how to see stacktrace of.net application

Question

Hi,

I have a .net Windows application in the production that has no access to Visual Studio(standard edition), and the only thing they can install is the express edition, which does not have the Just-In-Time Debugging option (the one which has debug button when it crashes). So I was just wondering if there is a window application debugging tool or something else that I can run or attach to see stacktraces. I also enabled Pbd in my application, but it does not provide any more information, so I can trace my crashes (caused by unhandled exceptions)

Any help or comment would be highly appreciated.

thanks,

Answer 1

You could try the CLR Profiler

Answer 2

You can also use windbg and sos.dll

Answer 3

Maybe the EQATEC Tracer could help you out.

Answer 4

If you are catching exceptions, the Exception object contains the stack trace: Exception.StackTrace. Also, you have access to it with Environment.StackTrace.

EDIT: Added unhandled exception event which will write the exception, including Stack Trace, to the event log.

// Sample for the Environment.StackTrace property
using System;

class Sample 
{
public static void Main() 
{   
 AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += new UnhandledExceptionEventHandler(UnhandledExceptions);

    Console.WriteLine("StackTrace: '{0}'", Environment.StackTrace);  
throw new Exception("Fatal Error");
}

static void UnhandledExceptions(object sender, UnhandledExceptionEventArgs e)
{  
 string source = "SOTest";
 if (!System.Diagnostics.EventLog.SourceExists(source))
 {
  System.Diagnostics.EventLog.CreateEventSource(source, "Application");
 }

 System.Diagnostics.EventLog log = new System.Diagnostics.EventLog();
 log.Source = source;

 log.WriteEntry(e.ExceptionObject.ToString(), System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryType.Error);
}

Answer 5

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=fe6f2099-b7b4-4f47-a244-c96d69c35dec&displayLang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=1aef6fce-6e06-4b66-afe4-9aad3c835d3d&displayLang=en

.NET Framework 2.0 SDK ships with Microsoft CLR Debugger. It works similar to Visual Studio debugger (though source files are readonly), so you can give it a try.

Answer 6

YourKit .NET Profiler http://www.yourkit.com/dotnet/ can show you thread states and stacks of all running threads. Take a look at the picture