I need to debug my BrowserHelperObject (BHO) (in C++ with Visual Studio 2008) after a internet explorer 8 crash in Release mode.

Question

Hi, here is the situation, i'm developping a Browser Helper Object (BHO) in C++ with Visual Studio 2008, and i learned that the memory wasn't managed the same way in Debug mode than in Release mode. So when i run my BHO in debug mode, internet explorer 8 works just fine and i got no erros at all, the browser stays alive forever, but as soon as i compile it in release mode, i got no errors, no message, nothing, but after 5 minutes i can see through the task manager that internet explorer instances are just eating memory and then the browser just stop responding every time. Please, I really need some hint on how to get a feedback on what could be the error. I heard that, often it was happening because of memory mismanagement. I need a software that just grab a memory dump or something when iexplorer crashes to help me find the problem. Any help is appreciated, I'll be looking for responses every single days, thank you.

Answer 1

I solved my problem using symbole files (.pdb files) wich i downloaded at microsoft symbol server. Attaching iexplorer.exe process to VisualStudio'08, i then received more infos on each .dll module that were taking part during execution. I then was able to find wich specific line where causing ie8 the crash. It was about CMutex lock (but this is another story).