First of all I am stumped. I have a search-module for a CMS that runs fine on one site, but it won't run as it's supposed to on another site.
I have this code I call both with an Ajax call and simply when loading the search site:
private string GetSearchContent()
{
Query q = GetQuery();
//for each area, set it up, perform search and render result
IArea products = new ProductArea(GetEcomExcludedGroupIDs(), GetEcomLanguage()).Search(q);
IArea pages = new PageArea(GetAreaId())
.Search(q);
IArea news = new NewsArea(GetIncludedNewsCategoryIDs())
.Search(q);
....
}
The important part here is the Search function. This is implemented in the classes, but for some reason the code won't be executed.
I have tried splitting the code up so I am sure that is where the error lies. The freaky part is that it does not throw any exceptions, but it just stops executing whenever I try to call the Search function. It doesn't even enter the function.
The Search function looks like this:
public override IArea Search(Query q)
{
log.Debug("Product search");
....
}
The function it overrides is simply an abstract function on an interface that declares the function.
I have tried copying the function to the same class that are executing it with no luck, and I have tried accessing other functions on the classes, and that worked fine.
My question is then. What could cause this behavior? I have tried looking around but couldn't really find any others with the same problem. And as mentioned before, the exact same code is running smoothly on another site.
I really hope someone can help me get closer to a fix, or at least to understand the problem.
The question is unanswerable as written. You assert that the Search method never runs, and that the faulty line is this one:
IArea news = new NewsArea(GetIncludedNewsCategoryIDs()).Search(q);
There are a few different things that could be wrong outside of the Search method:
The NewsArea constructor throws an exception
The GetIncludedNewsCategoryIDs method throws an exception
Either of the above could call into unmanaged code and generate a native Win32 exception, which under some circumstances will simple cause the process to terminate rather than ever returning to managed code.
You state that "there is no try-catch" -- all the more reason to disbelieve your assertion that the method just stops without throwing an exception. Try the following for diagnostic purposes:
try
{
IArea news = new NewsArea(GetIncludedNewsCategoryIDs()).Search(q);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Logger.Log("Caught in the act: " + e.ToString());
throw;
}
If you've run this and still see that the execution stops without logging any exception, then we'll look at other possibilities.
Related
I have some code that currently looks somewhat like this:
public void MainFunction()
{
try
{
SomeProblemFunction();
}
catch
{
AllFineFunction();
}
}
private void SomeProblemFunction() { ... }
private void AllFineFunction() { ... }
As you can see, I'm currently wrapping the call to SomeProblemFunction around a try statement because that function could fail (it relies on an outside web service call).
My question is this: should the try statement be a) outside the problem function (like I have it now) or b) inside the problem function?
Thanks.
Typically you want to allow your exceptions propagate up to your application boundaries. You're only going to want to do one of a few things with your exception:
Wrap it
Replace it
Let it propagate
Update
From your question it seems that you are looking for a fault tolerant solution for your web service calls. This is a more complex problem than simply "where do I put my try-catch?" You would still place your exception handling at the application boundary, but there you would implement your fault tolerance strategy. This would need to have many considerations, including asynchronously calling your web service, number of retry attempts, etc. I would suggest doing a search for web service fault tolerance.
What you have is correct; see the MSDN example:
public class ThrowTestB
{
static void Main()
{
try
{
// TryCast produces an unhandled exception.
TryCast();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// Catch the exception that is unhandled in TryCast.
Console.WriteLine
("Catching the {0} exception triggers the finally block.",
ex.GetType());
// Restore the original unhandled exception. You might not
// know what exception to expect, or how to handle it, so pass
// it on.
throw;
}
}
public static void TryCast()
{
int i = 123;
string s = "Some string";
object obj = s;
try
{
// Invalid conversion; obj contains a string, not a numeric type.
i = (int)obj;
// The following statement is not run.
Console.WriteLine("WriteLine at the end of the try block.");
}
finally
{
// Report that the finally block is run, and show that the value of
// i has not been changed.
Console.WriteLine("\nIn the finally block in TryCast, i = {0}.\n", i);
}
}
// Output:
// In the finally block in TryCast, i = 123.
// Catching the System.InvalidCastException exception triggers the finally block.
// Unhandled Exception: System.InvalidCastException: Specified cast is not valid.
}
As a rule of thumb I try and build code that focuses try catches to the exact spot the problem may occur.
That said both of your solutions are correct.
If it were my code I would do this
public void MainFunction()
{
try
{
SomeProblemFunction();
}
catch(Exception e)
{
Messagebox.Show(e.Message);
}
}
private void SomeProblemFunction() {
try{
web call
}
catch{
throw a specific exception related to this spot
}
}
private void AllFineFunction() { ... }
With this method you can easily create applications that handle a slew of very accurate exceptions
A fine question, I think. I'll attempt an answer.
If you want to recover within SomeProblemFunction, then it would make perfect sense to move the try...catch inside of that method. If, however, you are comfortable saying that if anything fails in SomeProblemFunction, then the whole thing is a failure, then keep it as you have it now and recover in (or throw from) MainFunction.
Thanks to the comment below, I'm adding some clarity. Depending on the specific exception that is being thrown within SomeProblemFunction, you may not have the ability to recover within that method. If you have a mixture of recoverable and non-recoverable, then it would be prudent to have the try...catch in both places.
The most important thing is that you NEVER catch an exception from which you cannot recover without throwing it on after doing your thing. It's tempting to add big broad catches (catch (Exception)) to avoid your app crashing during development, but it is never worth it. If those things make it into your production code, you've introduced a problem-solving and debugging nightmare.
In my opinion, there is no straight answer for this. The try catch is used to handle the exceptions that may occur. If your exception handling code is going in the main function then you should have the try catch in the main function. If your exception handling code in the problem function then you should add it to the problem function.
My preference though is to put it in both functions. If you put the try catch in the problem function, you can throw the exception and catch it in the main function. This always appear to other developers that the exception was thought of in that function and not missed handling it by mistake.
This depends on how severe this web service call failure would be.
Is it a failure that would prevent further processing of your code to run? If so, have no try/catch here, allowing it to propagate up to the guy who needs to know that this web service call failed. Optionally, you could still catch and throw a new exception with some more meaningful Exception type/ details.
Do you simply just want to re-try the web service call again if it doesn't work? IF so, then you have the try in the correct place; you just need to add a loop.
Is it not a big deal if this web service call fails? e.g. - will the rest of your code work OK? (I've found this to be uncommon). If so, leave the try/catch where it is, and log the error somewhere so that you're alerted.
I have a situation where an error getting thrown by a process run on my server for one user and is affecting another process being run by for another user.
Basically, it looks like the other process stop working because of the error, even though the two process are totally unrelated and the pages on which my two users are not the same.
I know this is occuring because my second user has confirmed that he sees the error message even though it isn't related to him or his session.
Has anyone every experience this problem before ?
Thanks.
UPDATE:
The function that generate an alert looks like this, it is called directly in my Catch(Exception ex)
public static class CommonAlert
{
public static void GenerateAlert(Page CurrentPage, string strAlertMessage)
{
string script = #"ApplyJqueryUI();embedHtml({0});
function embedHtml(result)
{{
alert(result)
}};";
ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(CurrentPage,
CurrentPage.GetType(),
"embedHtml",
string.Format(script,EncodeJsString(strAlertMessage)), true);
}
}
How are you handling your exceptions? As Ryan McDonough mentioned above, the app pool will recycle after a specified numbers of errors occur.
Are you using static variables anywhere to capture the errors before showing them? Without seeing code this is just a guess, but if you potentially have something like the following going on, then users may see the wrong messages:
public static Exception _lastError;
void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
_lastError = Server.GetLastError();
}
And then in the request, if _lastError is not null, you may be showing it. Again, just a guess...
If this is the case, consider [ThreadStatic] or not using static variables.
Otherwise, post an example of how you're handling your exceptions and you'll get a better answer!
Good luck!
This method below is called when you click save all button.
I want to ask you is there any way to skip the error under the code shown below.
Why I ask this: Some times the pDenemeProxy.dll does not exist in the folder of the code.
Morever it is a windows form application. Has the pDenemeProxy.dll in the references. And the fDenemeProxy facade of pDenemeProxy.dll is only initialized if the mDesTemp not null.
Thank you!
private bool SaveAll()
{
...
..
..
if (this.mDesTemp != null)
{
fDenemeProxy dnm = new fDenemeProxy();
dnm.SaveThisCustomer(1234,"D",true);
}
...
..
return;
}
Error: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: 'pDenemeProxy, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'
note: .net 2.0 and c#
note: Some people advice to put try catch block but it did not work. I have seen during the debug sessions on VS 2008 that when mDesTemp is null we see again the error declared above.
In some line in your code you are using a method which throws an Exception of type System.IO.FileNotFoundException if the conditions for this erroneous situation are true (i.e. you are trying to access a file which is not possible for some reason).
That's the intended and correct behavior what you are experiencing. Whenever you are getting this error message the error has already been happened and now it's up to you to deal with this new situation. That is what Exception-Handling is all about.
To deal with an error that was caused by an exception (informally speaking) you would have to catch a exception that has been thrown before (formally speaking).
To do that you have to enclose the portion of code (the actual method call that inheres the throwing of the exception) with a so-called try-catch block like this:
private bool SaveAll()
{
...
..
..
if (this.mDesTemp != null)
{
try {
fDenemeProxy dnm = new fDenemeProxy();
dnm.SaveThisCustomer(1234,"D",true);
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
// deal with the new situation !
}
}
...
..
return;
}
The meaning of that is very simple and intuitive:
Inside the try-block you are 'securing' a piece of code that is capable of throwing an exception for the case it is doing so. This try - block is then followed by an arbitrary number of catch-block - one for each exception that could be thrown by the secured code.
If you have set up this try-catch block correctly you have achieved that whenever your (secured) code throws an exception the execution flow of your program doesn't end (i.e. you program doesn't crash) but it goes to the aproprirate catch-block where you can do anything to deal with error you have just experienced.
Furthermore if you would look on the internet you will find lots of information on that since exception-handling is a very important concept of programming but what I've tried to explain here is the basic concept which you should try to understand first - it won't get more difficult ;)
I have an unusual case where I have a very simple Exception getting thrown and caught in the same method. It isn’t re-thrown (the usual kind of problem naïve programmers have). And yet its StackFrame contains only one the current method. Here’s what it looks like:
at (my class).MyMethod() in C:\(my file path and line)
In reality there are probably 30 methods leading up to this in the VS2010 debugger's call stack, going across half a dozen different assemblies. It seems impossible for all that to have been optimized out. Moreover, this code is built in debug mode, without optimizations, for .NET 4. I even have (based on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9dd8z24x.aspx) .ini files (including one named [app].vshost.ini) in the same folder containing:
[.NET Framework Debugging Control]
GenerateTrackingInfo=1
AllowOptimize=0
Also, the method calls are not at the end of methods, so tail-recursion optimization seems further unlikely.
As to how it is called: there are no uses of reflection on the call stack, no Invoke() or BeginInvoke() of any kind. This is just a long chain of calls from a button click. The click handler is about 10 calls down the call stack. Beneath that you have the usual WndProc, NativeWindow.Callback, native/managed transitions, and message loop. This is ultimately inside a ShowDialog() call which is run from a C# EXE assembly.
Now, I found that I can construct instances of the StackTrace class in my catch handler, and if I pass the Exception object, the call stack is also short. If instead I just call new StackTrace() with no arguments, it yields a complete call stack.
I’ve used Reflector in an attempt to debug into the internals of the Exception class getting thrown and its call stack constructed, but I couldn’t set breakpoints in Exception or in StackTrace. I could set them in Environment.GetStackTrace() and this method (which Exception calls) does not appear to get called during the construction and throwing process, but I don’t know if the debugger is really working properly. (This method does get triggered for some other things though, so I'm not sure what to make of it.)
Here’s an excerpt of the method:
private void MyMethod()
{
...
try
{
throw new ApplicationException("Test failure");
}
catch (Exception e)
{
StackTrace stackTrace1 = new StackTrace(e);
StackTrace stackTrace2 = new StackTrace(e, false);
StackTrace stackTrace3 = new StackTrace(e, true);
StackTrace stackTrace4 = new StackTrace();
string STs = stackTrace1.ToString() + "\n---\n"
+ stackTrace2.ToString() + "\n---\n"
+ stackTrace3.ToString() + "\n---\n"
+ stackTrace4.ToString();
Log(EventSeverity.Debug, STs);
...
}
}
It’s really pretty simple: Throw exception, catch and log it.
I get the same results either in the debugger or when running standalone—a one-line call stack. And I know I have seen this problem elsewhere in our code base. Previously I had assumed it was due to re-throwing exceptions, but in a lot of cases it we log right inside the initial catch block. I’m quite baffled and all the web searching I’ve done hasn’t produce anything.
This is a little too much to add as a comment to the answer provided, but here's some more information:
I now see that this behavior is discussed at
http://dotnetthoughts.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/where-did-my-exception-occur/ and that it is actually described at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.exception.stacktrace.aspx (though I think one could easily miss what they're saying there).
So I guess my "solution" will be a little hit-or-miss. We have a central method we usually call to format exceptions. Inside that method, I'll create a new StackTrace() both with and without the Exception object. Then I'll look for the method that is at the bottom of the Exception's stack trace, and display everything beneath that in the new StackTrace(), indicating it was called by that series of calls.
The down side of course is that if this method isn't used, the information won't be there. But I had to expect some kind of code change somewhere.
When an exception is thrown, only a partial stack trace will be used in the Exception.StackTrace property. The stack only shows calls up until the method that is catching the exception. To get the full stack (as you have noted) you should create a new StackTrace() object.
I can't find any links on it at the moment but I believe the stack trace is built by walking up the stack while throwing the exception. Once the exception reaches a catch block, the stack stops being compiled. Therefore, you only get a partial stack.
Typically, a catch block is not concerned with who called it, but where the exception is originating from.
This application has a WCF web service that is called by a WinForms app. The WinForms app has a class WCFCache to manage data from the service. There is a section like this in that class to manage an optional custom configuration section that a subset of the machines have:
private bool? m_HasCustomConfiguration = null;
public bool HasCustomConfiguration
{
get
{
if (m_HasCustomConfiguration == null)
m_HasCustomConfiguration = (CustomConfiguration != null);
return (bool)m_HasCustomConfiguration;
}
}
private WCFService.CustomConfiguration m_CustomConfiguration = null;
public WCFService.CustomConfiguration CustomConfiguration
{
get
{
if (m_CustomConfiguration == null)
{
if (m_HasCustomConfiguration.HasValue
&& !m_HasCustomConfiguration.Value)
return null;
try
{
using (WCFService.WCFServiceClient wcf = new WCFService.WCFServiceClient())
{
m_CustomConfiguration =
wcf.GetCustomConfiguration(Machine.ProcessID);
// Above method returns null if no record exists.
m_HasCustomConfiguration = (m_CustomConfiguration != null);
}
} catch (Exception e) {
// Error logging & re-throw
}
}
return m_CustomConfiguration;
}
}
When I step through the debugger in code that calls either of the above properties like this:
if (!Program.WCFCache.HasCustomConfiguration)
return new List<CustomComponents>();
...it throws the following exception:
System.AccessViolationException was unhandled
Message="Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt."
Source="System.Windows.Forms"
...
When I step onto the line containing the reference, there is a long pause, followed by a VS popup with the exception.
The exception doesn't appear when I just put a breakpoint after the above code has executed. It doesn't even appear when I put a breakpoint inside the accessors of the properties. It only occurs when I step onto a line with one of those properties from the outside. (So there is a workaround, but it can be a pain.)
Why is this happening? Can I stop it?
Edit: The whole application was written in the last year in 3.5 C#/.NET with WCF communicating between components; meaning, we don't have legacy unmanaged DLLs. Just two unmanaged calls: one to advapi32.dll when the WinForms app is loading, in the username detection procedure. The issue I'm having happens only in this one place in the code, in a place that is about as unrelated to the login section as you can get. The other is to kernel32.dll, in a GC force-flush long after anything is done with the results from calls like the one above.
Are you using any P/Invoke or other such native code? Odds are, that's where you should start looking.
This exception is a symptom of a larger problem, namely memory corruption (that what the exception says, after all). If this was a native application, you'd get a crash.
So, look at any native calls, make sure they're operating correctly, maybe run them under a debugger to try and trap the error closer to home.
Sorry, can't really give better advice given the circumstances.
I eventually found that others have encountered this situation and that it is likely a Visual Studio bug. I was using VS 2008 when the problem occurred.