[stacktrace] Getting a stacktrace from unhandled exception in windows
I am trying use boost stacktrace to get a stack dump when my program encounters an unhandled exception under windows. I have installed a signal handler as described in the stacktrace documentation, and it gets called. However, the resulting stack trace is after everything has been unwound.
For example, when I force a failure by dereferenceing a null pointer many levels down in my function hierarchy, the stack trace shows:
0# boost::stacktrace::detail::this_thread_frames::safe_dump_to_impl
Unless you need the stacktrace to be logged to a text file, I suggest you look at this system-provided facility: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb787181(v=vs.85).a...
Collecting User-Mode Dumps (Windows)https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb787181(v=vs.85).a...
msdn.microsoft.com
Starting with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Error Reporting (WER) can be configured so that full user-mode dumps are ...
The kernel will generate a dump that you can open in Visual Studio, windbg (free) and probably in other tools too. It's basically the equivalent of unix core-dumps. You can also configure the level of detail in the dump, so the resulting file can be small in case you want to collect them from end-users. Do note that the dump files are usable only with the exact build which generated them, i.e., archive all builds (and their PDBs) that you've ever distributed to somebody.
IOW, you can get out more information than with boost.stacktrace with zero coding.
________________________________
From: Boost-users
Also forgot to say: a minidump will contain stack traces of all threads, not just the calling thread. IME, if the program is multithreaded, it's immensely helpful to know what other threads were doing when one particular thread crashed.
________________________________
From: Boost-users
participants (2)
-
Don
-
Stian Zeljko Vrba