I wrote a program with .Net 4.0 in C#, and it works well in the two computers in which I compiled it. But when I copy the program into other's computers, the program even didn't show it's UI, and gives out a MessageBox like this:
The box says my program has cause an APPCRASH. Anyone has any idea how to fix the problem?
Could be several reasons. One of the more common ones is that you're compiling it for a .NET framework that the target machine does not have. Another could be that you're compiling for 64-bit, while target machines are 32-bit.
Some of the steps to fix this:
If you're using Visual Studio, right click on your project and go to Properties.
In Application tab check to see which Target framework is being listed. It could be .NET Framework 4.5.1.
Change it to .NET Framework 4 Client Profile and see if it runs on your target machines.
Also, under Build check to see which Platform target options you have selected and adjust accordingly. It might be helpful to select x86 rather than Any CPU.
Other thoughts/tips:
From the screenshot, it appears that you're running it on Windows 7 machines, so I doubt that .NET framework is the issue; in that case, ensure that target machines contain all the appropriate libraries that you're using. If you have some non-native libraries, make sure that you set Copy Local to true for them.
By the way... when you say you copy it, I'm assuming you're copying all the appropriate files along with the executable, right? There might be some files, such as libraries, app configuration files, etc., that you need to copy along with it.
David Khaykin mentioned the fact that you might have an unhandled exception there. Therefore, as suggested in this SO thread, you may want to implement an event handler for the AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandldedException event and check the value of the e.ExceptionObject.ToString().
Here's MSDN link to help you with that (scroll to the bottom to see an example): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.appdomain.unhandledexception(v=vs.110).aspx
Some ways to analyze crashes:
Here's a neat article that describes how to analyze your crashes:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/anandbms/archive/2005/04/20/410225.aspx
It uses AdPlus, which you can read more about and obtain at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286350
Here's a more direct link to WinDbg debugging tool: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852365 (scroll down halfway and make sure you get the Windows 7 version if that's your OS).
Those are just some of the things that I've done over the course of my C# adventuring, so hopefully one of them can help you.
I encountered this issue once (APPCRASH referencing kernelbase.dll), in my case I had an issue due to a corrupted user profile (no certain cause for it , but I experienced a couple of blue screens before) which prevented some (but not all!) of my applications to abruptly not work anymore: to verify it, try creating a new Windows user on the faulty computer, copy the application over and attempt to execute it.
I checked the event log in my target machine, and foud some useful information. The information is just next to the "APPCRASH" one, and it says like "can't find a file...". Then I checked my program and found a lib haven't been copied there by the compiler.
It seems the event log can really help.
Thank you all who cared!
Related
Ok this question is more about understanding what the issues are as I dont think anyone will be able to tell me how to fix the problem.
I am writing a .net 4 application and I have a 3rd party dll ( hasp dongle protection ) that I want to reference.
Visual studio allows me to create the reference fine and use classes contained within the dll within my code.
The first issue occurs when the program is run and the dll is actually loaded. I then get the following error.
System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly
'hasp_net_windows.dll' or one of its dependencies. is not a valid
Win32 application
This weblink states how to fix this error. Coud someone expalain what the issue is and why im getting it.
After following this advice I then set the main project build to x86 and I then get another error replacing the other. The new error is:
System.IO.FileLoadException: Mixed mode assembly is built against
version 'v1.1.4322' of the runtime and cannot be loaded in the 4.0
runtime without additional configuration information
This weblink states how to fix the error, but I dont have an app.config in my project and want to avoid having one if at all possible. If someone could explain what the issue is again that would be helpful?
Please let me know if you require anymore information.
The issue is the "bitness" of your application. Once chosen (32 bit or 64 bit) all DLLs within that process need to be the same. This exception tells me that one of your DLLs is the wrong "bitness".
You simply cannot have DLLs with different compilation targets within a given process, a process has "bitness" affinity.
If this is a third party unmanaged DLL then it is very likely 32-bit compiled.
Setting the build output as x86 for the root project (the one that creates the exe) should suffice as this will dictate the process that is created. Any other .NET projects can then simply be Any CPU and will fit in either the 32 or 64 bit runtimes.
Unfortunately for your second issue, the provided link is the way to solve it. There is nothing wrong with having an app.config in a project and you haven't stated why you don't want one.
The answer by Adam Houldsworth notwithstanding, I'd like to add that it is possible to do it without an app.config. However, this requires a tiny bit more work and potentially a proper understanding of COM interop. Whether it's worth the trouble is up to you of course ;).
You can set useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy programmatically by using the ICLRRuntimeInfo::BindAsLegacyV2Runtime method.
A quick rundown on how to do this is posted in this blogpost. Take note of his warning though, which might make you think twice in using this approach:
This approach works, but I would be very hesitant to use it in public
facing production code, especially for anything other than
initializing your own application. While this should work in a
library, using it has a very nasty side effect: you change the runtime
policy of the executing application in a way that is very hidden and
non-obvious.
I cannot use an app.config file because the assembly is loaded via COM from a native program.
I found the library that supports .net framework 4.0. here. In this scenario, no other solutions had worked for me.
A user of my program has reported an inability to startup the application. I am not yet done troubleshooting, but I'm simply baffled.
Logging still works, so I used logging statements and was able to narrow down the crash to a single line in a user control's InitializeComponent:
this.HorizontalBox.Image =
((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("HorizontalBox.Image")));
Here are the relevant clues from his end:
64 bit Windows 7
Correct .NET Framework (4.0 Client Profile)
No visual elements ever show, and no error dialogs. It is a silent shutdown when starting.
Logging works, but there were no logged errors.
He has uninstalled and reinstalled the .NET 4.0 Client Profile framework.
He doesn't have any Visual Studio or other development tools mucking with stuff.
I have spent a week or so eliminating theories and I'm becoming confused and desperate. Here are relevant details and things I have found:
I am targeting x86 explicitly.
The logging which failed to log any exception is set up to catch and log any unhandled exceptions and thread abort exceptions.
Whatever is killing the application also prevents the final "shutting down" logging message in the program's basic entry point.
I had read that certain icon (.ICO) file formats don't work in Windows XP. A far fetched theory, since this is Windows 7. This is the one and only case of ICO files in the project, so I was suspicious and switched it to PNG. No difference. I since figure that the image is failing merely because it is the first image loaded from a resource.
I had read that the Form_Load event may swallow exceptions (and only when debugging). Also, InitializeComponent() is in the constructor, so the theory was shaky. Nonetheless, I wrapped the call to InitializeComponent() in a try/catch, but the catch and its associated logging never get called.
I have seen posts about resource compilation problems between x86 and x64, but nothing relevant to runtime issues. (See this post)
I assumed there must be something wrong unique with the program showing issues, so I made a WindowsFormsApplication1 test application with nothing more than a single image embedded in the associated resource file. This also fails to load in the same way. This test application was also targeting x86.
It works fine on other x86 and x64 machines!
What could possibly be going on his machine? Why is exception handling failing me? This problem is crazy!
Edit: More Details, and I'm still baffled!
I have since sent the test application (a single form with a single image on it) built as x86, x64, and "Any Cpu". The x64 and "Any Cpu" applications both work.
Some questions spring to mind. Have you got a similar build machine with which to test - this may help to identify if it is the build/program integration or some possible issue with his build (i.e. a windows problem/virus/etc).
Has he installed to the default folder or did he do a customised install?
Has he tried a full uninstall / reinstall of your app? (I note you said the runtime was refreshed) - possibly to a different folder to make sure.
Can you recreate on a similar build (OS version) with VS installed to do a code walkthrough in the debugger - stack trace and output buffer may help identify - so may disasembly - and can set it to stop at all exceptions?
Unfortunatly unhandled exceptions can not always be caught in C# (especially post 2.0) - so a debugger of WinDBG may be your only option in the end (yuk!).
Can I suggest something though first...Just a thought:
Before the line that fails, as a test, output something like this:
var obj = resources.GetObject("HorizontalBox.Image");
Console.WriteLine("Obj = " + (obj is Bitmap));
Because I have a feel that the failure is happening when trying to marshal the resource into the Bitmap Type and getting a memory exception (maybe something corrupt with the image stride/pixel format etc or maybe something on the culprit machine is making the image file look like a non image file).
So I recently updated my software and with the new version I supply a new dll-file, lets call it My.dll. Now, the old version works just fine on every computer I have tried.
The problems began with the new version. Specifically, so far on at least one computer, it states that "Could not load file or assembly My.dll". This even happens when I have dropped a copy of the software on a network drive and run the software directly from there. It works on every other computer but one, which still gives the exact same error where other computers work fine.
The dll in question is even in the same directory as the executable, so I'm really quite bummed here. I tried to google around a bit as well, but all the issues I found were related to ASP.NET specifically. Any ideas on how to go about finding the problem would be much appreciated.
It is possible that the computer in question has a DLL added to it's Global assembly cache. This would take priority over the DLL in the same folder.
More information about the GAC: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yf1d93sz(v=VS.100).aspx
Is there an old copy of the DLL lying around? Perhaps with a different name? I had a similar issue when I changed the name of a dll. Internally, the namespaces were the same.
In my case, an older version of the DLL was still there. .NET got confused with two assemblies in the bin directory having the exact same namespaces and classes, couldn't decide on which to load, and threw an exception.
Removing the older version of the dll solved the issue.
Use the Assembly binding log viewer and set it to log failures. This will give you some clues as to why it is not loading.
You could take a look at the error log using the Assembly Binding Log Viewer. First you have to turn on logging.
--Right Click on Project
--Goto Properties->Build tab
--Change Platform and Platform Target to Any CPU, Save and run
I just had a look at previous questions on topic, but I've got some strange results.
First of all, I followed and used the method that Scott Hanselman proposed in a old post in his blog: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToProgrammaticallyDetectIfAnAssemblyIsCompiledInDebugOrReleaseMode.aspx
Thus, Using the IsJITOptimizerDisabled I'm supposed to check if a particular DLL has been compiled in release mode or in Debug mode.
The strange thing is that I just tried it, built a simple App that check that property and notify the assembly inspected is in debug or in release mode. Checked the results and everything it's ok against two dll I already compiled in both modes.
Then I passed that simple app to a colleague that confirm that in his workstation the results are as expected, the Debug dll show "Debug", the release show "Release" (those two dlls are contained in the same zip of the simple app).
But, when he tries to check those dlls with that simple app in another server (via mstsc) for both of the dll the simple app show "Debug" (even if opening the DLL with ILDASM everything seems fine and some specific methods contained inside a "#if DEBUG" region are not present in the Relase dll).
Now, I'm going mad, is there some reason behind this issue? Am I just too old to see what's going on ? Could be the reflection somehow dependant among the environment? Is there some Service pack that solved a similar known issue ?
Cheers,
Gianluca
The DebuggableAttribute is an attribute which is not compiled into the IL code contained in the executable assembly. It is inserted by the runtime when the assembly is loaded. The creation of the attribute might be affected by environment settings.
For example, a profiler being enabled on the system might have created environment variables or Registry settings that affect the debugging flags. A thread on the MSDN forums suggest to check for environment variables named COR_* or Registry settings under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework (and possibly HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework as well).
Using Assembly.LoadFrom() is not a very good idea in this specific case. Use fuslogvw.exe to find out why your program loaded the wrong assembly. GAC, probably.
Anyhoo, LoadFile() is called for here.
I am using DllImport to access some functions in a C++ dll from my C# application.
This code works fine on my dev laptop, which is Windows 7 64bit, the dll itself is 32 bit, so I run the process hosting the dll in 32bit and it works well. However when I try to run the exact same process on my target machine, which is again, Windows 7 64bit Ultimate i get the error 'Invalid access to memory location.' from the process.
I'm not sure what the problem is, i've looked at loads of resources on the net and none of them have solved it for me. I dont understand why it works fine on my dev box, but not on the target?
The dll itself is fine, the examples that come with the dll all work fine on my target box (which are C# apps doing DllImport).
Has anyone else had this problem? Been fighting it for two days now!
Exception: {"Unable to load DLL 'CLEyeMulticam.dll': Invalid access to memory location. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800703E6)"}
The DLL loading may crash because of unresolved dependencies, so open your DLL on target machine using Dependency Walker and see is there any problems.
I notice one big difference between your dev machine and your target machine, the dev environment. Make sure you have all the necessary redistributables on the target machine.
Edit: I have seen similar issues when some dlls were compiled to different versions of the .Net framework or if they were made with different versions of Visual Studio, as the redistributables for each version are different and the latest redistributables are not exactly backwards compatible.
I had the same problem here Native loading works good. Loading from .net gives error Unable to load DLL 'my.dll': Invalid access to memory location
The problem was in DEP feature. When I switched on DEP for essential programs only, it gave no effect. But when I completely switched off DEP, and rebooted my server, error has gone. The one more thing I've done - installed latest updates for .net 4.0
The one notable thing - i didn't see any errors about DEP, just closing with "memory" error.
I've had this issue before. I think your problem is with VS trying to open the file but not having permissions to read it. You need to make sure the account you're using has access to the DLL. Try disabling UAC to see if it works, or use an Administrator account. Or try giving Full Control on the DLL to Everyone.
EDIT: Could you run VS as administrator (right click -> Run As Administrator)? Could you put the DLL onto your desktop to try? Is there a folder structure difference between your working computer and the one that's failing? Also, can the DLL run fine if you execute it outside of VS (try running it as admin as well)?
HTH
I have had similar problems before, try the following.
Check the .NET CLR version. Are there any SPs/KBs present in your target that is not in your dev?
Try loading the debug version of the C++ DLL. Are you able to load it? If it fails, I'd suggest starting your app under WinDBG in your target. Once the exception is hit, a simply !analyze -v will give you lots of info.
As a next step, I'd try to reproduce this issue in a unit test environment. Are the C# samples you mentioned built for x64 VM? If not, try doing that and try running the resulting sample binary in your target. Is the issue reproducible?
I have encountered a problem with a 64bit .NET app ("Any CPU") trying to load a 32bit native DLL dependency. I don't have the error message in front of me, so I can't tell you if it is the same problem. The solution for my problem was to change my build to x86-only.
If the bit size of the DLL is changing on each box, maybe there are structure size differences, so your PInvoke signature becomes incorrect. This could easily cause a buffer overrun, and cause stack corruption in the native code.
If you're getting the error in your C# app, this message often indicates the native code did something nasty to memory that the ILM can see - check the code in/called by your DllMain routine - that is called before your call actually goes thru - if it's misbehaving, you'd see this result
#Merlyn Morgan-Graham We faced a similar problem. Where we built the .Net application with "Any CPU" build and tried using with 32 bit C++ Dll. When we run the .Net Application in 64 bit OS. It runs as 64 bit executable and hence and got similar issue. After buidling in X86 Loading, Calls to C++ Dlls worked absolutely fine. One more important thing is if you are using C++ DLL in your .Net code. There would be fair amount of marshalling, so it is important to stick to the build type (i.e. X86, any CPU or X64).
Please check the following link also:
Windows Vista: Unable to load DLL 'x.dll': Invalid access to memory location. (DllNotFoundException)
The obvious, but probably lame solution would be to build C# side explicitly for 32-bit. Check how do you create out of proc host - programatically or by populating registry keys or ... could be that on other box it gets set up to either make 64-bit hosting process or attempt in-proc invocation, which means loading ... It it's a registry setting don't forget that for mixed 23/64 bit cases there are two branches to dig into.
I ran into a similar issue when I moved to win7. You might need to set your (64 bit) machine to run as a 32bit one by-default, using the below command:
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Ldr64.exe setwow
Ref:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/phoenix/thread/9a43e9a1-a744-4a1a-bb34-3604254c126b