Question

When submitting a form, a Yellow Screen of Death appeared even while in Debug mode in Visual Studio. The problem I had is solved, it was a missing resource value, but I’m interested in why I’m not able to break on the exception.

I tried the following, but nothing changed the situation:

• Stepping through the code.
• Changing the Debug -> Exceptions settings.
• Checking Enable .NET Framework source stepping and Enable source server support.

How can such an exception be caught, or why is it not possible to catch it?

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of
the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more
information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: value

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the
current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of
the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: value]
   System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.ValidationContext.set_DisplayName(String value) +52015
   System.Web.Mvc.<Validate>d__1.MoveNext() +135
   System.Web.Mvc.<Validate>d__5.MoveNext() +318
   System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.OnModelUpdated(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) +139
   System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindComplexElementalModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, Object model) +66
   System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindComplexModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) +1367
   System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) +449
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValue(ControllerContext controllerContext, ParameterDescriptor parameterDescriptor) +317
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValues(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor) +117
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName) +343
   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore() +116
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +97
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.System.Web.Mvc.IController.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +10
   System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClassb.<BeginProcessRequest>b__5() +37
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass1.<MakeVoidDelegate>b__0() +21
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass8`1.<BeginSynchronous>b__7(IAsyncResult _) +12
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncResult`1.End() +62
   System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClasse.<EndProcessRequest>b__d() +50
   System.Web.Mvc.SecurityUtil.<GetCallInAppTrustThunk>b__0(Action f) +7
   System.Web.Mvc.SecurityUtil.ProcessInApplicationTrust(Action action) +22
   System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +60
   System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.System.Web.IHttpAsyncHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result) +9
   System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +8970061
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +184

Answer 1

It is not possible to break on this exception, because Microsoft’s public Symbol Server does not provide source code for everything.

Adding a breakpoint via the dialog to System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.ValidationContext.set_DisplayName will break, but Visual Studio will say that there is no source code available.