How can I debug an unhandled exception in code called from a BackgroundWorker?

I am running some import code asynchronously from a simple WinForms app using a BackgroundWorker object and its DoAsync() method. I had a probl开发者_JS百科em where I didn't know that exceptions were being thrown and the thread was prematurely dying. I eventually discovered this, and now know when an exception is thrown after reading Unhandled exceptions in BackgroundWorker.

However, I still have a problem while debugging. How do I debug this code? I guess I could run it in a test app that doesn't use a BackgrounWorker, but is there a way to debug this as is? If I step through the code that actually throws the exception, I just get kicked out the step-through when the exception occurs. Re-throwing the exception from the RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler naturally doesn't help much either.

Any ideas!? Thanks in advance!

Why not use "Break On Exceptions" option of VS (Ctrl + Alt + E or Debug->Exceptions and put checkbox in Thrown column)? This will stop your program execution when any exception is thrown.

Visual Studio will only let you step into the code if you have the source. If you don't have the source then I suggest learning how to use winDBG. MS has an excellent tutorial here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/tess/pages/net-debugging-demos-information-and-setup-instructions.aspx

It has a learning curve and takes some time but I have found it to be worth it. I've used this tool to debug A LOT of applications that suddenly crash, hang the CPU, or just perform poorly.