Lets investigate production issues with Azure Monitor and Snapshot Debugger

In this episode, Isaac Levin shares us how the developer exception resolution experience can be better with Azure Monitor and Snapshot Debugger. The discussion talks about what Azure Monitor is and an introduction to Snapshot Debugger, and quickly goes into demos showcasing what developers can do with Snapshot Debugger.

[0:50] – Overview of Azure Monitor
[2:11] – Introduction to Snapshot Debugging
[3:52] – How to Get to Snapshot Debugger Content in Azure
[5:30] – Debugging Snapshots in Visual Studio
[8:30] – Attaching to Azure App Service with Snapshot Debugger
[14:00] – Using LogPoints to extend logging of debugged Snapshots

Related Links:

• Azure Monitor
• Application Insights
• Debug snapshots on exceptions in .NET apps
• Application Insights with Isaac Levin on the RunAsRadio podcast
• View or analyze data collected
• Create and share dashboards
• Autoscale based on schedule or application performance
• Archive monitoring data

Hope this helps.

Developer: Outlook COM Add-in and Large Address Aware

Starting from build 16.0.8528.2147 (Version 1709) of the 32-bit version of Outlook 2016 for Windows has been updated to be Large Address Aware (LAA). This increases the maximum address space available to Outlook from 2 GB to 4 GB when it is running on a 64-bit version of Windows. This is key to improved graphics rendering in Outlook when using newer displays that support higher screen resolutions.

• LAA Outlook has been extensively tested. But there is the possibility that some third-party or in-house developed Outlook COM Add-ins may experience issues with the change.
• Only 32-bit, 1709 versions of Outlook 2016 or later and running on a 64-bit version of Windows may be impacted.
• The symptoms may range from COM Add-ins that crash or that exhibit unexpected behaviour or errors.
• Outlook’s current design automatically disables any COM add-ins that crash.
• Office store/Office.js add-ins are not be impacted by the LAA
  change.

So what’s for the app developer?

• So if you are a developer, you should review your COM Add-in code.
• Test and determine if the add-in is updated for LAA.
• Ensure it is LAA compatible and not checking for or expecting the high bit to be unset.
• If the COM Add-in is not updated to work with LAA, the use of the COM Add-in must be reassessed since indefinitely disabling automatic updates to Office is not recommended.

For more info, please refer the detailed info at,

• What steps you need to do if you see issues with COM addins?
• Memory limits for Windows and Windows Server releases

Hope this helps.

Download: Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Here we go… you can download the latest released Update Rollup 3 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1). Issues that are resolved in the update is published @ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2529939.

Hotfix: Failure Sending mail error with System.Net.Mail (.Net Framework 4.0) while sending large attachment

Recently one of my customer ran into an issue with his application used to send email messages using System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient (SNM) API. He used Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0. It’s a pretty simple code,

//Sample C# code snippet using System.Net.Mail API
SmtpClient MyClient = new SmtpClient("mail_server");
MyClient.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("User", "Password", "Domain");
MailMessage MyMsg = new MailMessage("fromuser", "touser", "Testing Attachment", "Testing");
Attachment MyAttachment = new Attachment(@"attachmentfile");
MyMsg .Attachments.Add(MyAttachment );
MyClient.Send(MyMsg );

Using the above code, whenever he adds the attachment size is larger than 3 MB and tries to send the message. It fails with the following a exception System.Net.Mail.SmtpException and error message “Failure sending mail”. Also during troubleshooting i noticed that i generates a inner exception System.IndexOutOfRangeException with the error message “Index was outside the bounds of array”. In the application he also failed to specify the TransferEncoding property of the attachment.

In this customer scenario, recommended him to try with TransferEncoding property with QuotedPrintable worked for him. We tried it like,
MyAttachment.TransferEncoding = System.Net.Mime.TransferEncoding.QuotedPrintable;

You can find the following support knowledgebase article which talks about the issue and provides resolution to overcome the issue. 

Also there is a hotfix available to overcome this issue. Please make sure that you must have .NET Framework 4.0 installed to apply this hotfix. To download this hotfix, you can visit following Microsoft website: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=30226.