Troubleshooting Basic Crashes in IIS 6.0 Processes with DebugDiag 1.1

Summary:

The ideal here is to set DebugDiag up so that it will monitor all the IIS processes (inetinfo.exe, all w3wp.exe’s, all dllhost.exe’s) for a crash/access violation/second-chance exception and, when detected, will dump everything that is going on in the memory spaces at the time of the crash into .dmp files. We can then perform post-mortem analysis on the .dmp files to determine the cause of the crash.

KB References:

931370 The Debug Diagnostic 1.1 tool is now available

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;931370

919789 How to use the Debug Diagnostics tool to troubleshoot an IIS process that stops unexpectedly

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;919789

921464 How to use the Debug Diagnostics 1.0 tool to analyze a memory dump file

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;921464

Troubleshooting Steps:

1. INSTALL DEBUGDIAG

Please download and install Debug Diagnostic Tool v1.1 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?pocId=&freetext=debugdiag&DisplayLang=en

When you launch debugdiag.msi it will give you an option to change the default installation path from the C:\drive to another drive.

Since dump files can be large, it may be advisable to install the tool to another drive with the most free space.

2. LAUNCH DEBUGDIAG

Launch DebugDiag (Start Button > Programs > Debug Diagnostics Tool 1.1)

3. SET UP A BASIC CRASH RULE

When asked which rule type to choose, choose “Crash” and click NEXT

For select target type you should go with “All IIS/Com+ related processes.”

Leave everything set to the defaults in the Advanced Configuration for now.

If you have limited freespace, you might decrease the number of maximum userdumps from 10 to 1.

We’ll leave Exceptions and Breakpoints and Events alone for now. (If we have trouble getting the dumps we may set some breakpoints later.)

Continue accepting the default settings and clicking next…

Activate the rule when you’re ready for the tool to start monitoring the IIS processes for a crash. . .

Note how the status is set to active and the userdump count is set to 0. The userdump count should increase when a crash is detected.

4. WAIT

Feel free to log off the server while waiting for the crash to occur. Since debugdiag runs as a service, you do not have to be logged into the machine.

5. COMPRESS

After you have confirmed that the userdump count has increased from 0 to 1, please expand the Tools menu in Debugdiag, select “Advanced Data Collection,” and select “Create Full Cabinet File”

Creating the full cabinet file will compress the event logs, the most recent IIS log, the metabase, the httperr log, all .net config files, and all dmp files together into one convenient .cab file.

6. UPLOAD

After the compression process is finished, please find and upload the .cab file.

The easiest way to find the cabinet file is to click the icon of the manila folder in debugdiag (as seen in the screenshot below). This will take you to the default dump location of: C:\Program Files\IIS Resources\DebugDiag\Logs\<Name of Rule>. If you chose a non-default location for the dumps to be sent to, you will probably need to zip those dmp files and upload them as well. (The Advanced Data Collection > Create Full Cabinet File only compresses the folders and files found in C:\Program Files\IIS Resources\DebugDiag\Logs\

Please upload the .cab file to the following secure workspace:

Upload the files to the secure workspace or ftp site provided to you by your IIS/ASP.net support engineer.

If this method does not trigger dump files when the crash occurs, please consider following the advanced steps found here.