart function which can be used to have Windows restart an application in the event of a crash (or other configurable reasons).
Related
We have a bigger software running on Win CE6 without problems. The core functionality is implemented in a COM server DLL that provides connection points. The COM client program registers event handlers for the connection points on program startup to get status notifications etc. On program exit it unregisters the handlers by calling the corresponding IConnectionPointImpl::Unadvise methods.
Now, we are porting the program to run on Win EC 7. The new Board Support Package (BSP) for Win EC 7 works well. There are also different versions with different options, created at different times with different sources from Microsoft, but our software always show the same issue.
On program startup, ~10s after launch, IConnectionPointImpl::Unadvise is called unexpectedly on all registered event handlers. We only have one method in our source code that calls IConnectionPointImpl::Unadvise and this is definitely not executed.
The issue appears ~95%, but sometimes the program starts and runs without problems. We cannot use the Debugger because of the size of the program, the performance is very poor.
We guess, that the COM runtime calls the IConnectionPointImpl::Unadvise methods for some reasons. But we have no idea, how to prevent this.
Has anybody observed the same issue? Is there a solution/workaround available? Thanks.
So we finally found how solve this problem.
We remove our dependency on MarshalByReObject and replace it by a proper implementation of ISerializable.
That allow us to load properly inside custom AppDomain our assembly and events are not loose anymore.
But this has a side effect on path where assembly a configuration file are loaded. To solve this we also implement an AppDomain.AssemblyResolve event which allow us to redirect the loading in a proper place.
I hope this can help you ;)
I am writing a small application (.exe) that does some tasks and then returns an exit status. It is meant to be run regularly from another application (which I have no control over) that uses the status code to determine further action.
It works just fine if I compile and link it as a console app. However, that makes the console window flash briefly on the screen every time it is run, which is a little bit annoying. I tried to make it a Windows app, but the problem then is that Windows releases control to the calling application (or the OS) immediately after start. Thus, any exit status my application generates is returned too late and is never seen by the calling application.
Is there a way to force my app to stay in the foreground, so to speak, and not release control before it actually exits? I tried to force the entry point to be the "main" function instead of "WinMain", but that didn't help.
It isn't a question of whether the child "releases control" or not - Windows is a preemptive multitasking operating system, so all processes run at once. If the parent process waits for the child to exit, it is because the programmer told it to wait for the child to exit.
It isn't easy to make a program wait for console programs but not non-console programs. The command shell (cmd.exe) works this way when run interactively, but there isn't any API that does this as far as I know. Assuming that it isn't deliberate - which would be very strange in this context - the only explanation I can think of is that the program is running an interactive command shell and feeding in your command via standard input. That's the wrong thing to do, but I have seen people trying to do it that way before.
Presumably you can choose the command line that the parent executes. Try this:
start /wait myapp.exe
(That's how you would do it in an interactive command shell.)
If that doesn't work, you may have to consult the author of the parent process for advice.
I've started getting the following exception while debugging a 32bit MFC C++ app under VS2010 SP1, Windows 7 64. While I can easily ignore it, I'm just wondering what it is.
First-chance exception at 0x751eb9bc in SCCW.exe: 0x80010108: The
object invoked has disconnected from its clients.
A similar question and a google search suggest its automation related, and while my app supports automation, it isn't doing anything automation related at the time. The stack frame for the active thread does not show anything much, all system DLLS (ntdll.dll,rpcrt4.dll,ole32.dll). I've been debugging the same app on the same system for a long time and only started seeing this recent, so just wondering why. Any ideas, and can it be safely ignored?
This will be some other executable that gets loaded in. It could be something that has windows hooks etc such as a virus scanner, or it could be a shell extension. Look up what SCCW is. If it is something you don't need on your system, uninstall it.
It should be safe to ignore, and you can prevent the application from stopping in the debugger by adding the exception type and telling VS not to stop on it.
Debug | Exceptions...
Then under Win32 Exceptions untick "80010108 Server Disconnected from clients".
I overloaded the 6 signals listed on this site http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/csignal/signal.html
Then i ran my app (double click not ran through IDE) and tried 1) end task 2) X on topright and 3) kill process. I expected the first two to cause some kind of signal (i am on XP) but alas i got nothing. Am i not allowed to open files to write into when a signal occurs? i am guessing i am (SIGSEGV allowed me).
When firefox crashes or when i kill it, it remembers what pages i was. Does it log the address everytime i click a page or does it do that on a signal/crash?
my main question is what signal can i use to catch kill process
Win32 does not provide an option to intercept your program being killed with TerminateProcess (which is what will happen when you "End Task" from Task Manager or click on the [X]).
You can catch the SIGSEGV signal because the C runtime library provides an emulation of this signal when running on Windows. When your program causes a Windows access violation (exception 0xC0000005), the runtime library has the option to catch that and simulate a Unix style SIGSEGV for you. This is, however, not the best way to handle such an exception. If you are writing a Win32 program, you shouldn't generally try to use Unix style services.
You can catch runtime error like an access violation if you override the default exception handler calling SetUnhandledExceptionFilter (this is a win32 function and as such doesn't rely on C library emulation). This is the method can used to provide "minidumps" when a program crashes.
But this exception handler will not be called when you normally close your application, or when your application is closed from Task manager. In the last case windows is calling TerminateProcess, is not a clean shutdown but it is forcing your program to terminate.
I'm not aware of which is the implementation used by Firefox, but to save the current tabs open is likely to have a timer running, and each time it is run it save the history to a file and some kind of dirty mark.
Other more complex solutions to detect when a program is closed (implemented by antivirus and similar programs) is to have two unrelated programs running, each checking that the other is still running, and if one detect the other was closed the run it again.
Windows apps are either console apps or GUI apps. Console apps tend to get WM_CLOSE, console apps CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT. Neither are signals; neither would be sent if your app is ended via TerminateProcess().
If you want to store where you were, use a memory-mapped file and update that on every action. When your process exits, the dirty page in memory is written back to file by the OS, possibly at other moments too. This solution allows the OS to manage disk I/O for you, and it's in a better position to do so.
we have a problem with an application we're developing. Very seldom, like once in a hundred, the application crashes at start up. When the crash happens it brings down the whole system, the computer starts to beep and freezes up completely, the only way to recover is to turn off the power (we're using Windows XP). The rarity of the crash combined with the fact that we can't break into the debugger or even generate a stackdump when it occurs makes it extremely hard to debug.
I'm looking for something that logs all function calls to a file. Does such a tool exist? It shouldn't be impossible to implement, profilers like VTune does something very similar.
We're using visual studio 2008 (C++).
Thanks
A.B.
Logging function entries/exits is a low-level approach to your problem. I would suggest using automatic debugger instrumentation (using Debugger key under Image File Execution Options with regedit or using gflags from the package I provide a link to below) and trying to repro the problem until it crashes. Additionally, you can have the debugger log function call history of suspected module(s) using a script or have collect any other information.
But not knowing the details of your application it is very hard to suggest a solution. Is it a user app, service or a driver? What does "crashes at startup" mean - at windows startup or app's startup?
Use this debugger package to troubleshoot.
The only problem with the logging idea is that when the system crashes, the latest log entries might still be in the cache and have no chance to be written to disk...
If it was me I would try running the program on a different PC - it might be flaky hardware or drivers causing the problem. An application program "shouldn't" be able to bring down the system.
A few Ideas-
There is a good chance that just prior to your crash there is some sort of exception in the application. if you set you handler for all unhandled exceptions using SetUnhandledExceptionFilter() and write a stack trace to your log file, you might have a chance to catch the crash in action.
Just remember to flush the file after every write.
Another option is to use a tool such as strace which logs all of the system calls into the kernel (there are multiple flavors and implementations for that so pick your favorite). if you look at the log just before the crash you might find the culprit
Have you considered using a second machine as a remote debugger (via the network)? When the application (and system) crashes, the second machine should still show some useful information, if not the actual point of the problem. I believe VC++ has that ability, at least in some versions.
For Visual C++ _penter() and _pexit() can be used to instrument your code.
See also Method Call Interception in C++.
GCC (including the version MingGW for Windows development) has a code generation switch called -finstrument-functions that tells the compiler to emit special calls to functions called __cyg_profile_func_enter and __cyg_profile_func_exit around every function call. For Visual C++, there are similar options called /GH and /Gh. These cause the compiler to emit calls to __penter and __pexit around function calls.
These instrumentation modes can be used to implement a logging system, with you implementing the calls that the compiler generates to output to your local filesystem or to another computer on your network.
If possible, I'd also try running your system using valgrind or a similar checking tool. This might catch your problem before it gets out-of-hand.