Re: Help for porting: VC# 2008 express binaries crashing when run by mono

Andy Hume wrote:

I think I've found the problem -- it depends on a MSFT bug that creates bad content.   To check that it's the same fault, I'd need to see the input XML.  Rather than dealing with debuggers (eek) can you just search all the files in the project for XML starting with element TableLayoutSettings.

Search found 0 matches :(. I tried for both "<TableLayout" and ":TableLayout" (just for case the xml uses some namespaces), ignoring case, looking through all the files within my solution's folder (including subfolders, hidden & system stuff, and so on). Removing the "<" or the ":" at the beginning (just looking for raw text, regardless of it's actually XML) yields some results (both .resx XML files and .cs code files); but searching for "TableLayoutSettings" doesn't find anything.
My best guess is that the exact XML input passed to the crashing function is generated "on-the-fly" from the properties and all other details about the panel, during execution. (Otherwise, the "TableLayoutSettings" string should appear, at least, somewhere within the .dll and/or .exe files).

Andy Hume wrote:

I don't really understand where MSFT uses this content, if not in the .Designer file, then probably in a .resx file.  Did the project start out in VS2008, or maybe in VS2003?  I can't get VS2005 to create such content.

The whole solution initially started as a VC# 2005 Express solution; and was upgraded to 2008 as soon as I got the final version of the new IDE. A few weeks ago, I switched it from targeting the .NET 2.0 to .NET 3.5, with the aim of defining some extension methods. For what it matters, most of the code (including the parts causing the problem, which are quite recent), has been developed under VC# 2008 Express.

If you want to check them, I'm attaching the two .cs files (my code and the .Designer.cs), and the resx files for the UserControl that is raising the issue: spell.zip. (The actual application is a mere wrapping just to test that control).

Andrus Moor-2 wrote:

Even free C# Express 2008 allows to step into MS System.Windows.Forms.dll
source code.
Maybe we can use instructions from

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/netmassdownloader.aspx

to debug MONO SWF source also.

Rather that saying that the Express edition "allows" stepping into that code, it'd be more accurate that this article provides a workaround to enable that.
Anyway, I've tried the downloader and got lots of 404 errors while trying to fetch the sources. I haven't been able to step into the calls that pass the relevant xml data, but will keep trying to get it working.

Andreas Färber wrote:

You can always resort to Console.WriteLine. :-)

Of course... If you know it, could you please me how can I make .NET's own code to call WriteLine when I want to and with the arguments I'd want? If you take a look at the traceback I attached on my previous post, you'd find that it's not directly my code, but a function from the Framework, which throws the exception. The key of the issue seems to be the XmlDocument passed to that function, and it's not passed from my code, but from other functions within the framework. Of the 34 calls on that trace, only the 7 at the bottom are actually part of my own code; the problem is manifesting on the top call, and its source is somewhere between those 27 calls I have no control over.

Actually, I think I've just come up with some answer to my own question "how can I make .NET's own code to call WriteLine when I want to and with the arguments I'd want?"... which involves a lot of reflection and even more headaches. I'll try to use reflection to "dig" into these calls and retrieve that fatal XmlDocument argument; I will update this thread if I'm able to get it.