How to Capture a Memory Dump for a Specific Process using ProcDump and Debug with Visual Studio - Tested and works with .NET Core Apps

ProcDump - How to Capture a Memory Dump for a Specific Process.md

How to Capture a Memory Dump for a Specific Process using ProcDump and Debug with Visual Studio

• Download ProcDump

  • https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procdump

• Run this command file in an Administrator Console to capture a one-time memory dump for a specific processes:

  • procdump.exe YourProcessName -accepteula -ma C:\MemoryDumps\Dumps
    • Note, just use the name of the process that is displayed in the Task Manager

• To view a captured dump:

  • Copy the dump file to your machine
    • Zip or 7-Zip the file before transferring to your machine as the files are very large
      • Also, consider uploading the file via OneDrive / Google Drive as a faster way to copy the file to your machine
  • In Visual Studio, be sure you have reverted your code back to the same version of the app that is being debugged/analyzed and re-build the solution in release mode
    • Be sure to place the re-built binaries in the exact same directory on your machine so that Visual Studio can find the .pdb files
  • In Visual Studio, open the .dmp file and click "Debug with Managed Only"
    • If a "Just My Code Warning" dialog opens, select "Disable Just My Code and Continue"
    • If a Stack Overflow error occurred, it will immediately breakpoint on the exact line that caused the Stack Overflow
    • By debugging the memory dump, you can see all active threads, double click on any thread to see the code and all variables loaded

Related Gist: How to Capture a Memory Dump When an App Crashes