CLR crash after 5 minutes when Issues AddIn is installed

[MatthiasWyss]

Recently we recognised that having Autodesks Issues Addin and our own Addin installed, Revit 2020 and 2021 just crashes always after 5 minutes without any error report. The only hint can be found in the Windows Event Log where a CLR crash is reported.

This only happens when we portect our AddIn with the AxProtecter from WibuSystems.

In our Addin is no code execute after 5 minutes so I guess there must be an event in the Issues Addin after 5 minutes which leads to a conflict or something.

Does anybody face the same issue or knows whom to contact for more information about this Issues Addin?

Best

Matthias

[jeremy_tammik]

Happy New Year!

Sorry for the delay in answering this.
 
Wow, the problem with the Issues add-in sounds tricky.
 
Since all add-ins are created with .NET and live in the same AppDomain, and, as far as I know, .NET can be debugged very well, I can imagine that a .NET expert might be able to log all calls from all add-ins and thus be able to isolate the error quickly.
 
However, first of all, I would recommend leaving out the obfuscator.
 
If this solves the problem, then that might be the best, simplest and most effective solution.
 
Who knows what else the obfuscator is up to?
 
There are other effective ways to protect your IP.
 
For instance, the protected IP functionality can be compiled into a C or C++ DLL that is called by the .NET add-in component.
  
Still, I have also asked the development team what they recommend for you.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[jeremy_tammik]

The development team suggest a slightly lighter approach:

I think your response covers it pretty well Jeremy. The only thing I can think to add is that all obfuscators I have used allow excluding files or sets of files from obfuscation. Excluding groups of files at a time may help them narrow down the area causing the problem.

The only other suggestion I would make is to to ensure they are using the latest version of the add-in (V3 was released in November), since we have fixed a number of Issues Addin conflicts with Revit since the forum report was posted.

Please research some of the suggestions we've made and get back to us if you are not successful. In that case, I think we'll need a copy of your plugin to reproduce it and we can try to debug what's going on at our end.

[MatthiasWyss]

Dear Jeremy
Thanks a lot for your answer and your suggestions!

At the moment, the entire code is encrypted, as specifically requested by my client. If I only do not encrypt the entry dll but encrypt all others, Revit does not crash.
Therefore I tried to create a separate DLL containing the ExternalApplication, ExternalCommands and ExternalCommandAvailability which I then do not encrypt. Unfortunately Revit still crashes without comment after 5 minutes. Finding the affected files turns out to be extremely difficult, because apart from the above mentioned classes I have no idea what could cause the conflict.
Therefore it would help me a lot if you could check what exactly is happening on your side at this point.

At the moment I am working with Revit 2022 and the latest version of the Issues AddIn.
You can download ReluxCAD for Revit here: https://relux.com/de/external/?link=/download/ReluxCADforRevit/

A 30-day trial licence is already included. If you need more licences, we'd be happy to sende them to you.

Basically all you need to do is install the two add-ins, start Revit and then wait until Revit is closed.

Again thanks a lot for your help!

Best

Matthias

[jeremy_tammik]

Dear Matthias,

Thank you for your analysis and efforts and sorry to hear that did not help.

I have passed on your message to the development team and trust that they will be able to address the issue quickly and effectively.

Best regards,

Jeremy

[jeremy_tammik]

The development team followed your instructions and report:

I have come across two problems: first, if I run our plugin with the debugger attached, the Relux add-in detects the debugger, throws an exception saying "debugger attached" and refuses to load. If I try and run Revit with no debugger attached and then attach after I get this error:

I'm not sure how to continue at this point.