Exception: device is nullptr. read access violation in D3D11 - c++

Question

everyone.
I wrote a small 3D scene two years ago, it's only 1700 lines of source code (excluding .h files). Now coming back to GitHub and running my app I found out pretty interestion bug in debug mode.
Debbuger throws me an exception when calling CreateBuffer for vertex buffer:
auto result = device->CreateBuffer(&vertex_buffer_desc, &vertex_data, &vertex_buffer);
if(FAILED(result))
return false;
Basically, debugger says (d3d11) device is nullptr which can't be the case, because running in non-debug mode, everything works fine. But when I define UINT create_device_flag = D3D11_CREATE_DEVICE_DEBUG; before creating device I have this exception thrown: read access violation. device is nullptr. A few days later, I still cannot find out what's is wrong, because the order that pointers are defined in is correct.
Here's Main.cpp:
#include <StdAfx.h>
#include <Window.h>
#include <FPSCamera.h>
#include <DirectInput8.h>
#include <D3D11Renderer.h>
#include <Terrain.h>
#include <TerrainShader.h>
using namespace bm;
int __stdcall WinMain(HINSTANCE, HINSTANCE, char*, int)
{
auto resource_directory_name = L"..\\..\\..\\Resource\\"s;
auto terrain_name = L"terrain"s;
auto dds_file_extension = L".dds"s;
auto hlsl_file_extension = L".hlsl"s;
std::wstring resources[] = {resource_directory_name + L"heightmap.bmp"s,
resource_directory_name + terrain_name + dds_file_extension,
resource_directory_name + terrain_name + L"_bump"s + dds_file_extension,
resource_directory_name + terrain_name + L"_vs"s + hlsl_file_extension,
resource_directory_name + terrain_name + L"_ps"s + hlsl_file_extension};
constexpr auto ENABLE_FULLSCREEN = false;
constexpr auto ENABLE_VSYNC = false;
constexpr auto SCREEN_WIDTH = 1366;
constexpr auto SCREEN_HEIGHT = 768;
auto window = std::make_shared<bm::Window>(SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, ENABLE_FULLSCREEN);
window->registerClass();
window->create();
auto d3d11_renderer = std::make_shared<bm::D3D11Renderer>(SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, ENABLE_FULLSCREEN, window->getHandle(), ENABLE_VSYNC);
// Exception is thrown in the following ponter, but d3d11 device should be already initialized.
auto terrain = std::make_shared<bm::Terrain>(d3d11_renderer->getDevice(), resources[0].c_str(), resources[1].c_str(), resources[2].c_str());
auto terrain_shader = std::make_shared<bm::TerrainShader>(d3d11_renderer->getDevice(), resources[3].c_str(), resources[4].c_str());
auto fps_camera = std::make_shared<bm::FPSCamera>(static_cast<float>(SCREEN_WIDTH), static_cast<float>(SCREEN_HEIGHT));
fps_camera->setPosition(500.f, 75.f, 400.f);
fps_camera->setRotation(20.f, 30.f, 0.f); // in degree.
auto direct_input_8 = std::make_shared<bm::DirectInput8>(window->getHandle());
constexpr float CLEAR_COLOR[] = {0.84f, 0.84f, 1.f, 1.f};
while(window->update())
{
direct_input_8->update(fps_camera->getMoveLeftRight(), fps_camera->getMoveBackForward(), fps_camera->getYaw(), fps_camera->getPitch());
fps_camera->update();
d3d11_renderer->clearScreen(CLEAR_COLOR);
terrain->render(d3d11_renderer->getDeviceContext());
terrain_shader->render(d3d11_renderer->getDeviceContext(),
terrain->getIndexCount(),
fps_camera->getWorld(),
fps_camera->getView(),
fps_camera->getProjection(),
{0.82f, 0.82f, 0.82f, 1.0f},
{-0.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f},
terrain->getColorTexture(),
terrain->getNormalMapTexture());
d3d11_renderer->swapBuffers();
}
return 0;
}
P.S.
And I know there's a 6 years old article on the website: CreateBuffer throwing an "Access violation reading location"
But it hardly explains any thing, since I have no global variables and pointers. I'd like to correct my old mistake, so I'll be glad to specify anything if needed.

Answer 1

Sorry but this is all abstraction code, so we can't see the actual place where you are calling D3D11CreateDevice.
That said, the symptom you describe sounds like you don't have the right Debug Device SDK layer installed on your operating system. You are likely failing to check for a FAILED HRESULT from D3D11CreateDevice as well.
DWORD createDeviceFlags = 0;
#ifdef _DEBUG
createDeviceFlags |= D3D11_CREATE_DEVICE_DEBUG;
#endif
ComPtr<ID3D11Device> device;
ComPtr<ID3D11DeviceContext> context;
D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL fl;
HRESULT hr = D3D11CreateDevice( nullptr, D3D_DRIVER_TYPE_HARDWARE,
nullptr, createDeviceFlags, nullptr,
0, D3D11_SDK_VERSION, &device, &fl, &context );
if (FAILED(hr))
...
On a system without the Debug Device SDK layer installed, this will fail in _DEBUG.
On Windows 8.x or Windows 10, installing the legacy DirectX SDK does not install any debug runtime.
For Windows 8.x you can get the Direct3D 11 Debug Runtime by installing the Windows 8.x SDK or Windows 10 SDK.
For Windows 10, you get the Direct3D Debug Runtime by installing a Windows optional feature named Graphics Tools. For Windows 10, this is version specific so make sure you have it enabled so it has the one that matches your release. See this blog post
See Anatomy of Direct3D 11 Create Device