Application error: fault address 0x00012afb (Expert)

Question

I need some "light" to get a solution. Probably there are tons of things that cause this problem, but maybe somebody could help me.

Scenario: a Windows server running 24/7 a PostgreSQL database and others server applications (for processing tasks on database, etc...). There are differents servers scenarios (~30), with different hardware and windows versions (XP SP3/ WinServer, etc... all NT based). All aplications were written in Delphi7, and link to DLLs (in D7 also).

After some days (sometimes a week, sometimes a couple of months), Windows begins to act strange, like not opening start menu, some buttons are missing in dialogs. And soon some applications do not open, raising a event on eventviewer:

Faulting application x, version y, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 5.1.2600.5781, fault address 0x00012afb

In mean while, others applications open fine, like notepad, iexplore, etc... but SOME of my applications don't, with only event log described above. But if we do not restart system, in a few days even cmd.exe stops open, (and all other applications) with same error on eventlog.

I've tried to find 'what' can cause this, but with no sucess. So, and any advice will be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Molotov

Not that this will help in any way, but 0x00012afb seems to be at entry point 666 (function RaiseException) in kerner32.dll. – Mishmash

It can help, some programmers have the bad habbit of NOT catching exceptions by reference. If the thread is out of memory then the exception could cause the exitus of the whole process as the exception itself cannot go on and the c++ runtime is unable to recover. Maybe a hint toward bad exception handling. goingware.com/tips/parameters/exceptions.html – Mazurka

Adding to my previous comment, this error log is insufficient -- if the log contains the whole stack at the time of the fault, it's better. As it is, the event just says: "Application x, version y threw an error". – Mishmash

Answer 1

I think you are running out of resource handles (Window handles). You can verify this by having a look at the system properties in Sysinternals Process Explorer (a better task manager). I think even the default task manager can help out to display a handle count. Then you can identify which application is causing the trouble.

Once you know the application leaking and if it is yours, you can use Rational purify or Boundschecker to drill down to the problem. If you do not have money for these tools you will have to reduce the problem manually a bit by deactivating some features for example and see if the handle count still increases...

Not sure if it is the problem you are experiencing maybe it is completely unrelated. But easy to check. The track is that some app is stealing some global resources as you experience trouble with other applications. Applications like notepad do not use much resources so appear to work fine, heavy apps are more likely to show up the trouble.

Hope it helps.

Mazurka