Micro Focus Enterprise Server for .NET 3.0 > Role-based Contents - Introduction > Administrator Role > General Administration > Diagnostics > Minidumps

Minidumps

CICS and JES regions can be configured to create a Microsoft minidump file whenever an exception (including a COBOL run-time system error) occurs within a user application. A minidump file can be loaded into a debugger such as Visual Studio or windbg to identify where in the application code the exception has occurred.

Note: Although minidumps will be generated for both 32-bit and 64-bit processes, it is not always possible for exception details to be created for 32-bit minidumps. This is a known deficiency in the .NET framework's support for minidump creation. We therefore strongly recommend that you run ES for .NET on a 64-bit OS if you need to generate minidumps to diagnose run-time errors.

To enable a region for minidump creation, open the startup file of the CICS or JES region you are configuring, with the Region Startup File editor and locate the Minidump category in the properties window. Change the value of the Application exception property to true, and, optionally, specify the folder location where you want the minidump files to be created as the value of the Dump file location property. If the dump file location is left blank, the minidump files will be written to the folder associated with the TEMP environment variable.

When a minidump is created at run time, a message is written to both the system console and the Windows Event log indicating its name and location:

Note: If you want to be able to identify the line of source at which the exception occurred, a .pdb file for the corresponding program must be available when the minidump file is loaded into the debugger. Programs compiled for debug with the ANIM directive, or compiled for release with the ILPDB directive will have pdb files associated with them. If possible, when supplying a minidump to technical support, please include associated PDB files for your application .

Micro Focus compile all the Enterprise Server for .NET assemblies in Release mode with the ILPDB directive set, and the pdb files are shipped with the product in a zip file called EnterpriseServerDotNetPdb.zip in the binAnyCpu\SEE directory in the product install location. Please include this zip in any diagnostic collection set that includes a minidump.