How do I debug a difficult-to-reproduce crash with no useful call stack?

Question

I am encountering an odd crash in our software and I\'m having a lot of trouble debugging it, and so I am seeking SO\'s advice on how to tackle it.

Answer 1

Even when the IDE-provided stack trace isn't very complete, that doesn't mean there isn't still useful information on the stack. Open up the CPU view and check out the stack pane; for every CALL opcode, a return address is pushed on the stack. Since the stack grows downwards, you'll find these return addresses above the current stack location, i.e. by scrolling upwards in the stack pane.

The stack for the main thread will be somewhere around $00120000 or $00180000 (address space randomization in Vista and upwards has made it more random). Code for the main executable will be somewhere around $00400000. You can speculatively investigate elements on the stack that don't look like integer data (low values) or stack addresses ($00120000+ range) by right-clicking on the stack entry and selecting Follow -> Near Code, which will cause the disassembly window to jump to that code address. If it looks like invalid code, it's probably not a valid entry in the stack trace. If it's valid code, it may be OS code (frequently around $77000000 and above) in which case you won't have meaningful symbols, but every so often you'll hit on an actual proper stack entry.

This technique, though somewhat laborious, can get you meaningful stack trace info when the debugger isn't able to trace things through. It doesn't help you if ESP (the stack pointer) has been screwed with, though. Fortunately, that's pretty rare.