C/C++/VB/dotnet app on Vista: Crash that occurs only when offline?

Hello everybody,

I've been working for days on a "twilight zone" bug and I can't make any
sense of it. This is in an application that was developped on XP and that
was modified to handle Vista. Other than using the virtual store for some
config information, it doesn't do anything fancy. The strange thing is that
when the application is executed without an active internet connection,
there is a crash in the application for some of our clients. I've made a
special version with a log to try and pinpoint the crash culprit and
surprisingly, the software doesn't crash anymore but it's still behaving
strangely (we suspect memory corruption might be occuring). This occurs for
Vista clients only. When the software is executed with an internet
connection, there are no problems.

The strange thing is that we don't access the internet at all in these
scenarios... I have hunch, fron the info I've managed the gather, that the
problem might be occuring while accessing registry values (reading them),
but it could be a false trail.

I'm not very knowledgable of Vista, so I was wondering what, in Vista, could
cause something like that to happen?

Thanks,

Alex.

Re: C/C++/VB/dotnet app on Vista: Crash that occurs only when offline?

I would put the app back into the crashing state, then use ADPlus to trap
any 2nd chance exceptions. Crashign is much easier to deal with than
"weird".

At that point, you'll have a Dump file you can poke at with WinDbg and Son
of Strike, and you'll figure out *exactly* what the problem is. The answer
will likley be sitting in call stacks of the threads...

Time wise, if you already knew how to debug this type of problem, it would
likley take about 15 minutes. Without that knowledge, expect it to take
about 4 hours. (Download Debugging tools for windows. Setup AD Plus. Crash
App. Capture Dump. Curse at Son of Strike over and over and over....)

I wrote a blog article that should be very close to what you're looking for:
http://www.coversant.net/Coversant/Blogs/tabid/88/EntryID/28 /Default.aspx

--
Chris Mullins


"Alex" wrote in message
news:upzMHjeNIHA.4480@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Hello everybody,
>
> I've been working for days on a "twilight zone" bug and I can't make any
> sense of it. This is in an application that was developped on XP and that
> was modified to handle Vista. Other than using the virtual store for some
> config information, it doesn't do anything fancy. The strange thing is
> that when the application is executed without an active internet
> connection, there is a crash in the application for some of our clients.
> I've made a special version with a log to try and pinpoint the crash
> culprit and surprisingly, the software doesn't crash anymore but it's
> still behaving strangely (we suspect memory corruption might be occuring).
> This occurs for Vista clients only. When the software is executed with an
> internet connection, there are no problems.
>
> The strange thing is that we don't access the internet at all in these
> scenarios... I have hunch, fron the info I've managed the gather, that the
> problem might be occuring while accessing registry values (reading them),
> but it could be a false trail.
>
> I'm not very knowledgable of Vista, so I was wondering what, in Vista,
> could cause something like that to happen?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alex.
>