ProcessStartInfo hanging on "WaitForExit"? Why?

Question

I have the following code:

info = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo("TheProgram.exe", String.Join(" ", args));
info.CreateNoWindow = true;
info.WindowStyle = System.Diagnostics.ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
info.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
info.UseShellExecute = false;
System.Diagnostics.Process p = System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(info);
p.WaitForExit();
Console.WriteLine(p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd()); //need the StandardOutput contents

I know that the output from the process I am starting is around 7MB long. Running it in the Windows console works fine. Unfortunately programmatically this hangs indefinitely at WaitForExit. Note also this does code NOT hang for smaller outputs (like 3KB).

Is it possible that the internal StandardOutput in ProcessStartInfo can't buffer 7MB? If so, what should I do instead? If not, what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

The documentation for Process.StandardOutput says to read before you wait otherwise you can deadlock, snippet copied below:

 // Start the child process.
 Process p = new Process();
 // Redirect the output stream of the child process.
 p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
 p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
 p.StartInfo.FileName = "Write500Lines.exe";
 p.Start();
 // Do not wait for the child process to exit before
 // reading to the end of its redirected stream.
 // p.WaitForExit();
 // Read the output stream first and then wait.
 string output = p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
 p.WaitForExit();

Answer 2

We have this issue as well (or a variant).

Try the following:

1) Add a timeout to p.WaitForExit(nnnn); where nnnn is in milliseconds.

2) Put the ReadToEnd call before the WaitForExit call. This is what we've seen MS recommend.