Open Minidump : No native symbols in symbol file

Question

In a C# project, I create minidump at UnhandledException. In my Dev machine, project source and bin are under path K:\projects\*MYPROJECT*, if I manage to let it crash in my Dev machine, everything work perfectly, I can open the minidump file and correctly see source code, callstack, threads etc.

End-user program path will obviously be different; as an example, in our Test machine project is installed under C:\*MYPROJECT*. It's deployed with pdb symbol files. Anyway, when I try to open the minidump, generated on that machine, on my Dev computer (where I have the source files), Visual Studio try to find the executable and pdb file under "Test Path" (C:\*MYPROJECT*) without of course find it.

I tried setting Symbol path to include K:\projects*MYPROJECT* without any result, so I recreated the same Test directory structure, creating C:\*MYPROJECT* and copying .exe and .pdb files under that directory. Now, Visual Studio is be able to find them, but it's saying "No native symbols in symbol file", and it doesn't let me see any source code.

How can I accomplish to load the correct Symbols?

Answer 1

Finally came across a solution.

After weeks trying to figure out what I were missing, I've found that on my development machine I have a different Framework version (in details, I have v4.0.30319.18444 vs v4.0.30319.17929 on test machine). I still don't understand why I shouldn't be able to debug my application without having the exact Framework version, but the solution was to copy mscordacwks.dll and mscordbi.dll (both of them found in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework) from the Test machine to the folder where the minidump is.

Reference: Managed Minidump Debugging in SP1

Answer 2

To change the directory, Microsoft describes to open the immediate window and type .exepath [path] to change it.

You can also use .srcpath [path] and .sympath [path].