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After looking at one dump today where all thread environment blocks were zeroed, import table corrupt and recalling some similar cases I encountered previously I came up with the next pattern: Lateral Damage.

When this problem happens you don’t have much choice and your first temptation is to apply Alien Component anti-pattern unless your module list is corrupt and you have manifestation of another common problem I will talk about next time: Corrupt Dump.

Anti-pattern is not always bad solution if complemented by subsequent verification and backed by experience. If you get damaged process and thread structures you can point to a suspicious component (supported by some evidence like raw stack analysis and educated guess) and request additional dumps in hope to get less damaged process space or see that component again. At the very end if removing it stabilizes the customer environment it proves you were right.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

           

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 3rd, 2006 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Crash Dump Analysis, Crash Dump Patterns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.