WPF and unmanaged library loading

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Recentrly I came across a very strange problem.
I wrote a WPF program which interacts with a DLL from Infineon.
Everything worked as expected, but at some point, I got a stack overflow exception from nowhere.

I started nailing down the issue (you see the exception comes out of WindowsBase.dll), and saw the issue only happens if I load a specific DLL file (via kernel32 LoadLibrary function).

The following piece of code, for example, will cause the exception to happen (although the LoadLibrary function returns with no error, and I can then use the handle):

C#

///
/// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
///
public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    public static extern IntPtr LoadLibrary(string dllToLoad);

    public MainWindow()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        IntPtr handle = LoadLibrary("dwdiow.dll");
    }
}

In this example, the button1_Click() is exited and after some time the excption comes.

If I do the very same thing with a windows form or console projects (instead of WPF), the error does not show up.

Please help!

Posted 1-Sep-11 1:18am

tiran_kaskas

Updated 1-Sep-11 1:20am

Prerak Patel

v2

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#realJSOP · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-01T01:24:00

Solution 1

Try using LoadLibraryEx instead:

C#

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet=CharSet::Auto, EntryPoint="LoadLibraryEx")]
private static extern IntPtr LoadLibraryEx(string lpFileName, IntPtr hFile, uint dwFlags);

System.IntPtr moduleHandle = LoadLibraryEx(libPath, IntPtr.Zero, 0);

You need to give us more info on the exception, specifically what opject/method it's happening on. In fact, you might also want to ask this question on the MSDN WPF forum.

Posted 1-Sep-11 1:24am

#realJSOP

Updated 1-Sep-11 1:27am

v2

Comments

Abhinav S 1-Sep-11 7:27am

5. Proposed as answer if it works for the OP.

tiran_kaskas 1-Sep-11 8:41am

Thanks John.
I tried this, no change, still same thing.

There is nothing in the exception except saying:
"An unhandled exception of type 'System.StackOverflowException' occurred in WindowsBase.dll"

Something happens behind the scene, I mean the fucntion has returned, and context went back to the form, but the process starts growing in terms of memory (task manager) until it gives the exception.

kevinchan9527 14-May-12 23:15pm

i met this problem too. any guy know how to solve.

hannes.ambichler 27-Nov-12 23:40pm

I am having the ecaxt same issue with a little used product from Identix/L1/Sagem, BioEngine6. After calling some of the unmanaged functions in a DLL of that product, the call returns successfully, and a little later a StackOverflowException occurs.