What triggers Vista's "XXX is not working"?

Posted By: jh71283 | Feb 11th @ 10:08 AM
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Comments: 12 | Views: 761
#Feb 11th @ 10:08 AM
jh71283
jh71283
Throw new System.Beverage. OutOfCoffeeException​()
Hi Guys.

Was just wondering if anybody could shed some light on what exactly causes vists to decide that a program is 'Not Working'?

I have an app that runs fine in Vista on my machine, but on my Boss's laptop, whenever he tries to open a report, vista instantly decides that the app is not working and shuts it down.

Any Ideas?

#Feb 11th @ 2:21 PM
figuerres
figuerres
???
just out of curiosity what are the system specs of your mchine and his?

wondering if his is slower / older etc....

i know as Mr. C refers to vista inspects stuff and looks for some replys to things....
#Feb 11th @ 6:12 PM
W3bbo
W3bbo
The Master of Baiters
I got it a few times before I found out it was a .NET program that had a manifest declaring it didn't require admin priviledges, but wrote to protected areas anyway. For some reason Vista just doesn't give anything more specific, not even in the Error Log. Very frustrating.
#Feb 12th @ 3:31 AM
AndyC
AndyC
Most likely there is an unhandled exception somewhere in the app. Possibly because there are dependencies for a component that you haven't got installed on your bosses machine (that's the classic 'It worked on my dev box' reason).

Logo compliant applications are supposed to record the reason for a failure in the Event Log, but your average quick and dirty app generally doesn't bother.
#Feb 12th @ 11:43 AM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
The "Application X is not working" ghosted window experience in Vista happens when an application window does not respond to messages from the system for a given amount of time. If an app gets stuck in some blocking infinite loop, for example, Windows messages will bounce off of the stalled window (it can't process messages since it's completely blocked) and the ghosted sirens will go off after X seconds of no-reply.
C
#Feb 12th @ 1:49 PM
AndyC
AndyC
True, but I took "shuts it down" to mean something a little more fatal. And the app crash dialog says something along the  same lines (it's been a while since I saw one!)
#Feb 14th @ 12:48 AM
jh71283
jh71283
Throw new System.Beverage. OutOfCoffeeException​()
Actually, AndyC just about hit the nail on the head, it has turned out to be a missing DLL on 2 seperate occasions, prompting vista to declare the app not working, and shut it down.

It may be because the app is in debug config at the moment with no 'overall' exception handling procedure.

Maybe also that I never shipped the pdb file, so it might actually be that causing the message, but either way vista is definitely messing up my debugging!
#Feb 14th @ 12:50 AM
jh71283
jh71283
Throw new System.Beverage. OutOfCoffeeException​()
Also, as you say, windows should wait a number of seconds before declaring the app as not responding, but this error is literally instant, so it seems not to be the expected behavior.
#Feb 14th @ 2:01 AM
Sven Groot
Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...
What message are we talking about exactly? "X has stopped working" or "X is not responding". I get the feeling Charles was talking about the latter, while you're talking about the former.
#Feb 15th @ 9:59 AM
jh71283
jh71283
Throw new System.Beverage. OutOfCoffeeException​()
"Has stopped working"
#Feb 15th @ 7:37 PM
Sven Groot
Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...
That's a crash, not a hang. Those are meant to be instant. It means an unhandled exception or an access violation or something similar. There should be (slightly) more details in the event log, look for an AppCrash event in the Application log. If it's a .Net exception it should at least tell you the exception name. If all else fails, attach a debugger while it's running so you can catch the error that way.
#Feb 16th @ 8:53 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
Thanks for the correction. Even though this thread title refers to "XXX not working" I only interpreted it as "XXX not responding".

"Charles is not working..."
Charles.ExitWithErrorCode( 9 );


C
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