System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The operation completed successfully

Question

I am getting this exception sometimes while running my Windows Forms app for a long time:

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The operation completed successfully
   at System.Drawing.BufferedGraphicsContext.CreateCompatibleDIB(IntPtr hdc, IntPtr hpal, Int32 ulWidth, Int32 ulHeight, IntPtr& ppvBits)
   at System.Drawing.BufferedGraphicsContext.CreateBuffer(IntPtr src, Int32 offsetX, Int32 offsetY, Int32 width, Int32 height)
   at System.Drawing.BufferedGraphicsContext.AllocBuffer(Graphics targetGraphics, IntPtr targetDC, Rectangle targetRectangle)
   at System.Drawing.BufferedGraphicsContext.AllocBufferInTempManager(Graphics targetGraphics, IntPtr targetDC, Rectangle targetRectangle)
   at System.Drawing.BufferedGraphicsContext.Allocate(IntPtr targetDC, Rectangle targetRectangle)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmPaint(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.DataGridView.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

What could be the cause for this?

Dropout

I find 1400 hits on google about this, but nothing that looks like a real explanation. – Denti

I saw this error message for a completely different exception (Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.Commands.GetADPrincipalGroupMembership). This can happen whenever the error happens in the Windows API (i.e. unmanaged code), and the error message is overwritten before it is retrieved to be added to the (managed) exception, as the latter is being built. Quoting from a deleted Wikipedia page, ... – Tyrothricin

"If a program's call to a Win32 function fails the program can call GetLastError to retrieve an error code which describes why the initial function call failed; however GetLastError only returns the error code relevant to the last system function call, so if the program made another function call which succeeded (immediately before GetLastError) then the returned error code would be zero, for 'The operation completed successfully', which would usually then displayed to the user via a message box." – Tyrothricin

Answer 1

Just to sum it up, the custom grid I wrote, that is based on the .Net's DataGridView, uses custom code to draw cells. Rows in my grid can span multiple visual pages. (That was a business requirement)

The problem was that .Net pre-allocates a buffer of memory for controls with DoubleBuffering enabled. For DataGridViews grids the buffer needs to be rather large to accommodate possible large rows in the grid. In extreme cases a row can span up to 32000 pixels (because of a .net limitation). Grid widths in the project are usually between 500 and 800 pixels. So the resulting buffer can be (32bpp * 800 * 32000 = ~100MB)

So in short, the system could not create compatible graphics objects, because occasionally, it could not reserve a buffer large enough to fit the required data.

To fix it I had to introduce a series of optimizations:

• limited max row height allowed in my custom grid to 1500 pixels
• updated buffer re-allocation code to only execute when the new buffer size is greater than the existing
• ensured that the buffers are not reallocated with every data binding, and preallocated to a sensible size.
• reviewed all code and made sure that unmanaged resources are properly disposed when not in use, as recommended here: http://nomagichere.blogspot.com/2008/03/systemcomponentmodelwin32exception-is.html

Dropout

Answer 2

Windows has a hard limit of 10000 handles per process. The rather unhelpful exception "The operation completed successfully" might indicate that this limit was reached.

If this happened because of a resource leak in your code, then you are in luck, as you at least have the opportunity to fix your code.

Unfortunately, there is scarcely little you can do about handles created internally by WinForms. For example, the prolific creation of font handles by TreeView control makes it hard to use in a scenario where very large tree needs to be represented in UI.

Some useful links:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/327699 http://nomagichere.blogspot.com/2008/03/systemcomponentmodelwin32exception-is.html

Albania

10000 Handles per process? This is new and crazy, is there anyway to increase this limit? – Mourn

@AkashKava This limitation is not new - I could be mistaken, but I think it was there since Windows NT. And it is built into the OS codebase and cannot be changed from the outside. – Albania

I concur, have a process that exceeded 10k handles and when I try to create a new WPF visual ( var visual = new DrawingVisual() ) I get the above mentioned error. – Propositus

Both of the links cannot be accessed as of now – Alesiaalessandra

Answer 3

Its caused in extreme cases by not disposing images. You should make use of IDisposable when loading bitmaps to overcome this;

using(Bitmap b = Bitmap.FromFile("myfile.jpg"))
{
   //Do whatever
}

Festschrift

Answer 4

I once had a similar exception, when creating a huge PictureBox. It seems that I could not allocate a Graphics big enough. Actually, what I was doing was drawing some sort of map for a simple game, and I had a zoom in functionality, that basically created a bigger buffer and then I redrawed all the graphics in a bigger scale. Playing with this zoom in function for a long time or to a deep enough level caused this exception. Perhaps you are creating lots of Graphics and not dispossing them, or just a Graphic big enough to not be allocatable.

Missymist

Answer 5

I had the same problem in VB.NET. The reason for this was weird:

In Austria, our Windows Systems usually have a , as comma and a . as thousands-seperator. If this is twisted (which is standard in US I think) Windows will throw this Error. Changing it as it should be in Austria solved the whole thing...

Good luck!

Intitule

Answer 6

Found this which may help - seems to be a Graphics or Control disposal issue

Incipit

Answer 7

Might also have something to do with memory fragmentation. We use an unmanaged component in out app as well, and there may be issues with not being able to allocate a large enough buffer for the double-buffered graphics, when the unmanaged component has eaten all the large contiguous blocks.

Trumaine

Answer 8

Also, memory leaks can cause the exception to be thrown. For example, an application with 2-3 web browsers could reach over 1 GB in a few minutes, due to one of the internet explorer bugs like this.

Melt