Command Line Deadlock Detection in a Child Process

Thread Validator can be controlled from the command line prompt.

This tutorial describes in detail how to detect deadlocks in a child process launched from a process.

Sometimes the process you want to detect deadlocks for is not the process you are launching, but a process launched by that process.

Related tutorials:

Detecting deadlocks in a child process.
Detecting deadlocks in a service.
Detecting deadlocks in a service child process.
Detecting deadlocks in an IIS ISAPI DLL.

Monitor the first child process

The command line is:

threadValidator.exe -program "c:\test results\testbed.exe"
                    -programToMonitorEXE "<<Any>>"
                    -programToMonitorLaunchCount 1
                    -saveSession "c:\test results\testFirstChildProcess.tvm" 
                    -hideUI

The above command line can be broken into its constituent items:

• Specify the program to run. -program “c:\test results\testbed.exe”
• Specify the program to monitor. -programToMonitorEXE “<<Any>>”
• Specify that it should be the first program launched. -programToMonitorLaunchCount 1
• The resulting session is saved in c:\test results\testFirstChildProcess.tvm. -saveSession “c:\test results\testFirstChildProcess.tvm”
• Run Thread Validator with the user interface hidden. -hideUI

This command line runs testbed.exe but monitors the first program that testbed.exe launches. When the monitored program closes, the threading results are finalised and then saved to the session c:\test results\testFirstChildProcess.tvm. Finally, Thread Validator is closed.

Monitor a specific child process

The command line is:

threadValidator.exe -program "c:\test results\testbed.exe"
                    -programToMonitorEXE "c:\test results\testbed_helper.exe"
                    -programToMonitorLaunchCount 2
                    -saveSession "c:\test results\testbedHelper2.tvm" 
                    -hideUI

The above command line can be broken into its constituent items:

• Specify the program to run. -program “c:\test results\testbed.exe”
• Specify the program to monitor. -program “c:\test results\testbed_helper.exe”
• Specify that we are interested in the second time testbed_helper.exe is launched. -programToMonitorLaunchCount 2
• The resulting session is saved in c:\test results\testbedHelper2.tvm. -saveSession “c:\test results\testbedHelper2.tvm”
• Run Thread Validator with the user interface hidden. -hideUI

This command line runs testbed.exe but monitors the second launch of testbed_helper.exe. When the testbed_helper.exe closes, the threading results are finalised and then saved to the session c:\test results\testbedHelper2.tvm. Finally, Thread Validator is closed.

Command Line Builder

If you find writing command lines tiresome and you’d like some help, we have created a command line builder tool to make the process of creating command lines a lot easier.