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)

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3.  Run DebugDiag 1.2

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4.  Attach DebugDiag 1.2 to the application.

Click Cancel on the Wizard

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Then click the 3rd Tab, Process

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

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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).

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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!

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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).

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

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Now enable Symbols

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

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And click start analysis and let er rip

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Coming soon, how to read the report, or, what comes next (I’ll finish this when I get onto the airplane in a couple hours).

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