Question

I think I may need to re-think my design. I’m having a hard time narrowing down a bug that is causing my computer to completely hang, sometimes throwing an HRESULT 0x8007000E from VS 2010.

I have a console application (that I will later convert to a service) that handles transferring files based on a database queue.

I am throttling the threads allowed to transfer. This is because some systems we are connecting to can only contain a certain number of connections from certain accounts.

For example, System A can only accept 3 simultaneous connections (which means 3 separate threads). Each one of these threads has their own unique connection object, so we shouldn’t run in to any synchronization problems since they aren’t sharing a connection.

We want to process the files from those systems in cycles. So, for example, we will allow 3 connections that can transfer up to 100 files per connection. This means, to move 1000 files from System A, we can only process 300 files per cycle, since 3 threads are allowed with 100 files each. Therefore, over the lifetime of this transfer, we will have 10 threads. We can only run 3 at a time. So, there will be 3 cycles, and the last cycle will only use 1 thread to transfer the last 100 files. (3 threads x 100 files = 300 files per cycle)

The current architecture by example is:

1. A System.Threading.Timer checks the queue every 5 seconds for something to do by calling GetScheduledTask()
2. If there’s nothing to, GetScheduledTask() simply does nothing
3. If there is work, create a ThreadPool thread to process the work [Work Thread A]
4. Work Thread A sees that there are 1000 files to transfer
5. Work Thread A sees that it can only have 3 threads running to the system it is getting files from
6. Work Thread A starts three new work threads [B,C,D] and transfers
7. Work Thread A waits for B,C,D [WaitHandle.WaitAll(transfersArray)]
8. Work Thread A sees that there are still more files in the queue (should be 700 now)
9. Work Thread A creates a new array to wait on [transfersArray = new TransferArray[3] which is the max for System A, but could vary on system
10. Work Thread A starts three new work threads [B,C,D] and waits for them [WaitHandle.WaitAll(transfersArray)]
11. The process repeats until there are no more files to move.
12. Work Thread A signals that it is done

I am using ManualResetEvent to handle the signaling.

My questions are:

1. Is there any glaring circumstance which would cause a resource leak or problem that I am experiencing?
2. Should I loop thru the array after every WaitHandle.WaitAll(array) and call array[index].Dispose()?
3. The Handle count under the Task Manager for this process slowly creeps up
4. I am calling the initial creation of Worker Thread A from a System.Threading.Timer. Is there going to be any problems with this? The code for that timer is:

(Some class code for scheduling)

private ManualResetEvent _ResetEvent;

private void Start()
{
    _IsAlive = true;
    ManualResetEvent transferResetEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false);
    //Set the scheduler timer to 5 second intervals
    _ScheduledTasks = new Timer(new TimerCallback(ScheduledTasks_Tick), transferResetEvent, 200, 5000);
}

private void ScheduledTasks_Tick(object state)
{
    ManualResetEvent resetEvent = null;
    try
    {
        resetEvent = (ManualResetEvent)state;
        //Block timer until GetScheduledTasks() finishes
        _ScheduledTasks.Change(Timeout.Infinite, Timeout.Infinite);
        GetScheduledTasks();
    }
    finally
    {
        _ScheduledTasks.Change(5000, 5000);
        Console.WriteLine("{0} [Main] GetScheduledTasks() finished", DateTime.Now.ToString("MMddyy HH:mm:ss:fff"));
        resetEvent.Set();
    }
}


private void GetScheduledTask()
{
    try 
    { 
        //Check to see if the database connection is still up
        if (!_IsAlive)
        {
            //Handle
            _ConnectionLostNotification = true;
            return;
        }

        //Get scheduled records from the database
        ISchedulerTask task = null;

        using (DataTable dt = FastSql.ExecuteDataTable(
                _ConnectionString, "hidden for security", System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure,
                new List<FastSqlParam>() { new FastSqlParam(ParameterDirection.Input, SqlDbType.VarChar, "@ProcessMachineName", Environment.MachineName) })) //call to static class
        {
            if (dt != null)
            {
                if (dt.Rows.Count == 1)
                {  //Only 1 row is allowed
                    DataRow dr = dt.Rows[0];

                    //Get task information
                    TransferParam.TaskType taskType = (TransferParam.TaskType)Enum.Parse(typeof(TransferParam.TaskType), dr["TaskTypeId"].ToString());
                    task = ScheduledTaskFactory.CreateScheduledTask(taskType);

                    task.Description = dr["Description"].ToString();
                    task.IsEnabled = (bool)dr["IsEnabled"];
                    task.IsProcessing = (bool)dr["IsProcessing"];
                    task.IsManualLaunch = (bool)dr["IsManualLaunch"];
                    task.ProcessMachineName = dr["ProcessMachineName"].ToString();
                    task.NextRun = (DateTime)dr["NextRun"];
                    task.PostProcessNotification = (bool)dr["NotifyPostProcess"];
                    task.PreProcessNotification = (bool)dr["NotifyPreProcess"];
                    task.Priority = (TransferParam.Priority)Enum.Parse(typeof(TransferParam.SystemType), dr["PriorityId"].ToString());
                    task.SleepMinutes = (int)dr["SleepMinutes"];
                    task.ScheduleId = (int)dr["ScheduleId"];
                    task.CurrentRuns = (int)dr["CurrentRuns"];
                    task.TotalRuns = (int)dr["TotalRuns"];

                    SchedulerTask scheduledTask = new SchedulerTask(new ManualResetEvent(false), task);
                    //Queue up task to worker thread and start
                    ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(new WaitCallback(this.ThreadProc), scheduledTask);     
                }
            }
        }

    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        //Handle
    }
}

private void ThreadProc(object taskObject)
{
    SchedulerTask task = (SchedulerTask)taskObject;
    ScheduledTaskEngine engine = null;
    try
    {
        engine = SchedulerTaskEngineFactory.CreateTaskEngine(task.Task, _ConnectionString);
        engine.StartTask(task.Task);    
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        //Handle
    }
    finally
    {
        task.TaskResetEvent.Set();
        task.TaskResetEvent.Dispose();
    }
}

Answer 1

It turns out the source of this strange problem was not related to architecture but rather because of converting the solution from 3.5 to 4.0. I re-created the solution, performing no code changes, and the problem never occurred again.