eFence/Duma for Windows - c++

I would appreciate some help concerning a good way to debug invalid memory accesses on Windows. Being a Linux developer, I am a big fan of Valgrind. Even Duma and eFence are very efficient tools. But on Windows I am totally lost (WinXP/VS2008). I tried a lot of tools, tried to link my program against duma with no luck.
Here are the symptoms for the bug I am having:
Crash in Release mode on some specific configurations (only the size of my data changes)
When it doesn't crash in Release mode, the name of the test in the report is replaced by random characters. (I am using Boost.Test)
Nothing in Debug mode, everything goes well
This definitely sounds like a invalid write/read somewhere, but debugging in Release mode is impossible, I need to reproduce the crash in Debug mode. Redefining the new operator and try to imitate the behavior of eFence/Duma was my best bet, but I am having troubles overriding it.
So far I tried:
Dr.Memory
GFlags
AppVerifier
Duma (cannot override malloc/etc..)
I'd be more than thankful if someone could give me a tip there because it's been a while since I am trying to resolve this issue.
Thanks in advance.

Related

opencv memory leak in equalizeHist?

I am running a process in ~20000 images. It was crashing every time at a different point, so I decided to debug it.
After a few debugging I have realized about this:
I've just create a dummy function that equalizes an image and when it goes out of the scope it does not release all the memory.
I have tried with:
equalizedImage.release() but same result.
Any idea about what to do or if I am not managing something correctly??
(using Opencv version 2.4.9)
Thank you!!
The documentation doesn't indicate that the src and dest can be the same image.
I hate not to be able to comment for this, but I want to note a few things.
1) Windows' Task Manager memory usage indicator cannot be fully trusted for this purpose. The Process is free to keep some memory reserved for future use.
2) Please post the code that leaks so we can reproduce it properly. Possibly with tools like Valgrind the leak can be detected. At least that is better than the Task Manager.
3) Have you considered upgrading to the latest release of OpenCV to see if this behavior disappears?
4) I highly doubt that this has something to do with your crashes.
Your code is fine and should not cause any leak. The problem is somewhere else. However, there is common problem when linking openCV wrongly with your program (for example linking with MT while your program is MD or another wrong configurations) that cause a problem in releasing cv::Mat. This problem usually appears in the Debug mode and disappeared in the Release mode. so you may try to debug it in the debug mode. This problem may prevent Mat from being freed correctly.
BTW, what is the memory usage you are getting after 1000 epochs?

Bizarre behavior with Visual Studio's debugger; "The network location cannot be reached" (ERROR_NETWORK_UNREACHABLE)

I've experienced this with every version of Visual Studio starting from 2012 (2012, 2013, 2015 Preview), on multiple computers and multiple projects, but I haven't figured out how to fix it:
Whenever I'm debugging a 64-bit(?) C++ console program, after a few minutes and seemingly completely randomly (when I'm not clicking or typing anything), the console window for the program spontaneously closes and I can no longer debug or step through the program with Visual Studio. When I press Stop and attempt to restart debugging, I usually get ERROR_NETWORK_UNREACHABLE:
// MessageId: ERROR_NETWORK_UNREACHABLE
// MessageText:
// The network location cannot be reached. For information about network troubleshooting, see Windows Help.
#define ERROR_NETWORK_UNREACHABLE 1231L
If I try to attach to the process manually I get the error:
Unable to attach to the process.
The only fix I've found for this is to restart Visual Studio. I can't find any other way to fix it, and I've tried running Process Monitor but haven't found anything.
What causes this problem and how can I fix it?
(?) Upon further checking it seems that this only happens in 64-bit mode, but I'm not 100% sure.
Ok, this is just so wrong
I also have issues with this bug, and in my case it occurred every other debug session. Which meant debug -> stop -> debug -> bug -> restart visual studio -> go to start (repeat every minute during the whole day).
Needless to say I was driven to find a solution. So yesterday I tried procmon, spend hours looking at API monitor differences, looked at plugins, netstat, etc, etc, etc. And found nothing. I gave up.
Today
Until today.
To track down a stupid bug in my program today, I launched appverifier. For my application, I ran the 'basics' tests and clicked save. After a few hours this led me to the bug in my program, which was something like this (extremely simplified version):
void* dst = _aligned_malloc(4096, 32);
memcpy(dst, src, 8192);
Obviously this is a bug and obviously it needed fixing. I noticed the error after putting a breakpoint on the memcpy line, which was not executed.
After a stop and 'debug' again I was surprised to find that I could actually debug the program for the second time. And now, several hours later, this annoying bug here hasn't re-emerged.
So what appears to be going on
So... apparently data from my program is bleeding through into the data or execution space of the debugger, which in turn appears to generate the bug.
I see you thinking: No, this shouldn't happen... you're right; but apparently it does.
So how to fix it? Basically fixing your program (more particular: heap corruption issues) seems to make the VS debugger bug go away. Using appverifier.exe (It's in Debugging tools for Windows) will give you a head start.
Why this works
Since VS2012, VC++ uses a different way to manage the heap. Hans Passant explains it here: Does msvcrt uses a different heap for allocations since (vs2012/2010/2013) .
What basically happens is that heap corruption will break your debugger. The AppVerifier basic settings will ensure that a breakpoint is triggered just before the application does something to corrupt the heap.
So, what happens now is that before the process will break the heap, a breakpoint will trigger instead, which usually means you will terminate the process. The net effect is that the heap will still be in-tact before you terminate your program, which means that your debugger will still function.
"Test"
Before using appverifier -- bug triggered every 2 minutes
While using appverifier -- VS debugger has been stable for 5 days (and counting)
This is an environmental problem of course. Always hard to troubleshoot, SysInternals' utilities like Process Monitor and Process Explorer are your primary weapons of choice. Some non-intuitive ways that a network error can be generated while debugging:
Starting with VS2012, the C runtime library had a pretty drastic modification that can cause very hard to diagnose mis-behavior if your program corrupts the heap. Much like #atlaste describes. Since time memorial, the CRT always created its own heap, underlying call was HeapCreate(). No more, it now uses GetProcessHeap(). This is very convenient, much easier now to deal with DLLs that were built with /MT. But with a pretty sharp edge, you can now easily corrupt the memory owned by Microsoft code. Not strongly indicated if you can't reattach a 64-bit program, you'd have to kill msvsmon.exe to clear up the corruption.
The Microsoft Symbol Server supplies PDBs for Microsoft executables. They normally have their source+line-number info stripped, but not all of them. Notably not for the CRT for example. Those PDBs were built on a build server owned by DevDiv in Redmond that had the source code on the F: drive. A few around that were built from the E: drive, Patterns+Practices uses that (unlikely in a C++ program). Your debugger will go look there to try to find source code. That usually ends well, it gives up quickly, but not if your machine uses those drive letters as well. Diagnose by clearing the symbol cache and disabling the symbol server with Tools + Options, Debugging, Symbols.
The winapi suffers from two nasty viral infections it inherited from another OS that add global state to any process. The PATH environmental variable and the default working directory. Use Control Panel + System + Advanced + Environment to have a look at PATH, copy/paste the content of the intentionally small textboxes into a text editor. Make sure it is squeaky clean, some paralysis at the usual mess is normal btw. Take no prisoners. Having trouble with the default directory is much harder to troubleshoot. Both should pop out when you use Process Monitor.
No slamdunk explanations, it is a tough problem, but dark corners you can look in.
I have the same problem. Thought it was related to 64 bit console apps, where it is very easily triggered with almost any debug session. But, it also happens on 64 bit windows apps too. Now I am seeing it on 32 bit windows apps. I am running Windows 8.1 pro on a single desktop with the latest version of vs 2013 and no remote debugging. My (added) extensions are Visual Assist, Advanced Installer, ClangFormat, Code Alignment, Code Compare, Duplicate Selection, Productivity Power Tools 2013, and Visual SVN.
I discovered that the "Visual Studio 2013\Settings\CurrentSettings.vssettings" file gets corrupted. You can delete this file and recreate it by restarting VS or you can try to edit the XML. I then keep a copy of a good settings file that I use to replace when it gets corrupted again.
In my case, the corrupted line begins with
</ToolsOptionsSubCategory><ToolsOptionsSubCategory name="XAML" RegisteredName="XAML"
... and it is extremely long (I think this is why it is prone to corruption).
I just disabled in the Menu
Tools > Options
Debugging > Edit and Continue
Native-only options > Enable native Edit and Continue
and now it does not give the that stupid error which was preventing the starting of the debuggee application.
I also had the same problem with VS2015. It was so frustrating that a simple Hello World program gave this error when I ran debugger for the second time. Tried uninstall and reinstall and didn't work.
Finally, the solution mentioned in https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/8dce0952-234f-4c18-a71a-1d614b44f256/visual-studios-2012-cannot-findlaunch-project-exe?forum=vsdebug
worked. Reset all visual studio settings using Tools->Import and Export settings. Now the issue is not occurring.

Generic log for application crash C++/MFC

We have a problem for which I am looking for a direction. We have an old MFC based application, and due to various reasons, the application is crashing sometimes intermittently in some weird scenarios. And even the customers who are using our application and getting these crashes are finding difficulty in identifying the pattern of crash. So, I had a thought that, if we can have a mechanism by which we can generate a log whenever the application crashes. Like for example, the call stack or any other information in that log. I know,, we can use the crash dump in this case, but then I feel like having a log is a better option. So any help or information in this regard would be really helpful.
Thank you.
You can find a good implementation of crash reporter in the link here.
When you compile your release build, make sure that both DEBUG and /MAP are enabled. Store your binaries together with your .map files and let your customer run this version until a crash is produced. In the Event Viewer you will then find a crash log with a crash offset. Then debug step into your code (F10) and use the crash offset together with some nifty tricks and tricks to jump (set the EIP register to... well, you have to google this a bit) to the location where the crash occurred. You should now be able to find the error!

application verifier DEBUG or RELEASE mode?

I have a corruption memory heap with my application. I would like to use Application Verifier in order to find the bug.
I have some difficulties to find a tutorial on how use Application Verifier.
One of the first question I'm wondering is should I use my application in DEBUG or RELEASE mode ?
Thanks
Typically, in debug mode with a debugger attached will be your first stop. This provides full run-time checks, more validation, and more accurate information on what is going wrong. Application Verifier can also signal the debugger to break and will output error information, so having a debugger attached is very useful.
After that, as Simon Richter noted, you'll want to run most of it again in release. Release builds typically don't have the same checks and don't watch for errors, so things are very likely to surface that weren't an issue in the debug build. There is some use for a sort of manual-debug or hybrid build, where you perform some of the checks and logging to make sure things don't go too far afield.
To use Application Verifier, you really just need to start it, add an application and enable to desired tests. When you run, it will create a log and send messages/breaks to a debugger if one is around.
With the necessary experience in debugging, "Both" would be the right answer, as the differences between Debug and Release builds also give good hints about the source of the problem.
If you do not want to dive that deep into the inner workings of the compiler, then use the Debug version if the error appears there reliably.
usually debug versions run the application verifier to find the bugs in the app.

How can I debug a program when debugger fails

I am debugging an Iphone program with the simulator in xCode and I have one last issue to resolve but I need help resolving it for the following reason: when it happens the program goes into debugging mode but no errors appear (no BAD ACCESS appears) and it does not show where the code fails. Putting some variables as global helps me to see their values to start pin pointing where the bug is but before I go into this fully I would like to know what techniques/tools you guys use to debug these situations.
If it helps Im debugging the following: I merged some code into the SpeakHere demo. The code was added in the C++ modules of the program (AQRecorder.h and .mm). I seem to have pinpointed the problem code in a function I wrote.
My favourite is always to add debugging code and log it to a file. This allows me so report any and all information I need to resolve the issue if the debugger is not working properly.
I normally control the debugging code by use of a flag which I can manipulate at run time or by the command line.
If the error is (and it probably is) a memory management issue, printing log entries is really not going to help.
I would reccomend learning how to use Instruments, and use its tools to track down the memory leak when it occurs rather than waiting until the application crashes later on.