How to capture a dump of a crash using the “ntsd” tool

How to capture a dump of a crash using the "ntsd" tool

If a LoadRunner component (Vugen, Controller, Analysis, Mdrv, etc) crashes during use, further information is required to allow LoadRunner R&D to investigate the issue.

One of the most useful means to analyze the root cause of the crash is the call stack from the crash, which when combined with the source code allow the identification of the problem and provision of a workaround.


Follow these steps to generate a crash dump file:

Verify that "ntsd.exe" is present in the "windows\system32" folder. In some versions of Microsoft Windows this executable is missing and can be downloaded from the Microsoft website,

Start the business process,

Open Windows’ Task Manager (WTM) and get the ID of the process that is crashing (in WTM, use View->Select Columns… and tick the "PID (Process Identifier)" item),

Open command line (start -> run -> cmd),

Type "ntsd -p <ID retrieved in step (3)>. This operation will attach the debugger to the process and while it happens the process will be paused,

Type "g" after the step (5) finishes to continue with the process’s run,

Once the crash occurs, type ".dump <full file path>". For example ".dump c:\temp\mydump.dmp".

It is recommended that details of the scenario in which the crash occurs are also provided with the dump file.

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