How do I diagnose and fix a Visual Studio (for example 2015, 2017) crash?

by

To diag Visual Studio crashes, you need to generate a crash dump, which includes the current state of Visual Studio.

To generate such a crash dump, you can configure Windows Error Reporting to generate dumps by running regedit.exe, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\devenv.exe create a string DumpFolder and give it a name like C:\localdumps and create a DWORD 32Bit named DumpType and set it to 2 to generate a Full dump.

After Visual Studio crashed and you got a dump, install the Debugging Tools for Windows, which are part of the Windows 10 SDK.

During Setup you only need to select the Debugging Tools for Windows

enter image description here

all other can be skipped.

Now run 32 Bit/x86 Windbg.exe (because Visual Studio is a 32Bit /x86 applciation), inside Windbg, setup the debug symbols, open the dmp via File->Open crash dump (or CTRL+D) and type !analyze -v in the command line at buttom

enter image description here

and now press ENTER. Now Windbg loads the required debug symbols and analyzes the dump and shows you some data. In my example I see this:

BUGCHECK_STR:  CLR_EXCEPTION_REMOTE_System.NullReferenceException

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  CLR_EXCEPTION_REMOTE_System.NullReferenceException

PRIMARY_PROBLEM_CLASS:  CLR_EXCEPTION

STACK_TEXT:  
00000000 00000000 Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor+0x0
00000000 00000000 Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.WindowBase.CreateMainWindow+0x0
00000000 00000000 Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.WindowManagerService.get_MainWindow+0x0
00000000 00000000 UNKNOWN!EnvDTE._DTE.get_MainWindow+0x1
00aed828 11da97b8 UNKNOWN!VSWindowTitleChanger.VSWindowTitleChangerPackage.DelayedInit+0x90


SYMBOL_NAME:  Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor

MODULE_NAME: Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni

BUCKET_ID:  CLR_EXCEPTION_REMOTE_System.NullReferenceException_Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor

FAILURE_IMAGE_NAME:  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.dll

BUCKET_ID_IMAGE_STR:  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.dll

FAILURE_MODULE_NAME:  Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni

BUCKET_ID_MODULE_STR:  Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni

FAILURE_FUNCTION_NAME:  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor

BUCKET_ID_FUNCTION_STR:  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor

BUCKET_ID_PREFIX_STR:  CLR_EXCEPTION_REMOTE_System.NullReferenceException_

So the Visual Studio crashed because of a System.NullReferenceException in the module VSWindowTitleChanger which tries to change the Title of a Window before it was laoded correctly and accessed an object with was NULL. This is a Visual Studio extension and removing it fixes the crash I had at startup.

If Windbg is too complicated, you can use the DebugDiag analyzer. 1st download the Debug Diagnostic Tool v2 Update 2, now run DebugDiag.Analysis.exe from C:\Program Files\DebugDiag, select CrashHangDumpAnalysis, now click on Add Data Files and select the dump.

enter image description here

In last step, click on Start Analysis. Now the analyzer checks the dump

enter image description here

and if this is finished, it opens a mht Report wit the result.

More Related Contents:

  1. Running two projects at once in Visual Studio
  2. Multiple Errors Installing Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition
  3. Visual Studio 2015 or 2017 shows IntelliSense errors but solution compiles
  4. Packages not loading after installing Visual Studio 2015 RTM
  5. NuGet Packages are missing
  6. Visual Studio 2015 installer hangs during install?
  7. How do I use Qt in my Visual Studio 2015 projects?
  8. ESLint support Visual studio 2017
  9. class name and method name dropdown list is missing (visual studio setting)
  10. Publish website without roslyn
  11. How to fix “Internal Diagnostics Hub Exception” in VS 2015 Update 1?
  12. Customise “Light Bulb” Quick Action Rules
  13. Error Installing Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise Update 1 with Team Explorer
  14. Why does intellisense and code suggestion stop working when Visual Studio is open?
  15. Visual Studio 2010 always thinks project is out of date, but nothing has changed
  16. Visual Studio: How to break on handled exceptions?
  17. Equivalent to AssemblyInfo in dotnet core/csproj
  18. Turn off auto formatting in Visual Studio
  19. Error: Cannot access file bin/Debug/… because it is being used by another process
  20. Visual Studio: How do I show all classes inherited from a base class?
  21. How does CMake specify “Platform Toolset” for a Visual Studio 2015 project?
  22. Toggle “Break when an exception is thrown.” using macro or keyboard shortcut
  23. Cross-project references between two projects
  24. how to change source file encoding in csharp project (visual studio / msbuild machine)?
  25. Can I use mstest.exe without installing Visual Studio?
  26. Visual Studio Hosting Process and “The operation could not be completed”
  27. How can I toggle word wrap in Visual Studio?
  28. Visual studio 2017 installer won’t run after extracting
  29. Can I include dll in exe (in Visual Studio)? [duplicate]
  30. Speed up Build-Process of WiX-Installer

Leave a Comment