Can a DLL crash in my program crash my program which is loading it ?

Question

1.67/5 (3 votes)

See more:

Hi All,

I have a dll , of which an API I am using in my app , I am expecting a crash in DLL when a large data is fed to the API , will this also crash my app ?

What I have tried:

I am trying to write a fuzzer to detect crashes in DLLs

Posted 21-Jun-23 1:51am

Learning Cow

Updated 21-Jun-23 1:55am

Add a Solution

2 solutions

Solution 2

A DLL becomes part of your process once loaded. If every action you take related to the DLL (including loading/unloading, if applicable) is wrapped in a try...catch() block, any exceptions that escape from the DLL will be trapped by your process and you can manage them as best you can. Some classes of error might not be amenable to this approach, though, like resource errors. If your computer is forced to reboot itself, well, there's not much you can do except try to find and fix the problem.

Posted 21-Jun-23 4:31am

YrthWyndAndFyre

Updated 21-Jun-23 4:47am

Comments

Bruno van Dooren 21-Jun-23 17:13pm

using try ... catch across dll boundaries is a bad idea though. There are no guarantees that this will work properly unless everything is built against the same runtime version with compatible compiler and linker settings.
Either the DLL should catch everything before the exception leaves the dll, and properly terminate, or the app should be allowed to crash. Undefined behavior is often worse than a crash.

YrthWyndAndFyre 21-Jun-23 17:19pm

Oh, fully aware, but given that the alternative is a blind crash, even the opportunity to gain a controlled shut-down and gather a little intelligence along the way has to be an improvement, wouldn't you say? Far from perfect, certainly - no argument. But on the other hand, under the circumstances, anything is an improvement over nothing. After all, if you can gain any kind of intelligence, you can always proceed to the blind crash with a simple "throw;".

Bruno van Dooren 22-Jun-23 1:48am

Fair point. Gather what info you can, log some state and then continue the crash.

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

CPallini · Accepted Answer · 2023-06-21T01:55:00

Solution 1

Yes. The DLL code is mapped in the process memory space, see, for instance: About Dynamic-Link Libraries - Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn[^].

Posted 21-Jun-23 1:55am

CPallini