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I know I'm a little late in the game, but I decided that after vacation it was finally time for me to install Windows 2008 on my Vista box and play around with some of the IIS 7 features like Failed Request Tracing (known as FRT or FREB) and the appcmd tool. I wanted to show you an alternative way of troubleshooting Lab 1 (hang scenario) from my Debugging Lab series using Failed Request Tracing and appcmd so here are some things I will go through in this post Setting up failed request tracing Listing executing requests with appcmd Using Page.Trace with failed request tracing Setting up different FREB rules and looking at the differences between them Short notes about failed request tracing Failed request tracing comes with IIS7. It works...

We have reached the end of the .NET Debugging Demos series. And we are going to end it with a review of the last memory leak lab. I am interested to get feedback, either in comments or through email in the contact me section, on what you liked, what you didn't like. If you felt that it was worth your while etc. so I know if there is an interest in possibly doing similar lab series in the future. It will probably be a while before I would post a new series but if there is interest at least I can start thinking about it. If that is the case, let me know what you thought was missing from this one so that I can put some good scenarios in the next one. Previous demos and setup instructions If you are new to the debugging labs, here you can find...

This is the last debugging lab in the .NET Debugging Demos series. By now you should have the basics down for troubleshooting hangs, perf issues, memory leaks and crashes in .net applications. Hope you have enjoyed your debugging sessions. The last one in the series is a managed memory leak caused by holding on to resources in an unexpected way. Since it is the last one I have tried to make the questions a little bit less leading than the previous ones:) Previous demos and setup instructions If you are new to the debugging labs, here you can find information on how to set up the labs as well as links to the previous labs in the series. Information and setup instructions Lab 1: Hang Lab 1: Hang - review Lab 2: Crash Lab 2: Crash - review Lab...

Since it took me so long to get Lab 6 out the door i'll post the review right away... After this we only have one memory leak lab to go before you have gone through the whole lab set. Previous demos and setup instructions If you are new to the debugging labs, here you can find information on how to set up the labs as well as links to the previous labs in the series. Information and setup instructions Lab 1: Hang Lab 1: Hang - review Lab 2: Crash Lab 2: Crash - review Lab 3: Memory Lab 3: Memory - review Lab 4: High CPU hang Lab 4: High CPU hang - review Lab 5: Crash Lab 5: Crash - review Lab 6: Memory leak Problem description: We have started getting out of memory exceptions on the buggy bits site and we have been able to determine a scenario...

It's been about a week since I posted the debugging challenge for this lab, things have been a bit busy lately so sorry about the tardiness on posting the lab. I have a love-hate relationship with statistics, I like them cause you can use them to get a point across and they can help you analyse things, but at the same time I hate them because people have a tendency to rely on them blindly and use them out of context without understanding the meaning behind them. The classic example is of course the sentence "More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread eaters" , that sentence is excellent to combat badly used statistics in a discussion:). Since the start of the debugging demos, over 5000 people have downloaded the labs. Read...

Here is the debugging challenge for lab 6... this one is really tricky... I will post the step-by-step instructions and review in about a week, but for now I will only post a problem description. As with lab 5, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to troubleshoot the problem with only that problem description. Post intermediate findings, questions, potential solutions etc. in the comments, and don't worry if you go down the wrong path a couple of times (that's just part of the debugging experience:)). Try not to peak at the code unless you have identified a problematic function during the troubleshooting process... Btw, I realized when I started counting the problems I had introduced in the buggy bits website that there will...

Last week I published a debugging challenge for Lab 5. It was really interesting to see the results and I have to say I was really happy to see the excellent results from the poeple who commented on the debugging challenge (sounds like my work here is done:)). Quick Poll, for the next one (a memory leak), do you want a debugging challenge or do you want the lab steps at once? As usual it is using the Buggy Bits site, and this time we are dealing with a crash. You can read the problem description here. Previous demos and setup instructions If you are new to the debugging labs, here you can find information on how to set up the labs as well as links to the previous labs in the series. Information and setup instructions Lab 1: Hang Lab 1: Hang...

Since I already posted a challenge for this lab earlier I didn't want to wait too long with publishing the review... Previous demos and setup instructions If you are new to the debugging labs, here you can find information on how to set up the labs as well as links to the previous labs in the series. Information and setup instructions Lab 1: Hang Lab 1: Hang - review Lab 2: Crash Lab 2: Crash - review Lab 3: Memory Lab 3: Memory - review Lab 4: High CPU hang Lab 4: High CPU hang - review Reproducing the issue: 1. Recycle IIS (IISReset) 2. Browse to http://localhost/BuggyBits/CompanyInformation.aspx 3. Type some message and click the Send button Note: If just-in-time debugging is enabled a message box might pop up because the w3wp.exe process...

We're about halfway through with the labs so to change it up a little bit I'm going to give you a debugging challenge. I will post the step-by-step instructions and review in about a week, but for now I will only post a problem description. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to troubleshoot the problem with only that problem description. Post intermediate findings, questions, potential solutions etc. in the comments, and don't worry if you go down the wrong path a couple of times (that's just part of the debugging experience:)). Try not to peak at the code unless you have identified a problematic function during the troubleshooting process... Problem description: We get lot's of customer reports that randomly...

Hope you have had a chance to go through the high CPU lab... Some people already commented with the solution in the lab instructions for this lab but here are my answers and commentary on the lab. Reproducing the issue: 1. Recycle IIS (IISReset) 2. Browse to http://localhost/BuggyBits/AllProducts.aspx this should take about 5 seconds or more depending on what machine you're on 3. Watch the CPU usage in taskmanager while browsing to this page Q: What is the CPU usage like for w3wp.exe during the processing of this request? A: Very high, approaching 100% Set up a performance counter log: 1. Check out Lab 3: Memory and set up a performance counter log per the instructions in there and start the log Prepare to gather a memory dump: 1. Open a...