visual-studiominidump

In Visual Studio Express 2013, how can I tell which thread crashed in a minidump?


When I open a minidump I get some basic information about the crash:

minidump summary

I can't tell which thread crashed. Is there some indicator in the interface that shows which thread crashed or other way to determine for sure which thread generated the exception?

I suspect that the debugger will take me to the correct location of the crash when I start debugging (assuming that it was able to load all of the correct symbols, etc.), but it's difficult to know for sure without some kind of confirmation.


Solution

  • I can't tell for sure regarding the Express edition. Usually there's an actions box where you can start debugging.

    Action

    If you do that, it will show you the call stack and threads including the thread ID:

    Call stack

    Threads

    However, it might not be available with the Express edition of Visual Studio (source), so I suggest you do the following:

    1. Get a copy of WinDbg, Microsoft's free debugger. Most convenient way is to download from Codemachine.
    2. Install it, then run WinDbg.
    3. Enter the !analyze -v command. It should give you the exception code, call stack and thread ID.