I am completely puzzled. I was so sure that .NET shuts the whole application domain if there is uncaught exception in a thread that I never tested this.
However I just tried the following code and it doesn't fail... Could anyone please explain why?
(Tried in .NET 4 and 3.5)
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Main thread {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId);
Action a = new Action(() =>
{
Console.WriteLine("Background thread {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId);
throw new ApplicationException("test exception");
});
a.BeginInvoke(null, null);
Console.ReadLine();
}
This is happening because the BeginInvoke
uses ThreadPool
internally and when ThreadPool
any unhadled exceptions will be silence fail. However if you use a.EndInvoke
then the unhadled exception will be throw at the EndInvoke
method.
Note: as João Angelo
stated that using ThreadPool
methods directly "like ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItems
and UnsafeQueueUserWorkItem
" will throw exceptions at 2.0 and above.
From Exceptions in Managed Threads on MSDN:
In the .NET Framework version 2.0, the
common language runtime allows most
unhandled exceptions in threads to
proceed naturally. In most cases this
means that the unhandled exception
causes the application to terminate.
This is a significant change from the
.NET Framework versions 1.0 and 1.1,
which provide a backstop for many
unhandled exceptions — for example,
unhandled exceptions in thread pool
threads. See Change from Previous
Versions later in this topic.
As a temporary compatibility measure,
administrators can place a
compatibility flag in the
section of the application
configuration file. This causes the
common language runtime to revert to
the behavior of versions 1.0 and 1.1.
<legacyUnhandledExceptionPolicy enabled="1"/>
Normally with asynchronous delegates if the delegated method throws an exception the thread is terminated and the exception will be thrown again in the calling code only when you call EndInvoke
.
This is why when using an asynchronous delegate (BeginInvoke
) you should always call EndInvoke
. Also, this should not be confused with Control.BeginInvoke
which can be called in a fire and forget manner.
Earlier I said normally, because there is a possibility for you to state that the exception should be ignored if the delegate method returns void. To do this you need to mark the method with the OneWay
attribute.
If you run the following example, you will only get an exception when calling willNotIgnoreThrow.EndInvoke
.
static void Throws()
{
Console.WriteLine("Thread: {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId);
throw new ApplicationException("Test 1");
}
[OneWay]
static void ThrowsButIsIgnored()
{
Console.WriteLine("Thread: {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId);
throw new ApplicationException("Test 2");
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Main: {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId);
var willIgnoreThrow = new Action(ThrowsButIsIgnored);
var result1 = willIgnoreThrow.BeginInvoke(null, null);
Console.ReadLine();
willIgnoreThrow.EndInvoke(result1);
Console.WriteLine("============================");
var willNotIgnoreThrow = new Action(Throws);
var result2 = willNotIgnoreThrow.BeginInvoke(null, null);
Console.ReadLine();
willNotIgnoreThrow.EndInvoke(result2);
}
because exception throw on the given threads stays there unless it is channeled back to the main thread.
That's what backgroundWorker does it for you, if you have exception in the BackgroundWorker's thread, it gets rethrown on the main thread.
a.BeginInvoke(null, null);
this makes async call, which creates another thread to execute this