C# Unable to find System.Exception error running at a customer site

Question

I have a customer who is unable to run our program without it crashing and creating the error below in the Event log. As always it works just fine on our computers (tried 6+) but the customer is saying that as soon as the click on anything in the program they get the error below.

EventType clr20r3, P1 datamonitor.exe, P2 1.0.0.3, P3 49dbd380, P4 datamonitor, P5 1.0.0.3, P6 49dbd380, P7 e9, P8 e5, P9 system.exception, P10 NIL

Any suggestions on how to locate such a problem?

Thanks

Answer 1

You can add code to catch unhandled exceptions in your code by adding a method to the AppDomain.UnhandledExceptionEventHandler.

See this example:

http://shiman.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/c-net-exception-appdomainunhandledexception/

With this, you might be able to catch this exception, and log out more detail, so you have more to go on.

Answer 2

Do you have any kind of logging in the application? That would be where I'd start, catch the exception and log it.

Also, seems unusual to have System.Exception thrown anywhere, maybe search your codebase('cause as far as I can remember, anything in the framework should throw a more specific exception).

Answer 3

I suspect some required dlls are missing on your client's machines. Either they are using a differnt .Net version or you built your project whilst referencing something you have installed that they do not. I would double check you have included all your dependencies and try and set up a machine to replicate the config of your client, i.e. same OS, same .Net version etc. That should help you diagnose the problem.

Answer 4

If you can't isolate the exception you are throwing, see if the customer will allow you to copy over the Runtime Debugger. It's small, lightweight and will enable you to catch the exception and find out where it is coming from.