Loaded Windows minidump file, now can't load binary?

Question

I loaded the minidump file into Visual Studio 2010, loaded all they symbols, both from my program folder and the Microsoft Symbol Server, then I chose "Debug Native Only" and the program ran up to where it crashed with the same error as displayed on the remote computer when the exe crashed.

Now an error "program.exe not found" and "program.exe was not found in the minidump. you need to load the binary in order to find the source for the current stack frame"

When I click on 'Browse and find program.exe', I select it but VS won't open it?

Answer 1

This dialog "Browse and find ..." tells us two important bits of information:

• where it is looking by default (the full path)
• the name of the file it attempts to load (exe or dll)

At the same time, it is silent about two more facts:

• it is looking for a exename.pdb / dllname.pdb in the same directory

• it checks for an exact (size and timestamp) match in the binary and does not bother to tell, the "Open" button just idles.

As soon as you pick the file it asks for, put it in the direcory it looks at, and add the corresponding pdb file, it will definitely work. Only be 100% sure the dll/exe/pdb combination you offer to the debugger is the very same one that was running at the time the minidump was created.