Question

I need to know which thread of an .NET application is going berserk. It consumes almost the complete CPU time.

The problem:

• The application is running on a remote PC
• My only access to the machine is via RDP
• There is no Visual Studio available at the customer’s site
• So I’m not able to connect via Remote Debugging
• However, I would be able to copy some files to the machine and start tools there

My question:

• Is there a possibility to “see” (with standard tools or tools that I can just copy to the machine)
  • Which thread is consuming all the CPU time
  • What methods are called by this thread?

On “other operation systems” I can create a live call stack or initiate a dump in order to see if some thread is in an endless loop.
Is there such a possibility with Windows 7 & .NET?

Environment:

• Windows 7 (x86)
• .NET 4.0

Best regards and thanks

Seven

Answer 1

Yes, that is possible.
If the process is a x86 process running on a x86 OS or a x64 on a x64 OS, you only need the Process explorer.

1. Open the properties of the rogue application
2. Switch to the “Threads” tab
3. Sort by “CPU”
4. Select the thread with the high CPU usage and click “Stack”. You should now see the managed stack of that thread. See this blog post for more info.

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If the process is x86 on a x64 OS, it will be a bit more involved. Please comment, if you need this info.