COM add-in causes Outlook 2007 to periodically crash where it did not in Outlook 2003

[Anthony]

I wrote a custom add-in that has been developed and successfully

deployed to customer sites for over five years. It is written using the

COM add-in designer within the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 IDE. It has

evolved through each iteration of Microsoft Office, each security patch

(uses Redemption) and functionality change that these have brought

about.

The add-in will work for a number of hours. After a period of inactivity

the user will click on Outlook to view a message and Outlook will crash.

Checking the Application Event viewer results in the error described

below

Faulting application OUTLOOK.EXE, version 12.0.6504.5000, time stamp

0x49e7f47e, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 6.0.6001.18000, time

stamp 0x4791a783, exception code 0xc0000374, fault offset 0x000aada3,

process id 0x27d4, application start time 0x01ca1ee27730eea6.

I have seen the article "Add-in threading issue causes Outlook to crash

or hang" but have not been able to re-create the issue in order to

uncategorically remove my add-in as the culprit. I have even removed all

but the Genuine Office Advantage add-in and my add-in and outlook still

crashes.

The add-in has worked for a long time (pre-Outlook 2007) and hasn't

changed much.

Is this the .NET add-in multi-threading issue? If so, how can I tell my

customers their Microsoft add-ins are causing Outlook to crash, not my

add-in?

What else can I try? There seems to be very little about this out there,

can anyone help?

Regards,

Anthony

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[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

An addin written using VB6 isn't going to be using background threads unless

you specially create them using Win32 API calls. If you are seeing this

without any other addins running then I think you can safely assume it's

your addin that's causing the problem.

Yes, a managed code or other addin that uses a background thread to access

the Outlook object model will cause Outlook to crash or hang, and in many

cases a VB6 addin will get blamed even when innocent, due to how the stack

is being read and handled by Watson. There's nothing you can do about that

other than warn your users. But with no other addins running that's not

what's happening.

Does your addin handle NewMail() or other events on Inbox? That can possibly

cause a problem, usually a hang when typing in an email. But Outlook won't

just blow up when accessing a message.

I think your best bet is to open a support case for your addin and get an MS

escalation engineer to look at the crash dumps you collect. They will be

able to pinpoint the problem most likely.

"Anthony" <nospam@devdex.com> wrote in message

news:ewV%23sWHJKHA.1380@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> I wrote a custom add-in that has been developed and successfully
> deployed to customer sites for over five years. It is written using the
> COM add-in designer within the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 IDE. It has
> evolved through each iteration of Microsoft Office, each security patch
> (uses Redemption) and functionality change that these have brought
> about.

> The add-in will work for a number of hours. After a period of inactivity
> the user will click on Outlook to view a message and Outlook will crash.
> Checking the Application Event viewer results in the error described
> below
> Faulting application OUTLOOK.EXE, version 12.0.6504.5000, time stamp
> 0x49e7f47e, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 6.0.6001.18000, time
> stamp 0x4791a783, exception code 0xc0000374, fault offset 0x000aada3,
> process id 0x27d4, application start time 0x01ca1ee27730eea6.

> I have seen the article "Add-in threading issue causes Outlook to crash
> or hang" but have not been able to re-create the issue in order to
> uncategorically remove my add-in as the culprit. I have even removed all
> but the Genuine Office Advantage add-in and my add-in and outlook still
> crashes.

> The add-in has worked for a long time (pre-Outlook 2007) and hasn't
> changed much.

> Is this the .NET add-in multi-threading issue? If so, how can I tell my
> customers their Microsoft add-ins are causing Outlook to crash, not my
> add-in?

> What else can I try? There seems to be very little about this out there,
> can anyone help?

> Regards,
> Anthony

> *** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

 

[Anthony]

Thankyou for your reply.

No, I do not respond to the NewMail event. Here are the events I do

respond to:

olExplorers - NewExplorer

olExplorer - Activate, BeforeFolderSwitch, Close, Deactivate,

FolderSwitch and SelectionChange events.

olItems - ItemAdd.

olInspectors - NewInspector

olInspector - Activate, Close, Deactivate.

olApplication - Quit (not NewMail).

I have a timer class (MSharedTimer.bas by Karl E. Paterson) which

refreshes the UI (due to Outlook not keeping track of the current

inspector), is this likely to cause me issues?

I _think_ I have been able to raise an MS support case, it was not easy.

Regards,

Anthony

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

It's possible that Karl's timer class is running in a different thread, the

easiest way to see if it's causing a problem is to not use it and see if the

problem goes away.

"Anthony" <nospam@devdex.com> wrote in message

news:uz2CfdVJKHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Thankyou for your reply.

> No, I do not respond to the NewMail event. Here are the events I do
> respond to:

> olExplorers - NewExplorer

> olExplorer - Activate, BeforeFolderSwitch, Close, Deactivate,
> FolderSwitch and SelectionChange events.

> olItems - ItemAdd.

> olInspectors - NewInspector

> olInspector - Activate, Close, Deactivate.

> olApplication - Quit (not NewMail).

> I have a timer class (MSharedTimer.bas by Karl E. Paterson) which
> refreshes the UI (due to Outlook not keeping track of the current
> inspector), is this likely to cause me issues?

> I _think_ I have been able to raise an MS support case, it was not easy.

> Regards,
> Anthony

> *** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***