Develop Reference

Windows Service not working when installed, works fine in Debug mode; crashes on Moving/deleting files

I created a windows service which watches a directory. When a file is dumped into it, it takes the data and puts it into a database. Then this file is moved to another directory and deleted. It works fine in debug mode. But when i install it on my computer it stops after throwing the data into the database and the file in question is neither moved or deleted. I suspect a permission issue is involved. I tried to create a event log:
public Service1()
{
InitializeComponent();
if (!System.Diagnostics.EventLog.SourceExists("MySource"))
{
System.Diagnostics.EventLog.CreateEventSource(
"MySource", "MyNewLog");
}
eventLog1.Source = "MySource";
eventLog1.Log = "MyNewLog";
}
So i have three questions.
(1) What could be causing my service to work as described in debug but fail when installed on my computer.(2) I have initiated a event log as shown above. But do i need to add other code to record the event of my service stopping. I presume this would be done in a 'override onShutdown' method.(3) Finally when my service stops, i want to look at the event log. But i do not know how to do this, is in administrative tools? stored as a file on some directory?
Here is edit to this post in lieu of the grateful advice given below.
try
{
File.Move(e.FullPath, finalString);
File.Delete(e.FullPath);
}
catch(Exception q)
{
EventLog.WriteEntry("MySource", q.ToString(), EventLogEntryType.Error);
using (StreamWriter w = new StreamWriter(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["fmd"], true))
{
w.Write(DateTime.Now.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy_hh-mm-ss"));
w.Write(q.ToString());
}
}
As per suggestion i put a try-catch around the file move and delete plus i added a OnShutdown method:
protected override void OnShutdown()
{
using (StreamWriter w = new StreamWriter(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ond"], true))
{
w.Write("stop OnShutdown");
}
//EventLog.WriteEntry("MySource", message, EventLogEntryType.Error);
}
I do not know how to pass any system error message to the shutdown method, so any advice appreciated. When i installed my modified code as a service, it again stopped before moving or deleting the files. Neither of my two logs accessed by a stream recorded anything. Plus the event viewer showed nothing either?

You can write as following,
if (!EventLog.SourceExists("MySource"))
EventLog.CreateEventSource("MySource", "Application");
EventLog.WriteEntry("MySource", message, EventLogEntryType.Error);
to view the event log messages, Goto Administrator Tools -> Event Viewer and look for the source you have created. or Just simply type eventvwr in run window.
When Services installed, it works under SYSTEM User account where service might not have access to some resources. Please put logs and see where exactly the issue is.
If you service installed in your development machine, use attach to process option under DEBUG Menu in Visual Studio to find out.

What could be causing my service to work as described in debug but fail when installed on my computer?
Permissions. The service is likely running under LocalSystem or Network Service if you didn't provide a different identity.
I have initiated a event log as shown above. But do i need to add other code to record the event of my service stopping. I presume this would be done in a 'override onShutdown' method?
Yes, you're assumption is correct.
Finally when my service stops, i want to look at the event log. But i do not know how to do this, is in administrative tools?
Just hit Windows Key+R to get the Run dialog and type eventvwr.

Well i found the reason for all the commotion. I eventually found some logs in the event viewer. They were listed in Administrative events in custom logs. There were three error logs: .Net runtime; Application error & Service Control Manager. In '.Net Runtime' the stack showed a unhandled exception for system.windows.forms. I stupidly included a pop up box in my release version. But even when i commented this away; i got a error. So i went back and found other message boxes, primarily in try catch statements. Removed these and solved the issue.

On Windows 2008 application crashes instead of handling the exception

I have a function which should check, if COM is registered in the system. It may happen, that COM is registered, but dll file is missing - in this case function also should return false. MessageBoxes are only for debugging purposes:
public bool IsCOMInstalled(string name)
{
try
{
MessageBox.Show("?");
var obj = Activator.CreateInstance(Type.GetTypeFromProgID(name));
MessageBox.Show("!");
return true;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
MessageBox.Show(e.Message);
return false;
}
}
On Windows XP and 7 above works fine. On Windows Server 2008, exception is not handled. Application crashes right after showing "?".
Why is that? How can I make my application handle an exception...?

I think its the problem with your framework of windows.
when Framework fail to handle exception that time CLR fail to run further. means your code totally destroys the functionality of CLR.
check the system requirements of windows 8 as maintained in Note of following link.
i found the system requirements for windows 8 to run this.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8z6watww.aspx

How to see the exception of an application when running on client machine?

I installed my Windows Forms .NET 3.5 application and it installed correctly. When trying to run it the application crashes and the typical Microsoft Windows error dialog shows. You know the one that asks you to send an error report.
My question is, how can I see what actually caused the program to fail to launch?
The application runs well on my development machine, the problem is when running on another computer when installed with the Setup file I created.
Is there a way to see the 'innerException' when not running on a development machine?

Besides checking the Windows Event Viewer (from Computer Management) you could also try to build some error logging around your program. If you extend your Main() method to contain the following lines you will be able to get some further information about the cause of the program failure:
[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
Application.ThreadException += new ThreadExceptionEventHandler(Application_ThreadException);
Application.SetUnhandledExceptionMode(UnhandledExceptionMode.CatchException);
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += new UnhandledExceptionEventHandler(CurrentDomain_UnhandledException);
Application.Run(new Form1());
}
private static void Application_ThreadException(
object sender, ThreadExceptionEventArgs e)
{
//Log error here using e.Exception
}
static void CurrentDomain_UnhandledException(object sender, UnhandledExceptionEventArgs e)
{
//Log error here using (Exception)e.ExceptionObjecte.Exception
}
You could for example log the error to a simple text file using a StreamWriter:
string dateStr = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd");
StreamWriter sw = File.AppendText(Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "ErrorLog_" + dateStr + ".log"));
sw.WriteLine(exception);

These are the default options you have:
(If possible) change the application so that it logs errors and warnings, using e.g. log4net or the windows event log, then redistribute your app.
If the first option is not possible, you'll have to check out more advanced debugging: run-time debugging on the client machine. One way is to use WinDbg with the .NET extensions (SOS) or related tools from Debugging Tools for Windows. You can set it up on a client machine without running an installer, so it should have little or no side effects (as opposed to the non-option of setting up Visual Studio). One article on this is here, where they're debugging a crash dump file. Here is another article on the topic. You'll find endless resources on this googling - the topic is not simple but I recommend you look into it.
(If you need the results now, and don't have time to dig into advanced debugging with WinDbg and related tools at the moment, I would just add some tracing into the application.)

Did you check the EventLog? If your program starts, and then begin crash. put EventLog.WriteEntry(exceptionMessage). If not, best way to see it is EventLog.

C# WPF OpenFileDialog causing crash in XP, not in Vista

I have a WPF application that runs fine on my Vista development machine, but not on the production XP boxes. The only problem is with a call to OpenFileDialog.Show(). As soon as I call the method, the application is terminated on the XP box.
The problem does not trigger an exception. (I've surrounded the block in a try-catch block to no avail.) When I click on File->Open the application just up and quits in XP. Interestingly, I can write files to disk with File->Save and using the Save As dialog. I've tried building it to .Net 3.0 and 3.5 but it doesn't make a difference.
I've tried both Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog and System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog and get the exact same symptom.
The code block for the Microsoft.Win32 variant:
try
{
OpenFileDialog ofd = new OpenFileDialog();
if (ofd.ShowDialog().Value)
{
//do something
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString(), "Error!");
}
The only clues I have is the following (partial) entry from the security event log.
Event Type: Failure Audit
Event Source: Security
Event Category: Object Access
Event ID: 560
Description:
Object Open:
Object Server: Security
Object Type: Key
Object Name: \REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\EnterpriseCertificates\Disallowed
Accesses: DELETE
READ_CONTROL
WRITE_DAC
WRITE_OWNER
Query key value
Set key value
Create sub-key
Enumerate sub-keys
Notify about changes to keys
Create link
Any ideas? (Pleeeease!)

Thanks for the advice. I verified both the registry permissions and the full-trust issue. It turns out that, although I specifically built my application to .Net 3.0 (based on the standard organizational image), there was a dependency on .Net 3.5 SP1 that I still don't fully understand. The solution to my problem was to install .Net 3.5 SP1 on all the affected computers.
I just wanted to close the loop. Thanks, again, to all who contributed ideas.

It seems there is a permission problem with the registry key. My first suggestion would be to check the permissions on that key and verify that the ACL's are correct (best compare them to another XP box where the app is working).
If the permissions are OK, then you should try reinstalling .NET (maybe the installer will reset some required permissons on the registry keys).
If all else fails, reinstall XP on problematic machines, unless someone has a better idea.

It doesn't appear your production assembly is running under full trust. Are you running from a network share?

Permanently running executable

I created a winform (monitoring) application using VS 2005 (c#), and now, I have a problem when this application crashes for some reason, I have to be sure that it will be restarted automatically.
How can I resolve this? (maybe by using windows services application?)
Thanks

Yes, a creating a Windows Service would work as you can set it to automatically restart if it crashes but a better way would be to prevent it crashing in the first place! Is there a specific reason it crashes?
With good error handling and reporting you can write it so that it simply reports any errors that occur and carries on, which IMHO would be the best route to go

Consider this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303699.aspx
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
public static extern int RegisterApplicationRestart(
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] string commandLineArgs,
int flags);
Minimum supported server
Windows Server 2008
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa373347(VS.85).aspx

Creating a Windows service is a very good idea for any long-running background process for many reasons, however re-starting a crashed application is not one of them!
You should work out why the application is crashing and prevent it from happening.
By all means, also convert your application to a Windows service - you will see many benefits, however the correct way to solve your problem is to fix the application crash in the first place.

For*strong text* a watcher app.
You should create a timer on the windows service and code something like this in the timer tick event:
Process[] procs = Process.GetProcessesByName("you app name");
if (procs.Length == 0)
Process.Start("your app filename");
if you really cant do anything about the crash problem i would recommend a try-catch instead of a watcher. (Dont forget to re-throw handled major exceptions)
[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
try
{
Application.EnableVisualStyles();
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
Application.Run(new Form1());
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
//log the exception here
Application.Restart();
}
}

Since you say that you use a Windows Forms application you cannot use a Windows Service for that, since a Windows Service is not allowed to have a GUI.
What I would do it that I would create an invisible "watchdog" application which monitors the process and automatically restarts it when it crashes.

Thanks you all, the solution I choose is : in the main program I add an exception events (UnhandledExceptionEventHandler & ThreadExceptionEventHandler see above) in these events I restart the program (also putting log & email to trace errors). And for the reboot problem I add registry key in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] with my application path to be sure that my application will be restarted after the windows reboot ;)

You can put a try catch block around the code that is most likely causing the crash. Then write the exception message to a log file. You can also set a debug point in the catch block to see other details like call stack, etc.