Debugging software using windbg

Author: Kasper B. Graversen

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Debugging

Debugging certain kinds of situations calls for stronger tools than what Visual Studio and other graphical environment currently provide. Enter the archaic world of windbg.exe .

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Table of Content

1. Debugging live software using windbg

In this article I will explain my work flow I used last when was trying to understand why my service was not stopping properly. What I observed on the server was a process using an excessive amount of RAM. The CPU usage was not sky rocketing, but Windows was unable to stop my process (all buttons start, stop, etc. were disabled in the windows services Gui). Oh, by the way, my application is a long-running service programmed in managed C#.

Having an unresponsive application is particularly annoying. What is wrong? What is it doing? We can try to second guess like there is no tomorrow, and for each wild guess we can turn to the source code imagining all sorts of weird scenarios. Is it a deadlock in the db connection pool, a race condition? What is my application doing??

It's time to issue a powerful yet strangely archaic tool called windbg. Among most developers its feared. Certainly it's charm is not found in the user interface - at least not at first sight. It is somewhat the same feeling as having worked in Windows your whole life, and suddenly you are presented with nothing more than a shell to type in. But if you think windbg is weird, rest assured that it is nothing in comparison to the TECO editor's macro language.

You will see some fairly verbose and long-winded lists of data. This is quite intentional. And in fact, I've already edited out some of the noise! Yet I wanted to convey to you, the "atmosphere" when working with windbg and make you understand, that using windbg requires excavation of the output for the useful stuff. Note: My experience with windbg is rather limited, so please use the comment box to state corrections or obvious omissions.

2. Dumping the process

Before we start the debugger, we need to dump the memory reserved for our application. This serves as input for the debugger. While the dump is made on the machine running the code, the memory dump can be transferred to a developer machine and debugged completely disconnected from the server.

Depending on whether the process is a 32 or 64 bit application it needs be dumped differently. On a 64 bit operating system the rules are

32 bit applications are dumped with adplus.exe -hang -pn FooCorp.SpaghettiSort.exe -o c:\Debugging\

64 bit applications can be dumped directly by right-clicking the process in the Windows task manager

If you dump the memory file using the wrong procedure, you will get some weird errors when opening the file in windbg.

3. Starting the windbg

Start windbg.exe

Use the menufile -> Open crash dump

Now we need to load the common language runtime in order for windbg to understand your C# code. We issue the command .loadby

0:000> .loadby sos clr

To ensure that we have loaded the correct version of the clr we issue the command !threads and observe that it doesn't error on us. You may sometimes be required to run this command twice in order to see output as below.

0:000> !threads ThreadCount: 30 UnstartedThread: 0 BackgroundThread: 5 PendingThread: 0 DeadThread: 24 Hosted Runtime: no Lock ID OSID ThreadOBJ State GC Mode GC Alloc Context Domain Count Apt Exception 0 1 2df8 007b1088 2a020 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 MTA 2 2 3c5c 007bd428 2b220 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 MTA (Finalizer) XXXX 4 0 00821ad0 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) 4 5 401c 00822e70 1029220 Preemptive 4CBC094C:00000000 007aa018 0 MTA (Threadpool Worker) XXXX 6 0 00825eb8 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) XXXX 7 0 00855f18 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) 7 10 5e04 04c5ef60 102a220 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 MTA (Threadpool Worker) XXXX 11 0 062f4c38 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) XXXX 12 0 062f5170 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) XXXX 3 0 0631cd98 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) XXXX 26 0 06343878 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) XXXX 36 0 063428a0 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) XXXX 8 0 06343dc0 1039820 Preemptive 00000000:00000000 007aa018 0 Ukn (Threadpool Worker) ...

A lot of threads. The threads marked XXXX are dead. The rest are alive. Something is still running in my application it seems...

4. Getting the call stacks

For each thread we dump the call stack in order to see where our program is currently executing. Maybe this can pin-point an endless loop or something. with !clrstack we dump a managed call stack. Note that potentially the parameter -p may be useful (dump with parameters). Since we have many threads we need to do this pr. thread, to do this for each thread we use the ~* e command.

0:000> ~* e !clrstack OS Thread Id: 0x2df8 (0) Child SP IP Call Site 0030f3b4 7773f911 [InlinedCallFrame: 0030f3b4] 0030f3b0 6e62535a DomainBoundILStubClass.IL_STUB_PInvoke(IntPtr) 0030f3b4 6e626d6a [InlinedCallFrame: 0030f3b4] System.ServiceProcess.NativeMethods.StartServiceCtrlDispatcher(IntPtr) 0030f3e4 6e626d6a System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.Run(System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase[]) 0030f420 6e626e8d System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.Run(System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase) 0030f430 001e9e9a Topshelf.Runtime.Windows.WindowsServiceHost.Run() 0030f444 001e03cb Topshelf.HostFactory.Run(System.Action`1 ) 0030f468 001e0094 FooCorp.SpaghettiSort.Program.Main(System.String[]) 0030f5e8 739d2552 [GCFrame: 0030f5e8] OS Thread Id: 0x5918 (1) Unable to walk the managed stack. The current thread is likely not a managed thread. You can run !threads to get a list of managed threads in the process Failed to start stack walk: 80070057 OS Thread Id: 0x3c5c (2) Child SP IP Call Site 031ff788 7774019d [DebuggerU2MCatchHandlerFrame: 031ff788] Unable to walk the managed stack. The current thread is likely not a managed thread. You can run !threads to get a list of managed threads in the process Failed to start stack walk: 80070057 OS Thread Id: 0x8698 (9) Child SP IP Call Site 0781ebec 7774019d [HelperMethodFrame_1OBJ: 0781ebec] System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitOneNative(System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle, UInt32, Boolean, Boolean) 0781ecd0 72b764f0 System.Threading.WaitHandle.InternalWaitOne(System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle, Int64, Boolean, Boolean) 0781ece8 72b764c4 System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitOne(Int32, Boolean) 0781ecfc 0060531e Microsoft.FSharp.Control.AsyncImpl+ResultCell`1[[System.__Canon, mscorlib]].TryWaitForResultSynchronously(Microsoft.FSharp.Core.FSharpOption`1 ) 0781ed2c 00604f29 Microsoft.FSharp.Control.FSharpMailboxProcessor`1[[System.__Canon, mscorlib]].TryPostAndReply[[System.__Canon, mscorlib]](Microsoft.FSharp.Core.FSharpFunc`2 ,System.__Canon>, Microsoft.FSharp.Core.FSharpOption`1 ) 0781eda8 00604d26 Microsoft.FSharp.Control.FSharpMailboxProcessor`1[[System.__Canon, mscorlib]].PostAndReply[[System.__Canon, mscorlib]](Microsoft.FSharp.Core.FSharpFunc`2 ,System.__Canon>, Microsoft.FSharp.Core.FSharpOption`1 ) 0781edec 00604c42 Okanshi.Monitor.stop(Microsoft.FSharp.Control.FSharpMailboxProcessor`1 ) 0781ee08 00604ba0 Okanshi.MonitorApi.Stop() 0781ee1c 0059f802 FooCorp.SpaghettiSort.ServiceHost.Stop() 0781ee48 0059f6e8 FooCorp.SpaghettiSort.Program. b__4(FooCorp.SpaghettiSort.ServiceHost) 0781ee4c 0059f6bb Topshelf.ServiceConfiguratorExtensions+<>c__DisplayClassa`1[[System.__Canon, mscorlib]]. b__9(System.__Canon, Topshelf.HostControl) 0781ee54 0059f64c Topshelf.Builders.DelegateServiceBuilder`1+DelegateServiceHandle[[System.__Canon, mscorlib]].Stop(Topshelf.HostControl) 0781ee68 0059f538 Topshelf.Runtime.Windows.WindowsServiceHost.OnStop() 0781ee98 6e626a92 System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.DeferredStop() 0781f098 739d2552 [HelperMethodFrame_PROTECTOBJ: 0781f098] System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink._PrivateProcessMessage(IntPtr, System.Object[], System.Object, System.Object[] ByRef) 0781f354 72b513bb System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink.AsyncProcessMessage(System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.IMessage, System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.IMessageSink) 0781f3b4 72b511e1 System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.AgileAsyncWorkerItem.ThreadPoolCallBack(System.Object) 0781f3c0 72bae356 System.Threading.QueueUserWorkItemCallback.WaitCallback_Context(System.Object) 0781f3c8 72b8da07 System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) 0781f434 72b8d956 System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) 0781f448 72baf120 System.Threading.QueueUserWorkItemCallback.System.Threading.IThreadPoolWorkItem.ExecuteWorkItem() 0781f45c 72bae929 System.Threading.ThreadPoolWorkQueue.Dispatch() 0781f4ac 72bae7d5 System.Threading._ThreadPoolWaitCallback.PerformWaitCallback() 0781f6d4 739d2552 [DebuggerU2MCatchHandlerFrame: 0781f6d4] OS Thread Id: 0x75c4 (10) Child SP IP Call Site GetFrameContext failed: 1 00000000 00000000 OS Thread Id: 0x3fa4 (11) Unable to walk the managed stack. The current thread is likely not a managed thread. You can run !threads to get a list of managed threads in the process Failed to start stack walk: 80070057 OS Thread Id: 0x1054 (12) Unable to walk the managed stack. The current thread is likely not a managed thread. You can run !threads to get a list of managed threads in the process Failed to start stack walk: 80070057

What do we see here. Well, first we ignore all the lines like Unable to walk the managed stack . First we see a thread with out main .

0030f468 001e0094 FooCorp.SpaghettiSort.Program.Main(System.String[])

Reading from that line and up wards does not reveal anything other than our service is multi threaded.

Further down we see the line

0781ee1c 0059f802 FooCorp.SpaghettiSort.ServiceHost.Stop()

which tells us, that although we are in fact trying to stop our service, but something is blocking us. It seems to be the the Okanshi library (an in-process monitoring of an application).

5. Tracking the allocated objects

OK, we know there were issues with a large memory consumption. With dumpheap we can get an aggregated view over the memory allocations.

0:000>!dumpheap -stat 72c90314 242 14520 System.Reflection.RuntimeConstructorInfo 72c84abc 410 14760 System.Security.PermissionSet 6fd594b8 117 14976 System.Data.SqlClient._SqlMetaData 72891f9c 632 15168 System.Collections.Generic.List`1[[System.Object, mscorlib]] 72c6a008 485 15520 System.Reflection.Emit.SignatureHelper 72c6ca80 15 15600 System.Byte[][] 72c8eda8 332 15936 System.RuntimeMethodInfoStub 095f9ed8 1010 16160 Microsoft.CSharp.RuntimeBinder.Semantics.SYMTBL+Key 095fa330 112 16576 Microsoft.CSharp.RuntimeBinder.Semantics.MethodSymbol 72c89e08 338 18928 System.Reflection.Emit.DynamicMethod 72c8fcb0 228 19152 System.RuntimeType+RuntimeTypeCache 72c8f348 354 19824 System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo 72c877fc 138 21528 System.Collections.Hashtable+bucket[] 000b5bfc 1118 22360 System.SZArrayHelper+SZGenericArrayEnumerator`1[[System.Reflection.ParameterInfo, mscorlib]] 72c841b8 1904 22848 System.Object 72c847d8 470 22914 System.Char[] 0533a2d4 173 26296 Okanshi.Statistics+Statistics 72c7b214 338 32448 System.Reflection.Emit.DynamicILGenerator 00c33528 262 39824 Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonProperty 72c85000 2815 78820 System.RuntimeType 72c855d4 1165 81360 System.Int32[] 72c90594 1942 85448 System.Signature 72c90878 1450 98600 System.Reflection.RuntimeParameterInfo 72c90a7c 7160 143200 Microsoft.Win32.SafeHandles.SafeTokenHandle 72c8f0d4 3211 192660 System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo 72c86d34 2468 409779 System.Byte[] 72c83e18 8713 488768 System.String 007b3790 1438814 27099636 Free 72c40cbc 10696 268835072 System.Object[] 0505d430 20606535 329704560 Okanshi.MonitorMessage+IncrementSuccess 0505e61c 20606519 494556456 Okanshi.MonitorMessage+Time Total 42751500 objects Fragmented blocks larger than 0.5 MB: Addr Size Followed by 4cbd823c 0.7MB 4cc92d94 System.Byte[]

Clearly the culprits are Okanshi.MonitorMessage+IncrementSuccess and Okanshi.MonitorMessage+Time which take up 329704560 and 494556456 bytes of memory respectively. At the same time we see a very high object count 20606535 and 20606519 .

I can dig deeper into the memory allocations investigating the raw memory of the allocations, eg. the Char[] allocations found at $72c847d8 .

0:000>!dumpheap -mt 72c847d8 4cb845c0 72c847d8 14 4cb84758 72c847d8 44 4cb8492c 72c847d8 14 4cb849cc 72c847d8 14 4cb84adc 72c847d8 14 4cb84b5c 72c847d8 14 4cb84c94 72c847d8 14 4cb84e20 72c847d8 44 4cb84fd4 72c847d8 14 4cb86000 72c847d8 14 4cb89c10 72c847d8 14 4cb89d80 72c847d8 14 4cb8b764 72c847d8 14 4cb8b8b8 72c847d8 14 4cb8ed9c 72c847d8 14 4cb8ef8c 72c847d8 44 4cb8f0c8 72c847d8 14 4cb8f194 72c847d8 14 4cb8f354 72c847d8 14 ... Statistics: MT Count TotalSize Class Name 72c847d8 470 22914 System.Char[] Total 470 objects Fragmented blocks larger than 0.5 MB: Addr Size Followed by 4cbd823c 0.7MB 4cc92d94 System.Byte[]

Now we have the addresses of the individual allocations which we then can further inspect. But we are not going to do that now.

6. Trawling the source code

Windbg has provided hints as to what is wrong with the application. Now it is time to turn to the source code. Specifically, the parts of the code that does performance measurements.

Inspecting the SpaghettiSort algorithm it soon became clear that there were problems with task delay calculations resolving to waiting 0 seconds (as opposed to the expected 60 seconds). After each wait we performance measured an action that didn't really have any data to run on, following by a 0-second wait, and another round of performance measurement.. you get the point. We were logging extreme amounts of performance metrics :-).

7. Summary

Using windbg I was able to track down where in the code my seemingly unresponsive service was executing, and I was able to figure out the cause of the high memory consumption thanks to hints from the debugger.

You want to learn more about windbg? There is plenty of stuff is to be found at http://www.windbg.org/

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