Executing a process on separate thread results in System.IO.__Error.WinIOError

Question

I'm writing a basic GUI application that essentially invokes other processes given some parameters, while the output of those applications is displayed to the user via a richtext box in real-time. So basically I have a seperate process thread running the child processes.

Most of the processes work fine on that thread, except for xdiscbld.exe (an Xbox ISO image creator tool) which crashes saying:

Unhandled Exception: System.IO.IOException: The handle is invalid.
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.Console.GetBufferInfo(Boolean throwOnNoConsole, Boolean& succeeded)
at System.Console.get_BufferWidth()
at XDiscBld.XDiscBldProgram.ProcessDisc()
at XDiscBld.XDiscBldProgram.Run(String[] args)
at XDiscBld.XDiscBldProgram.Main(String[] args)

(BTW, xDiscBld runs fine via a command prompt, or single threaded Process call)

I wouldn't normally post such a specific error, but I'm really stumped and I think it could be something generic pertaining to a common issue with threads and holding onto some sort of IO handle. If anyone has had any experiance with a similar problem or has any insight on this, it would be appriciated.

Answer 1

What's happening here is that the handle you are using from that process is invalid. There are a couple of reasons this could occur, most common is that the process has already exited thus invalidating the handle.

Answer 2

I believe the actual issue doesn't have to do with threads, but rather XDiscBld wants to write to a console window that doesn't exist. This is because I'm starting the process like this.

process = new Process();
process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
process.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = false;
process.StartInfo.FileName = FileName;
process.StartInfo.Arguments = Arguments;
process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = WorkingDirectory;
process.Start();

If I run with just

process.StartInfo.FileName = FileName;
process.StartInfo.Arguments = Arguments;
process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = WorkingDirectory;
process.Start();

it works. So it's not liking how I'm redirecting the output. With that said, I still don't know how to make this work with the current system in place. Because this topic has derailed horribly I guess I should either delete it and start over, or leave it up for others' reference.