Find where rethrown exception was originally thrown using Visual Studio C# debugger?

Question

The usual advice when rethrowing an exception is to use a throw; statement so the original stack trace is preserved. (Example)

However, when I try this simple example, the Visual Studio debugger does not show the original stack trace.

namespace ExceptionTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void ThrowException()
        {
            throw new System.Exception();  // The line that I WANT the debugger to show.
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                ThrowException();
            }
            catch (System.Exception)
            {
                System.Console.WriteLine("An exception was thrown.");

                throw;  // The line that the debugger ACTUALLY shows.
            }
        }
    }
}

How can I use the debugger to find the original source of the exception?

Answer 1

Your best option is to ask Visual Studio to break on the original exception rather than navigate back to it from the stack trace. To do this:

1) Click on the 'Debug' menu item 2) Click 'Exceptions...' 3) Select 'Common Language Runtime Exceptions' - 'Thrown'

With this approach you may get more than you really wanted if there are many exceptions being thrown. You can filter which exceptions it breaks on by expanding the tree list.

See image: