Chat Question: What extension to use in what situation

So we have a bunch of debugger extensions that we need to use depending on the situation. So here are the extensions that can depend on various situations and when to use which. The first thing to decide is to load the right DLL for the Framework version and Process version:

Extension	Process Version	Framework Version
clr10\sos.dll	any 32-bit process	.NET 1.0/.NET 1.1
Framework\v2.0.50727\sos.dll	any 32-bit process	.NET 2.0/.NET 3.0/.NET 3.5
Framework64\v2.0.50727\sos.dll	any 64-bit process	.NET 2.0/.NET 3.0/.NET 3.5
IISInfo.dll	any 32-bit process	N/A – IIS extension

Keep in mind that you can run a 32-bit process on a 64-bit operating system. You would still use the 32-bit files to debug it.

If you are dealing with a crash, a good starting point is always to run !analyze -v. This will check for known issues and help to narrow down where the problem is for a crash. It isn’t perfect for .NET, but will do a great job getting you something to go on.

Once you have the right extension loaded, then you can start troubleshooting things.

Note: In the future, I hope to have a new extension that will run on top of SOS.dll and allow you to do some more advanced functions. This will give similar results to the clr10\sos.dll extension. But it will be able to run against all versions of the framework. I am still flushing things out on that, feel free to give me your comments here.

Keep checking the RECAP- ASP.NET Blog Chat to see other topics that Tess or I write about.

Published 18 April 08 11:34 by Tom

Filed under: ASP.NET, Debugging, High Memory, Chat

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# DotNetKicks.com said on April 18, 2008 11:39 AM:

You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.com

# Website Magazine said on April 18, 2008 2:18 PM:

So we have a bunch of debugger extensions that we need to use depending on the situation.  So here

# Website Magazine said on May 19, 2008 11:35 PM:

So we have a bunch of debugger extensions that we need to use depending on the situation. So here are

# daveblack said on June 2, 2009 3:31 PM:

Additional info on IIS & 32-bit vs. 64-bit...

quoting from an article on Tess's blog:

<quote>

By default when you run IIS on a 64-bit machine you will still be running a 32-bit w3wp.exe, so apart from a few differences, like being able to use 4 GB virtual bytes instead of 2 GB virtual bytes the difference in debugging an issue on 32-bit vs. 64-bit is not that big. You will still be debugging with a 32-bit debugger and the memory will be aligned the same as in any 32-bit process on a 32-bit system.

As a matter of fact, something that is very important to point out, is that if you happen to use the 64-bit version of windbg.exe and the debugging tools for windows you will create dumps that are virtually unusable for debugging managed issues.

However if you have installed 64-bit IIS it's a bit different. If that is the case you need to take special care to use the 64-bit debuggers and the 64-bit version of sos.dll etc. or else you will not see anything at all.

</quote>

from http://blogs.msdn.com/tess/archive/2007/08/09/asp-net-memory-issue-high-memory-usage-in-a-64bit-w3wp-exe-process.aspx

# Tom said on June 3, 2009 10:27 AM:

That is very true, that is why in the table I talk about the process version, not really the OS version. Be sure to know which one you are running.

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