Permanently running executable - c#

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.

Related

Create a Windows service without the use of a timer [duplicate]

I made a Window service and let it work automatically and under localsystem account, when the service starts it fires this message for me and then stops
The [service name] service on local computer started and then stopped. Some Services stop automatically if they are not in use by another services or programs.
What's the problem and what's the solution?
Either you are not starting any threads on the OnStart method to do work, or there is an exception raised within your OnStart method.
If an exception is thrown, it will appear in the Windows Event log. The Windows Event log is a good place to start in any case.
Generally an OnStart method looks like this:
Thread _thread;
protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
// Comment in to debug
// Debugger.Break()
// Do initial setup and initialization
Setup();
// Kick off a thread to do work
_thread = new Thread(new MyClass().MyMethod)
_thread.Start();
// Exit this method to indicate the service has started
}
This particular error message means what it says - that your service has started but then quite soon it exited for some reason. The good news is that your service is actually doing something, so you have the executable configured and running as a service properly.
Once started, for some reason it is quitting. You need to find out why this is. Add some debugging to tell you its up and running and known exit cases. If that doesn't reveal the problem then add some debugging to let you know it's still running and work backwards from when that stops.
Are you tracing out any debug information? Most likely an exception is being thrown during your initialization. I would trace out all your exceptions and use Debugview to view them.
I had a similar problem that occurred because my Event Logs were full and the service was unable to write to them. As such, it was impossible to debug by looking for messages in the Event Viewer. I put a try/catch and dumped the exception out to a file. I had to change the settings on my logs to fill as needed instead of every 7 days and this allowed the services to start.
Of course, the root of the problem for me is that I have a nVidia driver issue that is flooding my event logs and now I'm probably beating on the disk, but that's another issue.
Maybe you need to run the service as Local System Account. See this post by Srinivas Ganaparthi.
I had the same issue starting JBoss, then I changed the JAVA_HOME variable, it worked for me. It was the JBoss version that doesn't support the 1.6, it supports 1.5.
I had similar problem and it turned out in my case that the program simply crashed in OnStart method. It tried to read some file that it couldn't find but I suppose that any other program crash would give the same result. In case of Windows forms application you would get some error message but here it was just "your service started and stopped"
If you ever need, like me to read some files from the directory where Windows Service .exe is located, check this topic:
Getting full path for Windows Service
In my case, a method in my service, was being called recursively (as no terminate condition being true) and after specific time my service was being stopped.

Catching exceptions in console application C#

I have a console application written in C#. This application runs as automation to test a web service.
Flow:
Log in to network share (impersonate user)
copy mp3 file to local disc
convert mp3 to wav
downsample
trim wave
extract some useful data from wav
send http request
delete local files
write out some stuff to tsv
The application will run great for several hours (usually takes about 24 hours to complete the test). but every once and a while I will get this message: "The application has stopped working. I have been running this is VS 2012 in debug mode so, I can see what line throws any error. problem is, that I have not been able to catch the line (or method) that is throwing the error. I originally thought that the Domain controller was causing this issue due to power settings.
How can I capture exactly what error is bubbling its way up the stack?
Does all that run in a loop of some kind? Or on a timer?
Perhaps put a try-catch around the body of the loop or the method that runs all your code, add a logging framework of your choice (log4net or nlog seem good) and then in the catch log the exception. Most logging frameworks allow you to include the exception and will include stacktrace, etc.
Putting debug logging throughout the process can also help to narrow down where it's happening.
You can go to the Event Viewer on the operating system the console application is running on and then click on "Application". Event viewer logs and displays all exceptions thrown on any application running on the operating system.
try
{
// your code
}
catch (Exception e)
{
System.IO.File.WriteAllText(#"Z:\err.txt", e.ToString());
}
Note that access to windows drives are denied for non administrators so replace Z: with your choice.
I recommend you using a logging framework.
I use log4net in almost all applications. Its very simple to use and configure.
private static readonly log4net.ILog log = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);
try
{
// do whatever
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
// Log an error with an exception
log.Error("Exception thrown", ex);
}
By using these kind of libraries you can get your log data output to file, database or even written to the windows event-viewer for instance.
It looks like the exception code you are getting happens when you try to use something that is already been garbage collected. Are you using anything after it is disposed?
Knowledge Base Article for 0xc0000005

C# WinForm nothing happen

i have created C# WinForm on my Windows server 2008 and it works fine.
but when i transfert this MyProg.exe into computer window 7, and i run it, nothing happen.
my code:
[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
try
{
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
DevExpress.UserSkins.BonusSkins.Register();
Application.EnableVisualStyles();
//Pour TEST
//Le_ClientID = "850001";
//Le_Login = "850001FA";
using (var loginForm = new Login())
{
if (loginForm.ShowDialog() != System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK)
return;
}
Application.Run(new Le_MainForm());
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}
}
Anybody have an idea ?
event log show:
- System
Provider
[ Name] Application Error
EventID 1000
[ Qualifiers] 0
Level 2
Task 100
Keywords 0x80000000000000
TimeCreated
[ SystemTime] 2012-05-14T09:40:39.000000000Z
EventRecordID 3557
Channel Application
Computer anjouachemineme
Security
EventData
FrontEnd_Offline.exe
1.0.0.0
4fb0c28b
KERNELBASE.dll
6.1.7601.17651
4e2111c0
e0434352
0000d36f
f84
01cd31b59ee78b7d
C:\Soft8_Local\FrontEnd_Offline.exe
C:\Windows\system32\KERNELBASE.dll
dcb7cb01-9da8-11e1-bf8c-1c6f65c1ad74
Thanks you in advance,
Stev
PS: As i lunch MyProg.exe, it listed on Task Manger, but it disapear (killed) in about 3 second after.
Execute the exe (Start as Administrator)
or
this may happen if you dont have Framework Installed in which you created the application by default windows 7 comes with 2.0 and 3.5 Framework . if you created application in visual studio 2010 then you need to download FrameWork 4.0 from Microsoft website to run that exe in Windows 7
you can download Framework 4.0 from here
I just encountered this issue in a Windows form App I created. Apparently there is a plethora of issues that can cause this. In my case you could open the Task Manager, click the application, see it open in the task manager, and immediately close. The only way to see what the issue was, was to look at the event viewer and find the error.
The first is dependencies. Like mentioned above, ensure all required .dlls are included and that you have the required framework(s) installed.
Second KERNELBASE.dll can become corrupted. To ensure that is not the case you can run the System File checker. Instructions can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833
Third, is my case. I had a method running in the constructor of Program.cs which is the first thing instantiated when you start a windows form app. I had a bug in code that was causing an exception before any exception handling was created. To fix the problem I moved the code to a point after I create an unhandled exception method as such:
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += new UnhandledExceptionEventHandler(CurrentDomain_UnhandledException);
in my forms constructor. Now the program would start and actually throw an error. I then just had to fix the bug in my code.
I hope this can help you or anyone else out there.

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.

Windows Mobile 5 - How to kill other application?

currently I’m creating 2 applications (app A and B) for Windows Mobile 5.0 and using Compact Framework 2.0. App A is the main application and B is the sub application.
Below is the flow:
Start app A.
App A will start app B.
App B will do some process.
App B will kill app A.
App B will patch/upgrade app A. (ala update manager)
App B will restart app A.
App B will exit.
Now I’m stuck in killing app A. I did tried using OpenNETCF ProcessEntry Kill() function. When calling Kill(), it made the device crash.
I did tried using the SendMessage(hWnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0) funct where WM_CLOSE will have the ProcessEntry.ProcessID value and I didn’t assigned any value to hWnd variable. But it didn’t terminate app A. Did I assign the wrong value?
I also did tried using
Process.GetProcessById(processEntry.ProcessID).CloseMainWindow()
, but failed as GetProcessById only accepts int32 value. Note that processEntry.ProcessID value is larger than int32 value and GetProcessByName() is not supported in Compact Framework.
Could you help me in killing app A through app B?
Thanks.
You may try native code, using the TerminateProcess function:
processHandle = OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, FALSE, Pid);
success = TerminateProcess(processHandle, 0);
The above code is from a Task Manager at Code Project.
However if you are writing the code for both the applications, it will be better if you designed a communication mechanism between the two applications. In this way you will send a message from app B to app A and app A will kill itself.
Stormenet, I hardcoded the application's name. Then I generate an object to get all the available process using OpenNETCF.ToolHelp.ProcessEntry[ ] = ProcessEntry.GetProcesses();
then in a foreach loop, if the ProcessEntry object eg: processEntry.ExeFile matches with the "applicationName", i shall use processEntry.Kill().
I think you can get the OpenNETCF.ToolHelp dll from the OpenNETCF site.
Note that if the application you are trying to kill is holding open ports or other system resources then it might hang on exiting. Ensure everything is effectively disposed when the form closes.
This can be acheived by putting stuff in the:
public void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
}
block of code in the designer of your main form, or if you've chosen a less Windows Form centric architecture then just run your dispose calls following Application.Run(new YourForm()) and it will execute after the application has closed.
If you're feeling really lazy then just setup some destructors (otherwise known as finalizers ~) but be careful about navigating through relationships between managed objects at "destruct" time if you do this as there is no guarantee as to which order objects will be destroyed.
ctacke, I think app A crashes due to some of the running threads are not closed properly or still running at the background as app A will run multiple threads during app B executing the Kill( ) function.
If I use the SendMessage(hWnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0) function, it will not crash the device (which is a good thing)... it only closes the form. (app A contains multiple forms eg: frmLogin and frmMainMenu). hmmm maybe I need to point hWnd to the right form...
Now I'm taking a different route.
After downloading the patch and put it in a temp folder, I'll do a soft reset using OpenNETCF.WindowsCE.PowerManagement.SoftReset().
App B will be launched upon startup, then it will scan the temp folder and replace app A with the new version.

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