How to troubleshoot application hangs with DebugDiag 1.2

Or, DebugDiag from the client perspective…

1. Install DebugDiag 1.2 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2580960)

(Basically, I’m going to expound upon the following (somewhat obscure) instructions:)

“Create a manual memory dump series during the slow or hang state by right-clicking the process name in the processes view and choosing the “Create Dump Series” option.”

2. Run the application (in this case, Microsoft Outlook 2010)

3. Run DebugDiag 1.2

4. Attach DebugDiag 1.2 to the application.

Click Cancel on the Wizard

Then click the 3rd Tab, Process

And then Right Click your Process (in my example, Outlook.exe) and Select “Create Userdump Series”

Then Change the “10” to “5” in the number of dumps to create and check the box to create a full before creating minidumps (this will run a sequence to collect 1 full dump, then 3 minidumps and then a full dump of the process).

5. Reproduce application hang (in this example I’m going to copy 5507 emails to a new folder while on an aircard in Online Mode instead of Cached Mode).

Once the problem starts to occur, click “Save and Close”. Dumps are being created!

6. Analyze the dumps. Click the middle tab (Advanced Analysis) and then select the default option for Crash/Hang Analysis and then (Add Data Files).

Add the dumps stored in the directory (default was C:\Program Files\DebugDiag\Logs\Misc)

Now enable Symbols

For Symbols you want to point to our public symbol server in the “Tools/Options and Settings” area:

And click start analysis and let er rip