DebugDaig tool for advanced Windows troubleshooting

[David Michel]

If you are not afraid of some heavy thinking this tool is very powerful and can be very helpful.

 

The Debug Diagnostic Tool (DebugDiag) is designed to assist in troubleshooting issues such as hangs, slow performance, memory leaks or memory fragmentation, and crashes in any user-mode process. It can be very helpful in troubleshooting IIS problems for which it was originally designed.

 

Current version is v2 update 1 available from here:

Download Debug Diagnostic Tool v2 Update 1 from Official Microsoft Download Center

 

MSDN DebugDiag blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/debugdiag/

 

Attached is the doc on version 1.1. The current version has some significant changes but I've not found a updated doc.

Online version of the 1.1 doc is here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff420662.aspx

 

If you are troubleshooting a NV crash or memory problem go to Tools > Options & Settings.

Under the Folders And Search Paths tab set Symbol Search Path For Debugging to D:\NetVoyant\bin\release-pdb.

Attachment(s)

DebugDiagWhitePaper.docx   1.30 MB 1 version

[David Michel]

I came across a problem with NPC web not loading and showing this error:

Server Error in '/npc' Application.

________________________________________

Commands out of sync;  You can't run this command now

 

Windows Event Viewer Application log has:

ASP.NET

An unhandled exception occurred and the process was terminated.

Application ID: /LM/W3SVC/1/Root/npc

Process ID: 2540

Exception: System.OutOfMemoryException

Message: Exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' was thrown.

StackTrace:    at System.IO.MemoryStream..ctor(Int32 capacity)

 

DebugDiag is just the tool to troubleshoot this.

MS has these steps.

Configure DebugDiag to capture the memory dump when the BreakPoint Exception is thrown and when the process stops.

1. Open DebugDiag
2. On the Rules tab, click Add Rule
3. Select Crash and click Next
4. Select All IIS Processes and click Next
5. Click Advanced Exception Configuration
6. Click Add Exception
7. Select Breakpoint Exception, change Action Type to Full UserDump
8. Click OK
9. Click Save and Close
10. Click Advanced Breakpoint Configuration
11. Click Add Breakpoint
12. Type KERNEL32!ExitProcess and change Action Type to Full UserDump
13. Click OK
14. Click Save and Close
15. Click Next through the rest of the wizard

Inject LeakTrack.dll to capture native leak information:

1. Click the Processes tab
2. Right-click the ASPNET_WP.exe process (or w3wp.exe if running in IIS 6), select Monitor for leaks

After the issue occurs

The memory dump will automatically get captured when the OutOfMemoryException is thrown.

A. Stop the Performance Monitor log