I'm completing a UWP app started by someone else. The app crashes frequently and I always end up in App.g.i.cs at
if (global::System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached)
global::System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break();
where I then have to say "no, don't start the debugger" and close 2 windows.
Is there somewhere I could put a big try/catch so that I don't have to restart the app each time this happen? I can't find anything in AppShell or App.
Or do I have to put a try/catch in every single event handler?
If you want to avoid starting the new debugger and restarting the app each time when encountering unhandled exceptions, you can use Application.UnhandledException event and set the Handled property of the event arguments to true like following:
public App()
{
this.InitializeComponent();
this.Suspending += OnSuspending;
this.UnhandledException += (sender, e) =>
{
e.Handled = true;
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(e.Exception);
};
}
The UnhandledException event is used to notify the app about exceptions encountered by the XAML framework or by the Windows Runtime in general that have not been handled by app code.
Normally after the UnhandledException event is fired, the Windows Runtime terminates the app because the exception was unhandled. The app code has some control over this: if the UnhandledException event handler sets the Handled property of the event arguments to true, then in most cases the app will not be terminated.
For more info, please see Remarks of Application.UnhandledException event and the blog: Strategies for Handling Errors in your Windows Store Apps.
As far as i know most you cant do what you are trying to do (big try catch block) and for all intents and purposes you shouldn't even consider that possibility.
First try to determine why the app is crashing, on what page, is it when you try to something specific, the same thing everytime and then you can try catch some of the methods on that particular page and determine what's causing the crash
If you want to treat the cause rather than the symptoms, you should enable first-chance exceptions in the debugger settings. Then the debugger should break at the source of the exception, rather than in the global handler. You can then address the root cause of the problems directly.
Shipping an app that has the global handler blindly set every exception as "handled" even when you don't know why it's failing is not a good solution.
You can try/catch in your main app to catch all exceptions. Shown is an example using Xamarin Forms DisplayAlert:
try
{
//throw new Exception("gone and done it");
MyMainProgram();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
await DisplayAlert("Whoops!", ex.Message, "ok");
throw ex;
}
You can test this by uncommenting the "throw new Exception". Execution stops with an alert you must answer, then continues by throwing the exception to prevent executing corrupted code.
In MainFile:
Window window = new MyDialogWindow();
try
{
window.ShowDialog();
}
catch
{
// This is never called !
}
In MyDialogWindow:
private void MyDialogWindow_Closing( object sender, CancelEventArgs e )
{
throw new Exception();
}
It seems that the exception thrown into the closing event handler never reach the catch block of the caller. Do you know why ?
EDIT: I should mention I've checked that MyDialogWindow_Closing is called after I press on the close button.
EDIT2: When listening to AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException, the event is fired !
I would guess that you are getting an exception that is not your thrown exception, but instead another exception that is not normally 'caught' by the .Net exception handling umbrella. One such class of exceptions are structured error handling exceptions (SEH) which typically occur when there are issues (usually memory issues, or pointer issues) in unmanaged code that crash in that execution, but can't be bubbled up into the .Net exception handling stream.
Go into your Debug-->Exceptions, and check everything. Then run your program. You will almost certainly find out what your exception truly is.
It can't hurt to look at this question as well which discusses the topic.
I want to know if
try/catch can catch the exceptions thrown by the children threads.
if not, what's the best practice to handling exceptions thrown in the child thread.
You can listen to the Application.ThreadException and AppDomain.UnhandledException events to catch uncaught exceptions from thread. But the best is to catch and handle exceptions in the threads themselves. This should be a last resort for graceful shutdown / logging.
It depends on the .NET framework you're targeting.
In 1.1 and lesser, exceptions thrown by children threads will be forwarded to the main thread only if they run outside a try/catch block.
In 2.0 and later, this behaviour is changed: thread will be terminated and exceptions won't be allowed to proceed any further.
Anyway, you can handle exceptions inside a thread as you would do in a single-threaded application.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228965(v=VS.90).aspx for reference.
No, consider the following code:
try
{
var t = new Thread(()=>
{
Thread.Sleep(5000);
throw new Exception();
});
t.Start();
//t.Join();
}
catch
{
//you can't deal with exception here
//even though you uncomment `t.Join`
}
Deal with exceptions in the child thread which the exceptions "belongs" to.
Take this code:
using System;
namespace OddThrow
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
try
{
throw new Exception("Exception!");
}
finally
{
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(2500);
Console.Error.WriteLine("I'm dying!");
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(2500);
}
}
}
}
Which gives me this output:
Unhandled Exception: System.Exception: Exception!
at OddThrow.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Documents and Settings\username
\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\OddThrow\OddThrow\Program.cs:line 14
I'm dying!
My question is: why does the unhandled exception text occur before the finally's? In my mind, the finally should be excuted as the stack unwinds, before we even know that this exception is unhandled. Note the calls to Sleep() - these occur after the unhandled exception is printed, as if it was doing this following:
Unhandled exception text/message
Finally blocks.
Terminate application
According to the C# standard, §8.9.5, this behaviour is wrong:
In the current function member, each try statement that encloses the throw point is examined. For each statement S, starting with the innermost try statement and ending with the outermost try statement, the following steps are evaluated:
If the try block of S encloses the throw point and if S has one or more catch clauses, the catch clauses are examined in order of appearance to locate a suitable handler for the exception. The first catch clause that specifies the exception type or a base type of the exception type is considered a match. A general catch clause (§8.10) is considered a match for any exception type. If a matching catch clause is located, the exception propagation is completed by transferring control to the block of that catch clause.
Otherwise, if the try block or a catch block of S encloses the throw point and if S has a finally block, control is transferred to the finally block. If the finally block throws another exception, processing of the current exception is terminated. Otherwise, when control reaches the end point of the finally block, processing of the current exception is continued.
If an exception handler was not located in the current function member invocation, the function member invocation is terminated. The steps above are then repeated for the caller of the function member with a throw point corresponding to the statement from which the function member was invoked.
If the exception processing terminates all function member invocations in the current thread, indicating that the thread has no handler for the exception, then the thread is itself terminated. The impact of such termination is implementation-defined.
Where am I going wrong? (I've got some custom console error messages, and this is in-the-way. Minor, just annoying, and making me question the language...)
The standard's statements about the order of execution are correct, and not inconsistent with what you are observing. The "Unhandled exception" message is allowed to appear at any point in the process, because it is just a message from the CLR, not actually an exception handler itself. The rules about order of execution only apply to code being executed inside the CLR, not to what the CLR itself does.
What you've actually done is expose an implementation detail, which is that unhandled exceptions are recognised by looking at a stack of which try{} blocks we are inside, rather than by actually exploring all the way to the root. Exceptions may or may not be handled by looking at this stack, but unhandled exceptions are recognised this way.
As you may be aware, if you put a top-level try{}catch{} in your main function, then you will see the behaviour you expect: each function's finally will be executed before checking the next frame up for a matching catch{}.
I could be way off base in the way I'm reading things...but you have a try finally block without a catch.
Juding by the description you posted, since the Exception is never caught, it bubbles up to the caller, works it's way up through the stack, is eventually unhandled, the call terminates, and then the finally block is called.
The output is actually from the default CLR exception handler. Exception Handlers occur before the finally block. After the finally block the CLR terminates because of the unhandled exception (it can't terminate before, as c# guarantees [1] that the finally clause is called).
So I'd say it's just standard behaviour, exception handling occurs before finally.
[1] guranteed during normal operation at least in absence of internal runtime errors or power outage
To add more into the mix, consider this:
using System;
namespace OddThrow
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException +=
delegate(object sender, UnhandledExceptionEventArgs e)
{
Console.Out.WriteLine("In AppDomain.UnhandledException");
};
try
{
throw new Exception("Exception!");
}
catch
{
Console.Error.WriteLine("In catch");
throw;
}
finally
{
Console.Error.WriteLine("In finally");
}
}
}
}
Which on my system (Norwegian) shows this:
[C:\..] ConsoleApplication5.exe
In catch
In AppDomain.UnhandledException
Ubehandlet unntak: System.Exception: Exception!
ved OddThrow.Program.Main() i ..\Program.cs:linje 24
In finally
Although not completely expected, the program does behave as it should. A finally block is not expected to be run first, it is only expected to be run always.
I adjusted your sample:
public static void Main()
{
try
{
Console.WriteLine("Before throwing");
throw new Exception("Exception!");
}
finally
{
Console.WriteLine("In finally");
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
In this case you will get the nasty unhandled exception dialog, but afterwards the console will output and wait for input, thus executing the finally, just not before windows itself catches the unhandled exception.
A try/finally without a catch will use the default handler which does exactly what you see. I use it all the time, e.g., in cases where handling the exception would be covering an error but there's still some cleanup you want to do.
Also remember that output to standard error and standard out are buffered.
The try-catch-finally blocks are working exactly as you expected if they are caught at some point. When I wrote a test program for this, and I use various nesting levels, the only case that it behaved in a way that matched what you described was when the exception was completely unhandled by code, and it bubbled out to the operating system.
Each time I ran it, the OS was what created the error message.
So the issue is not with C#, it is with the fact that an error that is unhandled by user code is no longer under the control of the application and therefore the runtime (I believe) cannot force an execution pattern on it.
If you had created a windows form application, and wrote all your messages to a textbox (then immediately flushing them) instead of writing directly to the console, you would not have seen that error message at all, because it was inserted into the error console by the calling application and not by your own code.
EDIT
I'll try to highlight the key part of that. Unhandled exceptions are out of your control, and you cannot determine when their exception handler will be executed. If you catch the exception at some point in your application, then the finally blocks will be executed before the lower-in-the-stack catch block.
To put a couple of answers together, what happens is that as soon as you have a Unhandled Exception a UnhandledExceptionEvent is raised on the AppDomain, then the code continues to execute (i.e. the finally). This is the MSDN Article on the event
Next try:
I believe this case isn't mentioned in the c# standard and I agree it seems to almost contradict it.
I believe the internal reason why this is happening is somewhat like this:
The CLR registers its default exception handler as SEH handler into FS:[0]
when you have more catches in your code, those handlers are added to the SEH chain. Alternatively, only the CLR handler is called during SEH handling and handles the CLR exception chain internally, I don't know which.
In your code when the exception is thrown, only the default handler is in the SEH chain. This handler is called before any stack unrolling begins.
The default exception handler knows that there are no exception handler registered on the stack. Therefore it calls all registered UnhandledException handler first, then prints its error message and marks the AppDomain for unloading.
Only after that stack unrolling even begins and finally blocks are called according the c# standard.
As i see it, the way the CLR handles unhandled exception isn't considered in the c# standard, only the order in which finallys are called during stack unrolling. This order is preserved. After that the "The impact of such termination is implementation-defined." clause takes effect.
I am currently writing a winforms application (C#).
I am making use of the Enterprise Library Exception Handling Block, following a fairly standard approach from what I can see. IE : In the Main method of Program.cs I have wired up event handler to Application.ThreadException event etc.
This approach works well and handles the applications exceptional circumstances.
In one of my business objects I throw various exceptions in the Set accessor of one of the objects properties
set {
if (value > MaximumTrim)
throw new CustomExceptions.InvalidTrimValue("The value of the minimum trim...");
if (!availableSubMasterWidthSatisfiesAllPatterns(value))
throw new CustomExceptions.InvalidTrimValue("Another message...");
_minimumTrim = value;
}
My logic for this approach (without turning this into a 'when to throw exceptions' discussion) is simply that the business objects are responsible for checking business rule constraints and throwing an exception that can bubble up and be caught as required. It should be noted that in the UI of my application I do explictly check the values that the public property is being set to (and take action there displaying friendly dialog etc) but with throwing the exception I am also covering the situation where my business object may not be used by a UI eg : the Property is being set by another business object for example. Anyway I think you all get the idea.
My issue is that these exceptions are not being caught by the handler wired up to Application.ThreadException and I don't understand why.
From other reading I have done the Application.ThreadException event and it handler "... catches any exception that occurs on the main GUI thread". Are the exceptions being raised in my business object not in this thread? I have not created any new threads.
I can get the approach to work if I update the code as follows, explicity calling the event handler that is wired to Application.ThreadException. This is the approach outlined in Enterprise Library samples. However this approach requires me to wrap any exceptions thrown in a try catch, something I was trying to avoid by using a 'global' handler to start with.
try
{
if (value > MaximumTrim)
throw new CustomExceptions.InvalidTrimValue("The value of the minimum...");
if (!availableSubMasterWidthSatisfiesAllPatterns(value))
throw new CustomExceptions.InvalidTrimValue("Another message");
_minimumTrim = value;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Program.ThreadExceptionHandler.ProcessUnhandledException(ex);
}
I have also investigated using wiring a handler up to AppDomain.UnhandledException event but this does not catch the exceptions either.
I would be good if someone could explain to me why my exceptions are not being caught by my global exception handler in the first code sample. Is there another approach I am missing or am I stuck with wrapping code in try catch, shown above, as required?
As a thought, try adding (fairly early on - i.e. at the start of Main):
Application.SetUnhandledExceptionMode(UnhandledExceptionMode.CatchException);
That said - it seems to work fine for me with or without...
According to MSDN, Application.ThreadException will only be fired if the exception isn't handled. Maybe there is a catch somewhere up the callstack that is handling the exception?
Another option would be to try using AppDomain.UnhandledException instead. It is the same as Application.ThreadException, except it works for all exceptions in the same AppDomain.
If you try to use use
Application.ThreadException
or
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException
the Debugger will catch the exception!
To test these methods you have to start the appication without a debugger.