MFC/MDI App fails with "An invalid argument was encountered." on click File menu item.

[Edward Mitchell]

A message is popping up "An invalid argument was encountered." when the user
clicks on the File menu item. I have an MDI app and it appears that the
message occurs before any document is selected. When a document file has
been opened, the message also pops up, again when the File menu is clicked.
The file menu itself never opens.

I found the place in VS .NET 2005 that is producing the message: - afxres.rc
with the line:

AFX_IDS_INVALID_ARG_EXCEPTION "An invalid argument was encountered."

The code that uses this seems to be in except.cpp as:

IMPLEMENT_DYNAMIC(CInvalidArgException, CException)
CInvalidArgException _simpleInvalidArgException(FALSE,
AFX_IDS_INVALID_ARG_EXCEPTION);

How we get here is not obvious!

This occurs in a release build, noticed by two users. The problem doesn't
occur on any machine that I have available. I presume the problem is
occurring with the OnUpdate... message handlers are running through all the
submenu items under File. However, most users have no problem. The failure
itself is also not consistent in that the user can actually open a document
so not all File selections result in the message box.

Is there somewhere in the message loop that I can put in trace messages to
try and pin down what is happening?

Ed
--
Edward E.L. Mitchell
Phone: (508)771-0806
500 Ocean St., Unit 134,
Hyannis, MA 02601

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi Edward,
I understand that two users encountered the error message "An invalid
argument was encountered." when they used your released application.
However this issue could not be reproduced under any of your machines.
If I have misunderstood, please let me know.

From the issue appearance, it is most likely related to missing correct
version libraries. I would like to know how you deployed your application.
What is the result if you make a setup program to deploy your application?

Also, you may recommend your users to use Process Explorer to monitor the
process to see if there are some helpful clues in the trace log. You may
compare their trace logs to yours.
The tool can be downloaded via:
Process Explorer for Windows v10.21
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx

Please feel free to let me know if you have any other questions or
concerns.

Best regards,
Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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[Edward Mitchell]

Charles.

You are correct about the message originating conditions.

The app was deployed by creating a Setup project in VS.NET 2005 so that
there is a Setup.exe and a .msi file. The .zip file is at
www.racesail.org/rs40.zip.

I downloaded the Process Explorer but I don't see a mechanism to see a trace
of the windows messages. I can see a list of .dlls (that are more than the
dlls that were included in the .msi setup file) but no knowledge of what is
happening when I select the File menu.

I can use Spy++ to get a long list of messages. This is a list of some of
the messages for the select of the File menu but the messages are filtered
to just show the Non-client message group:

...
<00050> 00120218 P WM_NCMOUSEMOVE nHittest:HTMENU xPos:601 yPos:697
<00051> 00120218 S WM_NCHITTEST xPos:601 yPos:697
<00052> 00120218 R WM_NCHITTEST nHittest:HTMENU
<00053> 00120218 S WM_NCACTIVATE fActive:True
<00054> 00120218 R WM_NCACTIVATE
<00055> 00120218 S WM_NCACTIVATE fActive:False
<00056> 00120218 R WM_NCACTIVATE fDeactivateOK:True
<00057> 00120218 P WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN nHittest:HTMENU xPos:601 yPos:697
<00058> 00120218 P WM_NCMOUSELEAVE
<00059> 00120218 S WM_NCPAINT hrgn:79041A67
<00060> 00120218 R WM_NCPAINT
<00061> 00120218 S WM_NCACTIVATE fActive:False
<00062> 00120218 R WM_NCACTIVATE fDeactivateOK:True
...

This shows the LBUTTONDOWN message. There are a lot more messages actually
being generated that are filtered away. But all these messages are going
through the MFC message map process and one must be causing the problem -
but not on my machine :(

Ed

"Charles Wang[MSFT]" <chan...@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:MjHMZ0rw...@TK2MSFTNGHUB02.phx.gbl...

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi Ed,
I installed your application on my two machines, one is Windows XP SP2, the
other is Windows Server 2003 x64 SP1; however the issue could not be
reproduced on either of the machine. Your application worked fine.

You may confirm with your customer to see if there were some special
softwares such as anti-virus software installed on their computer. What is
the result if the disable them?

Appreciate your understanding that since this issue ocurred only on two of
your customers' machines and it is hard for us to reproduce the issue, dump
analysis may be required to track the root cause. However this work can
only be done by CSS. If this issue is urgent to your business, effectively
and immediately I recommended that you contact Microsoft Customer Support
Services (CSS) to perform dump analysis. Please be advised that contacting
phone support will be a charged call.

To obtain the phone numbers for specific technology request please take a
look at the web site listed below.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;PHONENUMBERS

If you are outside the US please see http://support.microsoft.com for
regional support phone numbers.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to let me
know.

[michaelstewart]

I've seen a similar thing on some systems with an app that uses DirectX. It seems to be associated with dual displays (ATI card), perhaps where one of the displays has been disconnected before boot. What is the display configuration of your offending users and does your app use DirectX?

Michael

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

[Edward Mitchell]

The app doesn't use DirectX. It's just a simple MDI app with dialog boxes.
I finally received feedback from the user who was having problems. His
answer was as follows:

Hey Ed,

I got muckin around and got thinking what I might have done to cause this.
I installed a cracked version of command & conqur 3 to try it out on both my
computer and my friends. Regardless to say the game sucked so i tried a
sytem restore and race sail magically started working again. Im guessing
C&C 3 did something, no idea what but something must of happened.

Larry,

What exactly do you mean by a "System Restore". Did you reload the
operating system from the original CD?

Ed

windows xp has that cute little system restore thing that lets you return
your computer to a later date. It's under Start --> Programs -->
Accesories --> system tools. I think all it does is takes a snap shot of
the registry and when you do the restore it goes back to a older version and
it removes any programs that were installed but it leaves any "data" behind
Lawrence~

Since I don't have a user with a reproducible version of the problem, I'll
have to wait until someone else complains. If it would only fail on one of
my machines :(

Thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry it took so long to continue this thread.