crossgen2 crashes open a pop-up window

[BruceForstall]

When crossgen2 crashes, I see a pop-up window:

Title: .NET Host
Text:
.NET Host has stopped working

A problem cause the program to stop working correctly.
Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is
available.
Buttons: Debug, Close program

This unfortunately requires user input and stops further progress in scripted runs.

I would expect the default failure behavior would be to NOT use a pop-up window, but instead output a message and return an error code.

Repro:

I'm trying to SuperPMI collect a crossgen2 compilation of all libraries in Core_Root (win x64 Checked):

py c:\gh\runtime2\src\coreclr\scripts\superpmi.py collect --crossgen2 -output_mch_path c:\win-x64-cg2.mch -assemblies c:\gh\runtime2\artifacts\tests\coreclr\windows.x64.Checked\Tests\Core_Root

A small repro:

c:\gh\runtime2\.dotnet\dotnet.exe c:\gh\runtime2\artifacts\tests\coreclr\windows.x64.Debug\Tests\Core_Root\crossgen2\crossgen2.dll  --codegenopt:EnableExtraSuperPmiQueries=1 @c:\bugs\spmicollect4\x.rsp

x.rsp:

c:\gh\runtime2\artifacts\tests\coreclr\windows.x64.Checked\Tests\Core_Root\R2RDump\ILCompiler.Reflection.ReadyToRun.dll
-o:c:\bugs\spmicollect4\cg2-temp\crossgen2_c__gh_runtime2_artifacts_tests_coreclr_windows_x64_Checked_Tests_Core_Root_R2RDump_ILCompiler_Reflection_ReadyToRun_dll.out.dll
-r:c:\gh\runtime2\artifacts\tests\coreclr\windows.x64.Checked\Tests\Core_Root\System.*.dll
-r:c:\gh\runtime2\artifacts\tests\coreclr\windows.x64.Checked\Tests\Core_Root\Microsoft.*.dll
-r:c:\gh\runtime2\artifacts\tests\coreclr\windows.x64.Checked\Tests\Core_Root\mscorlib.dll
-r:c:\gh\runtime2\artifacts\tests\coreclr\windows.x64.Checked\Tests\Core_Root\netstandard.dll

The crash seems to be due to the --codegenopt:EnableExtraSuperPmiQueries=1 option.

[BruceForstall]

@dotnet/crossgen-contrib

[BruceForstall]

I opened an issue for the cause of the crash: #47554

[MichalStrehovsky]

Isn't that the Windows Error Reporting dialog box? If I'm reading crossgen1 sources right, it was just swallowing all exceptions so it would never go unhandled into WER. I wonder how we got any Watson telemetry for crashes in the wild with that setup.

Machines that run automation typically have

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting]
"DontShowUI"="1"

In their registry to stop these popups.

[BruceForstall]

I don't want to (and in many cases probably can't) touch the registry on machines where this is running. Could we add a command-line switch that would swallow all exceptions and return error codes instead? (That would also work cross-platform)

[trylek]

Hmm, can you please help me understand what is the expected follow-up here other than generally getting rid of Crossgen2 crashes? We probably don't want to block out WER, from what I recall machines used for unattended test runs have always been using DontShowUI=1 as Michal mentions as test executions can also easily crash with WER fatal error dialogs for multiple reasons.

[BruceForstall]

My expectation is that under no circumstances should crossgen2 throw up a dialog box (that will block automated processing). This was true for crossgen1. This could potentially be under some kind of environment variable switch, but setting the registry is not acceptable.