Async exception not being caught or being swallowed

Question

Update from the future: TL;DR to catch expressions in async methods you have to await, Task.WaitAll, or .Result.

Answer 1

When an async method throws an exception, that exception is placed on the returned Task. It's not raised directly to the caller. This is by design.

So, you have to either await the Task returned from LoadMSpecAsync or have your mSpecCompletionHandler examine its Task argument for exceptions. It will show up there.