Conflicts with the Desktop Windows Manager

[Lindsay Crawford]

Hi Govert

We've been using Excel-DNA with IntelliSense for a couple of years now, which has worked great most of the time. However we're running into an occasional issue where Excel causes the Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe) to crash. When this does happen it most often happens when opening a spreadsheet, although it sometimes happens when a spreadsheet is being used.

This only seems to be a problem on 64 bit Excel 2013, and does not appear on the x86 version. Below is the error log we get. You'll see that the desktop window manager lists our .xll as a loaded module. The event type BEX64 seems to relate to the graphics and other people getting similar errors suggest updating the graphics drivers, however we've had this issue on two completely different computer running 64 bit Excel, so I don't think it's specific to the graphics card.

This user requires 64 bit Excel due to large spreadsheets and does have a few additional non-Excel-DNA Add-In's, but the only Add-In ever mentioned in the crash log is our Excel-DNA one. 

Have you seen an Excel-DNA xll loading up with dwm.exe before? Is this maybe an issue related to the Intellisense component (since it loads up additional graphic elements)?

Many thanks,

-Lindsay

Version=1

EventType=BEX64

EventTime=131562563885259664

ReportType=2

Consent=1

UploadTime=131562563916683378

ReportIdentifier=abb7eef1-d367-11e7-a549-0c8bfd9a2652

IntegratorReportIdentifier=abb7eef0-d367-11e7-a549-0c8bfd9a2652

Response.BucketId=2744251946

Response.BucketTable=5

Response.type=4

Sig[0].Name=Application Name

Sig[0].Value=Dwm.exe

Sig[1].Name=Application Version

Sig[1].Value=6.1.7600.16385

Sig[2].Name=Application Timestamp

Sig[2].Value=4a5bc541

Sig[3].Name=Fault Module Name

Sig[3].Value=StackHash_4108

Sig[4].Name=Fault Module Version

Sig[4].Value=0.0.0.0

Sig[5].Name=Fault Module Timestamp

Sig[5].Value=00000000

Sig[6].Name=Exception Offset

Sig[6].Value=00000000288d565c

Sig[7].Name=Exception Code

Sig[7].Value=c0000005

Sig[8].Name=Exception Data

Sig[8].Value=0000000000000008

DynamicSig[1].Name=OS Version

DynamicSig[1].Value=6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48

DynamicSig[2].Name=Locale ID

DynamicSig[2].Value=7177

DynamicSig[22].Name=Additional Information 1

DynamicSig[22].Value=4108

DynamicSig[23].Name=Additional Information 2

DynamicSig[23].Value=4108a6c132ba149031fada68910736c1

DynamicSig[24].Name=Additional Information 3

DynamicSig[24].Value=0dfc

DynamicSig[25].Name=Additional Information 4

DynamicSig[25].Value=0dfce67ae9c5e2c8d02b51ebc859065f

UI[2]=C:\Windows\system32\Dwm.exe

UI[3]=Desktop Window Manager has stopped working

UI[4]=Windows can check online for a solution to the problem.

UI[5]=Check online for a solution (recommended)

UI[6]=Check for a solution later (recommended)

UI[7]=Close

UI[8]=Desktop Window Manager stopped working and was closed

UI[9]=A problem caused the application to stop working correctly. Windows will notify you if a solution is available.

UI[10]=&Close

LoadedModule[0]=C:\Windows\system32\Dwm.exe

LoadedModule[1]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll

LoadedModule[2]=C:\Windows\system32\kernel32.dll

LoadedModule[3]=C:\Windows\system32\KERNELBASE.dll

LoadedModule[4]=C:\Windows\system32\GDI32.dll

LoadedModule[5]=C:\Windows\system32\USER32.dll

LoadedModule[6]=C:\Windows\system32\LPK.dll

LoadedModule[7]=C:\Windows\system32\USP10.dll

LoadedModule[8]=C:\Windows\system32\msvcrt.dll

LoadedModule[9]=C:\Windows\system32\UxTheme.dll

LoadedModule[10]=C:\Windows\system32\IMM32.dll

LoadedModule[11]=C:\Windows\system32\MSCTF.dll

LoadedModule[12]=C:\Windows\system32\dwmredir.dll

LoadedModule[13]=C:\Windows\system32\dwmcore.dll

LoadedModule[14]=C:\Windows\system32\ADVAPI32.dll

LoadedModule[15]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\sechost.dll

LoadedModule[16]=C:\Windows\system32\RPCRT4.dll

LoadedModule[17]=C:\Windows\system32\WindowsCodecs.dll

LoadedModule[18]=C:\Windows\system32\ole32.dll

LoadedModule[19]=C:\Windows\system32\d3d10_1.dll

LoadedModule[20]=C:\Windows\system32\d3d10_1core.dll

LoadedModule[21]=C:\Windows\system32\dxgi.dll

LoadedModule[22]=C:\Windows\system32\VERSION.dll

LoadedModule[23]=C:\Windows\system32\dwmapi.dll

LoadedModule[24]=C:\Windows\system32\d3d11.dll

LoadedModule[25]=C:\Windows\system32\WINTRUST.dll

LoadedModule[26]=C:\Windows\system32\CRYPT32.dll

LoadedModule[27]=C:\Windows\system32\MSASN1.dll

LoadedModule[28]=C:\Windows\system32\igd10iumd64.dll

LoadedModule[29]=C:\Windows\system32\SHLWAPI.dll

LoadedModule[30]=C:\Windows\system32\bcrypt.dll

LoadedModule[31]=C:\Windows\system32\ncrypt.dll

LoadedModule[32]=C:\Windows\system32\igdusc64.dll

LoadedModule[33]=C:\Windows\system32\uDWM.dll

LoadedModule[34]=C:\Windows\system32\slc.dll

LoadedModule[35]=C:\Program Files\Xyz\Xyz_AddIn_64.xll

LoadedModule[36]=C:\Windows\system32\OLEAUT32.dll

State[0].Key=Transport.DoneStage1

State[0].Value=1

State[1].Key=DataRequest

State[1].Value=Bucket=-1550715350/nBucketTable=5/nResponse=1/n

FriendlyEventName=Stopped working

ConsentKey=BEX64

AppName=Desktop Window Manager

AppPath=C:\Windows\system32\Dwm.exe

[Govert van Drimmelen]

Hi Lindsay,

Could you confirm the exact version of the IntelliSense that you are using?

There have been some improvements in stability in each of the point releases, with a big change in architecture between 1.0.1 and 1.0.2.

The current version (as of 29 November 2017) is version 1.0.6 which was release on 24 October.

The error you're showing here in the dwm is an access violation (c0000005).

I'm not sure why the .xll add-in is being loaded into that process at all. That seems unexpected to me. 

The Excel-DNA IntelliSense uses .NET Windows Forms to display the pop-up tooltips, and doesn't really do anything funny.

Some of the usual questions apply:

* Can you reproduce the problem reliably?

* How do you know whether Excel or Excel-DNA or the IntelliSense is the cause?

* Does it happen if you disable the IntelliSense? e.g. by setting the Environment variable EXCELDNA_INTELLISENSE_DISABLEDVERSIONS=*

-Govert

[Lindsay Crawford]

Hi Govert,

Thanks for the quick response. 

We are using Intellisense 1.0.6. 

Although it sometimes happens while using a spreadsheet, I can reliably recreate the issue if the computer has been rebooted and I open a spreadsheet. Then the dwm crash happens. After that it opens spreadsheets without the error and I can only recreate it after another reboot. 

Once I set that environmental variable then it opens fine after a reboot, with no error. 

I'm wondering if this is x64 Excel related? Maybe the amount of users using Intellisense on x64 is limited and therefore it hasn't been reported.

Let me know if you think of anything, otherwise tomorrow I'm going to attach to x64 Excel and step through the Intellisense source code to see if anything odd is happening.

Thanks again,

-Lindsay

[Lindsay Crawford]

Hi Govert,

After some debugging it looks like the xll loads into dwm.exe on the first load of a spreadsheet after a reboot, along with oleaut32.dll. I then get this error over and over again:

Exception thrown at 0x0000000187795EDC in dwm.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation executing location 0x0000000187795EDC.

Unhandled exception at 0x0000000187795EDC in dwm.exe: 0xC000041D: An unhandled exception was encountered during a user callback.

If I go into the services and stop the "Desktop Window Manager Session Manager" service, then I don't get the error and the Intellisense works fine in Excel (x64).

I don't think there's any risk in disabling the service, since I think it just handles UI effects. There might be something VB related that is causing the oleaut32.dll to load into dwm.exe and maybe this is somehow interacting with Intellisense and loading it too? I'm still investigating this, but let me know if you have any thoughts.

Thanks,

[Lindsay Crawford]

Hi Govert,

Have you had any thoughts on this? I've tried to debug into the dwm.exe service, but I don't get any additional info doing that.

Thanks,

Lindsay

[Govert van Drimmelen]

Hi Lindsay,

 

No – I haven’t look at this any more.

Once I tried to attach a debugger to the dwm process, and that was the fatal – and discouraged further investigations.

 

What is the exact Windows version?

Have you tried with 64-bit Excel 2016?

 

-Govert

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[Lindsay Crawford]

Hi Govert,

It's Windows 7 Professional with 64-bit Excel 2013. Now that we have a workaround we're going to leave it for now and not investigate further. 

We are moving that user onto Windows 10, so will see what happens then!

Thanks for all the help.

-Lindsay