How to debug a low level system exception in Visual Studio 2003?

Question

Hello,

I have spend two days of work trying to figure out a weird problem is happening on my PC.

I am debugging a quite complex old application written in .NET 1.1 that is made by an mdi container that load at runtime different assemblies that implements custom interface as windows form mdi child.

The problem is that on my PC (i tried on other PC and it works) the application throws a strange exception. This is not generated by managed code, it is probably a RARE condition that cause the framework self to through the exception.

I am trying to isolate the problem by commenting code by code but it's very long task.

Do you have any idea how can I identify faster the cause of this undesired exception?

The exception is NullReferenceException and stack trace

at System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.DispatchMessageW(MSG& msg) at System.Windows.Forms.ComponentManager.System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods+IMsoComponentManager.FPushMessageLoop(Int32 dwComponentID, Int32 reason, Int32 pvLoopData) at System.Windows.Forms.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoopInner(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context) at System.Windows.Forms.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoop(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context) at System.Windows.Forms.Application.RunDialog(Form form) at System.Windows.Forms.Form.ShowDialog(IWin32Window owner) at System.Windows.Forms.Form.ShowDialog() at MyAPP in xxxx.vb:line 26

Answer 1

You can Enable .NET framework source stepping and debug into the framework code. Maybe this helps identifying the cause.

Answer 2

did you find an answer?