BackgroundWorker and COM Interop - Crashing on Win2k8

Question

I am having trouble using a BackgroundWorker that calls a method in a third party COM Interop wrapper. The COM methods run for a while and I need to provide feedback to the UI. The COM methods do provide a callback that I can use.

I call my method as so;

VariableUpdater updater = new VariableUpdater(variablesToUpdate);
updater.ProcessFiles();

And in ProcessFiles I launch my backgroundworker;

public void ProcessFiles()
{
    m_worker.RunWorkerAsync();
}

Which does;

private void m_worker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{   
    UpdateVariables();    
}

public bool UpdateVariables()
{
    IEdmBatchUpdate2 update = this.Vault.CreateUtility(EdmUtility.EdmUtil_BatchUpdate) as IEdmBatchUpdate2;
    for (int i = 0; i < foundExcelRows.Count(); i++)
    {
            // bunch of code                
            update.SetVar(importFile.FileID, variable.DestinationVarID, ref value, defaultConfig, 0);
    }
    Array errors = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(EdmBatchError), 0);
    try
    {
        update.CommitUpdate(out errors, null); // COM Call -> Crashes here
        return true;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
            log.Error("update error", ex);
        return false;
    }
}

Now here is the kicker; this all works wonderfully on Win7, Windows 2008 R2, and Windows 2k12. It crashes with c0000374 only on Win2k8, both SP1 and SP2. The code runs fine if I create and call IEmdBatchUpdate2.CommitUpdate() from the UI thread.

I have also tried to no avail;

Thread asyncThread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(updater.ProcessFiles));
asyncThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
asyncThread.Start();

I have been stuck on this for a couple of days and before I add another process that does the update, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas.

Here's the error;

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name:   CEMigrationTool.exe
Application Version:    1.5.1.2
Application Timestamp:  531933ad
Fault Module Name:  StackHash_2d26
Fault Module Version:   6.0.6002.18881
Fault Module Timestamp: 51da3e00
Exception Code: c0000374
Exception Offset:   000abc4f
OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.272.7
Locale ID:  1033

The error code `c0000374` is usually an indication of **heap corruption**. Could it be a buggy third party lib? — Baldrick, Mar 07 '14 at 02:51
More than likely it is. I don't know how to handle the situation though. — ehcanadian, Mar 07 '14 at 14:18
Contact that 3rd party of course, they are the ones that have the knowledge and tools to do something about it. Send them a small repro project that demonstrates the issue. Meanwhile, do avoid using code that you don't know to be thread-safe on a worker thread. — Hans Passant, Mar 07 '14 at 14:57
I think that's my only hope. Any idea why it only happens on Win2k8? I know you don't have a crystal ball but maybe there is a hotfix or something I could look for? — ehcanadian, Mar 07 '14 at 15:08

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

0

Maybe you should try catching all exceptions that can be thrown like this and attempt to retry any failed attempts:

public bool UpdateVariables()
{
    try
    {
        IEdmBatchUpdate2 update = this.Vault.CreateUtility(EdmUtility.EdmUtil_BatchUpdate) as IEdmBatchUpdate2;

        for (int i = 0; i < foundExcelRows.Count(); i++)
        {
                // bunch of code                
                update.SetVar(importFile.FileID, variable.DestinationVarID, ref value, defaultConfig, 0);
        }
        Array errors = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(EdmBatchError), 0);

        update.CommitUpdate(out errors, null); // COM Call -> Crashes here
        return true;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
            log.Error("update error", ex);
        return false;
    }
}

Edit

Also try looking at this article if you are unable to catch the exception

Preventing Exceptions from 3rd party component from crashing the entire application

edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

Community

1
1

answered Mar 07 '14 at 14:37

Cole W

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There's nothing to catch. The crash happens and it takes the whole thing down. – ehcanadian Mar 07 '14 at 14:40
The application is crashing because of an uncaught exception. Catch the exception and you can possibly move on. – Cole W Mar 07 '14 at 14:53
The crash happens in/on update.CommitUpdate(). I wish I could catch it. I try to catch it but it's happening in the 3rd party dll so there isn't much I can do about it. :) – ehcanadian Mar 07 '14 at 15:06
How do you know it's happening in that function? I don't see any logging or errors that indicate that. – Cole W Mar 07 '14 at 15:08
When debugging it never gets past that line, and the log.Error("update error", ex) isn't called. – ehcanadian Mar 07 '14 at 15:12
@ehcanadian Take a look at my edit above. Have you seen that article? – Cole W Mar 07 '14 at 15:20

BackgroundWorker and COM Interop - Crashing on Win2k8

1 Answers1

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