I use a crash reporting feature that allows the user to submit a crash report if the application crashed with an uncaught exception.
After adopting C++20 coroutines entered the application.
If there is an unexpected exception thrown in a coroutine the exception is caught before it is rethrown.
This causes crashreports to not show the stacktrace needed to figure out what happened, but only the stacktrace to the coroutine that rethrew the exception. This basically makes any crash reporting useless.
As far as I could find there is no way to prevent the catching of any exceptions by the coroutine because it is a required part of the design.
Is there a way to improve this I cant see?
I am curious because I found nobody else complaining yet. :->
Edit: To clarify the app is running on Windows, I mean the stacktrace of a minidump that is created at the point of the unhandled exception using: SetUnhandledExceptionFilter + MiniDumpWriteDump
C++ does not have standard stack tracing yet, so there is no nice builtin way to do this.
However, there are ways, which rely on keeping information in the promise objects.
Clang has documentation for some common debugging methods for coroutines.
The best solution we have found is as follows (Windows specific!):
Until now we used SetUnhandledExceptionFilter at the start of the app to set an exceptionfilter function that writes a minidump.
Instead we now use _set_se_translator.
If we want the program to just crash (f.e. if windows is set to write dumps) we set a function which calls std::abort.
If we want to handle it interactively we set a function which asks the user whether to send a minidump, the dump is written as before at this point.
Both cases provide the full callstack in the dump.
The only downside remaining is we cant let the program crash for "normal" exceptions to dump, this was possible before. But the "most important" exceptions (f.e. access violations) work.
I have undoubtedly set something up wrong but frequently I get exceptions thrown by my Razor templates even though there is no problem with the templates. These are usually fixed by my doing a build.
If I do actually have an error in the template I get a popup asking me to debug in VS, but of course this does not actually allow me to debug the template.
Errors in my log are not all that helpful (see below).
Is it possible to both avoid spurious errors and get better information when there is actually a problem?
ServiceStack.Razor.Templating.TemplateCompilationException: Unable to compile template. Check the Errors list for details.
at ServiceStack.Razor.Templating.TemplateService.CreateTemplate(String template, Type modelType)
at ServiceStack.Razor.Templating.TemplateService.Compile(ViewPageRef viewPageRef, String template, Type modelType, String name)
at ServiceStack.Razor.Templating.TemplateService.Compile(ViewPageRef viewPageRef, String template, String name)
at ServiceStack.Razor.ViewPageRef.Compile(Boolean force)
I was having similar problems. I found the "easiest" way to find out what the error was, was to download all of service stack, build a debug version of the razor libary and link it into my project. I then set a break point in the ServiceStack.Razor.Templating.TemplateService.CreateTemplate method and was able to see the full exception details. From there I learnt that I had included an import in my razor page that was not referenced in my project.
Since I solved this it's been very reliable.
I had trouble with this myself, because ServiceStack swallowed the exceptions, and the logs, as you said, don't show the Errors collection. There are two ways to get that information:
Uncheck Enable Just My Code in the debugging options in Visual Studio (Debug -> Options and Settings). If you have checked Thrown for Common Language Runtime Exceptions in Debug -> Exceptions, you will get the exceptions, and be able to view the Errors collection.
A merge was committed some days ago to the ServiceStack repository, which makes it log the Errors collection. Demis Bellot apparently pushes new versions to NuGet fairly often, so it'll probably be there in a week or two.
I had the same problem. And my case, I have removed some libraries referenced in the project but the reference to them remained (eventhought I think removed it, but anyway) and this has been the problem.
After I deleted the references to libraries which don't exsits anymore in the project, it worked immediatelly.
I am looking to do something a little, well interesting I think would be a good word. I was wondering if there was a way to catch the text associated with a stack trace from a build (currently I use ANT to build) using the javac task.
A little history, I am using a CI server, CruiseControl, and want to write an adapter that will catch the stack trace from a failed build, and allow for me to parse out which files caused the build to fail from a javac task call. So for example, if code was checked into a repository that had a method signature from another class in it, but that class was never added to the repository, the javac task would fail with a cannot find symbol exception in the class. I want to be able to read the stack trace to get the class that caused the build failure.
Any ideas on how to do this? I would prefer not to have to just read in the log file and parse it out manually (I feel like there should be a better way) but if there isn't then I can just go that route as well.
First, for terminology: The compiler normally does not throw exceptions (if it does, there likely is a bug in the compiler, or your file system makes problems, or something like this), so there is no stack trace.
What you see when compiling is the compiler output, including any compiler error messages.
Looking at ant's javac task, there seems to be no way to redirect the output somewhere, which means parsing it is only possible by parsing the output of the whole ant run.
You might do better by using the Compiler API (javax.tools) and adding a DiagnosticListener to the compiler run. You would have to wrap this into an ant task yourself, though.
I have DLL that run on server and I can't debug it for many reasons, I log its exceptions.
sometimes I have "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" in a method call that have about 20 parameter that take from me long time to know where's the object that cause the exception.
Is there any way to log the exception in case of "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" with the name of the object that cause the exception ?
If you want to log the exact argument that was null (it sounds like debugging is out of the question) you will need to test each parameter individually for null and throw an ArgumentNullException for that parameter if it is null with the name of the parameter passed as a string to the exception's constructor.
This is one reason (among many) that a method accepting 20 parameters can lead to tough maintenance issues. It indicates that a method may have too many responsibilities and may be trying to do more than it should. While you are in the code you might want to consider breaking this method up into smaller pieces.
If you know the line where the exception happens, you could disassemble the assembly with Redgate .NET Reflector Free the get more information!
otherwise: no, there's no chance to get the parameter-name, which caused an exception, except there's an argumentException (where the name of the parameter is included in the exception)
The easiest way to determine what object is causing this is to attach the debugger to whatever code you have running. You probably will need to run a separate server running the code built in debug mode. In Visual Studio if you go into the Debug -> Exceptions... menu item you will have a dialog of exception types with two columns. Check the Thrown column for Common Language Runtime Exceptions. Then try the operation where the exception is being thrown. That's the easiest way what object is causing the problem.
Another thing you can try to see if there are any side affects being caused by this error appearing and back trace it from there.
You also could print the whole stack trace for the error instead of just the error message. That might give you the detail you need.
My VS just told me;
Warning 2 CA1031 : Microsoft.Design : Modify 'Program.Main(string[])' to catch a more specific exception than 'Exception' or rethrow the exception.
Why should I do that? If I do so, and don't catch all exceptions to handle them, my program crashes with the all-popular report-screen. I don't want my users to get such error-crap!
Why should I not catch all exceptions at once to display a nice warning to the user saying: "Something went wrong, don't care about it, I will handle it, just be patient"?
Edit: Just saw I have a dupe here, sorry for that Dupe
Edit2: To clarify things; I do exit the program after any exception has been catched! I just don't want my user to see that "report to microsoft" dialog that show up when an unhandled exception is raised in a console-application!
Swallowing exceptions is a dangerous practice because:
It can cause the user to think something succeeded when it actually failed.
It can put your application into states that you didn't plan for.
It complicates debugging, since it's much harder to find out where the failure happened when you're dealing with bizarre/broken behavior instead of a stack trace.
As you can probably imagine, some of these outcomes can be extremely catastrophic, so doing this right is an important habbit.
Best Practice
First off, code defensively so that exceptions don't occur any more than necessary. They're computationally expensive.
Handle the expected exceptions at a granular level (for example: FileNotFoundException) when possible.
For unexpected exceptions, you can do one of two things:
Let them bubble up normally and cause a crash
Catch them and fail gracefully
Fail Gracefully?
Let's say you're working in ASP.Net and you don't want to show the yellow screen of death to your users, but you also don't want problems to be hidden from the dev team.
In our applications, we usually catch unhandled exceptions in global.asax and then do logging and send out notification emails. We also show a more friendly error page, which can be configured in web.config using the customErrors tag.
That's our last line of defense, and if we end up getting an email we jump on it right away.
That type of pattern is not the same as just swallowing exceptions, where you have an empty Catch block that only exists to "pretend" that the exception did not occur.
Other Notes
In VS2010, there's something called intellitrace coming that will allow you to actually email the application state back home and step through code, examine variable values at the time of the exception, and so on. That's going to be extremely useful.
Because programs that swallow (catch) exceptions indiscriminately, (and then continue), cannot be relied upon to do what it is they are expected to do. This is because you have no idea what kind of exception was "ignored". What if there was an overflow or memory access error that causes the wrong amount to be debited from a financial account? What if it steers the ship into the iceberg instead of away from it ? Unexpected failures should always cause the application to terminate. That forces the development process to identify and correct the exceptions it finds, (crashes during demos are a wonderful motivator), and, in production, allows appropriately designed backup systems to react when the software experiences an "unexpected" inability to do what it was designed to do.
EDIT: To clarify distinctions between UI components, and service or middleware componentrs.
In Service or Middleware components, where there is no user interacting with the code component from within the same process space that the code is running in, the component needs to "pass On" the exception to whatever client component imnitiated the call it is currently processing. No matter the exception, it should make every possible attempt to do this. It is still the case, however, tjhat in cases where an unexpected, or unanticipated exception occurs, the component should finally terminate the process it is running in. For anticipated or expected exceptions, a velopment analysis should be done to determine whether or not, for that specific exception, the component and it's host process can continue to operate (handling future requests), or whether it should be terminated.
You should handle the exact exceptions you are capable of handling and let all others bubble up. If it displays a message to the user that means you don't quite know what you can handle.
Having worked on equipment used by emergency responders, I would rather the user see an ugly error message than to accidently swallow an exception that misleads the user into believing everything is "ok". Depending on your application, the consequence could be anything from nothing to a lost sale to a catastrophic loss of life.
If a person were going to catch all exception, show a better error dialog, and then quit the application, that's ok.. but if they are going to continue running after swallowing an unknown exception, I would fire a person for that. It's not ok. Ever.
Good coding is about practices that assume humans make mistakes. Assuming all "critical" exceptions have been caught and handled is a bad idea.
Simple answer: you are supposed to fix your bug. Find the place that throws the exception and unless it is beyond your control - fix it.
Also catching (without rethrowing) all kinds of exception violates exception neutrality. In general you do not want to do this (although catching exceptions in main does look like special case)
Since your warning message shows that this is in Main(), I'll assume that in lower levels, you do catch only more specific Exceptions.
For Main(), I'd consider two cases:
Your own (debugging) build, where you want all the exception information you can get: Do not catch any Exceptions here, so the debugger breaks and you have your call stack,
Your public releases, where you want the application to behave normally: Catch Exception and display a nice message. This is always better (for the average user) than the 'send report' window.
To do this nicely, just check if DEBUG is defined (and define it, if VS doesn't do this automatically):
#if DEBUG
yadda(); // Check only specific Exception types here
#else
try
{
yadda();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
ShowMessage(e); // Show friendly message to user
}
#endif
I'd disable the warning about catching general Exceptions, but only for your Main() function, catching Exception in any other method is unwise, as other posters have said already.
There is a way to suppress certain messages from code analysis. I've used this for this exact reason (catching the general exception for logging purposes) and it's been pretty handy. When you add this attribute, it shows you've at least acknowledged that you are breaking the rule for a specific reason. You also still get your warning for catch blocks that are incorrect (catching the general exception for purposes other than logging).
MSDN SuppressMessageAttribute
I am all for catching specific known exceptions and handling state...but I use general catch exceptions to quickly localize problems and pass errors up to calling methods which handle state just fine. During development as those are caught, they have a place right next to the general exception and are handled once in release.
I believe one should attempt to remove these once the code goes into production, but to constantly be nagged during the initial code creation is a bit much.
Hence turn off (uncheck) the warning by the project settings as found in Microsoft.CodeQuality.Analyzers. That is found in the project settings under Code Analysis:
All answers are good here. But I would mention one more option.
The intention of author to show some fancy message is understandable.
Also, default Windows error message is really ugly. Besides, if application is not submitted to "Windows Excellence Program" the developer will not receive information about this problem. So what is the point to use default runtime handler if it does not help?
The thing here is that default exception handler of CLR host ( https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/visualstudio/visual-studio-2008/9x0wh2z3(v=vs.90)?redirectedfrom=MSDN ) works in a very safe way. The purpose of it is clear: log the error, send it to developer, set the return code of your process and kill it. The general way of how to change that is to write your own host. In this case you can provide your own way of handling exceptions.
Still, there is an easy solution which satisfies CA1031 and still most of your needs.
When catching the exception, you can handle it your own way (log, show the message etc) and at the end you can set the process result code and do the exit (using the mix of Thread.Abort and "Exit" methods, for example). Still, at the end of your catch block you can just put "throw;" (which will never be called because of ThreadAbortedException, but will satisfy the rule). Still there are some cases, like StackOverflowException, which can't be handled like that and you will see that default message box, for fixing which you need to fallback to custom CLR host option.
Additionally, just for your information, you application can run several threads (besides that one which execute Main method). To receive exceptions from all of them you can use AppDomain.UnhandledException. This event does not allow you to "mark" the exception as handled, still you can freeze the thread using Thread.Join() and then do the job (log, msgbox, exit) using another (one more) thread.
I understand all this looks a little tricky and may be not right, but we have to deal with the implementation of AppDomain.UnhandledException, ThreadAbortException, CorruptedState exceptions and default CLR host. All of this eventually does not leave us much of choice.
When you catch general exceptions, you get the side effect of potentially hiding run-time problems from the user which, in turn, can complicate debugging. Also, by catching general exception, you're ignoring a problem (which you're probably throwing elsewhere).
You can set up your try catch to catch multiple different behavior types and handle the exception based on the type. For most methods and properties in the framework, you can also see what exceptions they are capable of throwing. So unless you are catching an exception from an extremely small block of code, you should probably catch specific exceptions.
In VS you can setup a custom error page to show your users when something goes wrong instead of catching it in a try-catch. I'm assuming since you're using VS that you're using ASP .NET. If so add this tag to your Web.Config under the System.Web tag:
<customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="~/CustomErrorPage.aspx" redirectMode="ResponseRewrite" />
You can also catch all uncaught exceptions in the Global.asax file (if you don't have it already: Right-click on web project, select Add Item, and search for it). There are a bunch of application wide event handlers in that file like "Application_Error" that catches every exception that isn't caught within your application so you don't have to use Try-Catch all the time. This is good to use to send yourself an email if an exception occurs and possibly redirect them to your homepage or something if you don't want to use the customErrors tag above.
But ultimately you don't want to wrap your entire application in a try-catch nor do you want to catch a general Exception. Try-catches generally slow down your application and a lot of times if you catch every general exception than it could be possible that you wouldn't know a bug exists until months or years later because the try-catch caused you to overlook it.