My TC sometimes crashes: how can I log this for debuging

[Hurdet]

Sporadically TC Crash after I click but is not reproducible directly.
How can I log it to report it?

[Dalai]

How exactly does TC crash on your system? Does it just disappear or does it show a crash report? You can enable Options > Log file > Create log file and enable everything to be logged. Maybe you're lucky and the trigger gets logged (though I doubt that).

You say TC crashes after you click; where exactly do you click?

Do you use any plugins? Try to disable them one by one until TC doesn't crash anymore. Or disable them all and enable them again one by one until TC crashes. If you have many plugins you can do that in groups of a couple to speed up the process of finding the culprit.

[white]

Sporadically TC Crash after I click but is not reproducible directly.
How can I log it to report it?

What does the Windows Reliability History say?

[Hurdet]

Nothing in Windows Reliability History.
Nothing in totalcmd.log.
Since yesterday it happened only once when I double click on path bar.

[ghisler(Author)]

You could use the tool Procdump to create a crash dump:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd996900.aspx

1. Create new directory c:\dumps
2. Create a lnk file of procdump.exe or procdump64.exe (for 64-bit Windows)
in Total Commander with Ctrl+Shift+F5, e.g. procdump.lnk
3. Open the properties of the lnk file with Alt+Enter
4. Change the command from c:\path\procdump.exe to
"c:\path\procdump.exe" -ma -i c:\dumps
5. Important: Click on "Advanced" and check option "As administrator"
6. Run procdump with this link file
7. Wait until the crash occurs.
8. To stop creating dumps, execute in Command Prompt: procdump.exe -u
9. Send me the dump file from c:\dumps.

[Dalai]

Double-clicking on the path bar opens the directory menu. Does it also crash when you click the star button or press Ctrl+D (both are supposed to have the same result)?

[Hurdet]

Since yesterday it happened only once when I click on Start in Menu.
But the dump is not created.
ProcDump64 work with other files.

[Hurdet]

Again it happened when I click on path bar. But the dump is not created.

[Dalai]

Please answer the questions I asked, so we can at least narrow down the conditions under which this happens.

[Hurdet]

Double-clicking on the path bar opens the directory menu. Does it also crash when you click the star button or press Ctrl+D (both are supposed to have the same result)?

As I have already written, it is not reproducible directly, I can't use all day Ctrl+D instead of double click to test, as long as the problem happens.

[Dalai]

Well, how do you intend to find the culprit then? If there's a bug in TC it needs to be reproducible. But even if it's not a bug (and I doubt it is), crashes are annoying and should be avoided or prevented.

Perhaps it's not a crash at all. It's possible that some message gets sent to TC to close normally. This would explain why there's no crash dump and nothing in Reliability History. How this would be possible? No idea really, maybe some background process/script running.

[Hurdet]

Since when TC suddenly closes it does not generate a crash, I have create a dump when it close with ProcDump64.exe -t TOTALCMD64.exe.
Can it be useful to investigate the problem?
Does it contain sensitive data?
How can I deliver it privately to the developer?
The problem usually takes place about ten minutes after the pc boot and rarely repeats until the next boot.

[Dalai]

2Hurdet
It's likely a crash dump contains sensitive data. You can send it to support at ghisler.com. IMO it's a good idea to put a link to this thread in the mail.

[ghisler(Author)]

Please do not send me crash dumps to ghisler.com, the mail server will delete very large e-mails. Either send it to cghisler at gmail dot com.

Or you can also analyze the report yourself with the tool windbg.
Windbg is made by Microsoft:
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/download-windbg

Usage:
1. Create new directory c:\Symbols
2. Run Windbg
3. Menu File - Symbol search path, add the following:
srv*C:\SYMBOLS*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
4. File - Open crash dump - choose the dmp file
5. Enter the following in the command line:
!analyze -v
(including the exclamation mark!) and press ENTER.
6. Wait
7. When the result is there, select all, press Ctrl+C and paste
the result to the email body.