IE8 Developer Tool won't start

[MtK]

Hi,

suddenly without a warning, IE Dev Tool doesn't want to load...

I press F12 from within IE8, a window is open but nothing is loaded!

I've tried re-installing the Dev Tool, but nothing changed.

[MtK]

any1?

[MtK]

I've tried removing IE8 from the Windows Features, and did several restarts, but the file are not deleted from: c:\program files\internet explorer 8\!

I've tried to delete them manually, but got an error:

I have administrator privileges (actually I'm the only user on this PC)..

(also tried safe mode)

[cluberti]

The IE8 files aren't removed when you remove the feature - removing the feature only removes the shellexecute functionality. Since IE is responsible for hosting things like HTML help (in the OS, and anywhere else it's used), making the COM webbrowser control available to non-IE apps to host mshtml, etc, it's not really advisable to remove the files.

If the F12 tools aren't working, it would be wiser to take a hang dump of the iexplore.exe process(es) when hung to see why they hung up in the first place.

[MtK]

here is the hang dump: http://www.smartmtk.com/Hang_Mode__Date_08..._16-45-4646.zip

[cluberti]

Took a quick look earlier:

// Appears IE's tabproc that you pressed F12 in is waiting for messaging from another process, perhaps the IE frameproc:
0:003> k
ChildEBP RetAddr  
00e2e870 77cf7bbc ntdll!KiFastSystemCallRet
00e2e874 75e86878 ntdll!ZwWaitForMultipleObjects+0xc
00e2e910 7615f08a KERNELBASE!WaitForMultipleObjectsEx+0x100
00e2e958 7615f20a kernel32!WaitForMultipleObjectsExImplementation+0xe0
00e2e974 7680ffc6 kernel32!WaitForMultipleObjects+0x18
00e2f9a0 7681480e iertutil!CForeignProcessToCurrentProcessMessaging::_vThreadProc+0xa1
00e2f9a8 761610dc iertutil!CForeignProcessToCurrentProcessMessaging::_sThreadProc+0xd
00e2f9b4 77d11e9e kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0xe
00e2f9f4 77d11e71 ntdll!__RtlUserThreadStart+0x70
00e2fa0c 00000000 ntdll!_RtlUserThreadStart+0x1b

// The handle to the event we're waiting on, and the info about it:
0:003> !handle 18c 7
Handle 0000018c
  Type		 	Event
  Attributes   	0
  GrantedAccess	0x100000:
		 Synch
		 None
  HandleCount	  3
  PointerCount 	6
  Name		 	\Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\Isolation Signal Registry Event (4198AE21-8B34-11DE-97ED-00E09122C80B, 0)

0:003> !heap -x 0xa5b48
Entry	 User	  Heap	  Segment	   Size  PrevSize  Unused	Flags
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
000a5b40  000a5b48  00070000  00087a58		10	  -			8  LFH;busy

0:003> dc 000a5b40  
000a5b40  1a6eada1 88000000 00000174 0000018c  ..n.....t.......
000a5b50  1a6eada3 8c000000 747b1c28 00000000  ..n.....(.{t....
000a5b60  1a6eada5 8c000000 0000018c 00637072  ..n.........rpc.
000a5b70  1a6eada7 8c000000 76819918 0000544c  ..n........vLT..
000a5b80  1a6eadb9 88000000 747bd998 747b1772  ..n.......{tr.{t
000a5b90  1a6eadbb 88000000 747bd968 747b1772  ..n.....h.{tr.{t
000a5ba0  1a6eadbd 8e000000 00000000 00000000  ..n.............
000a5bb0  1a6eadbf 8e000000 00000000 00000000  ..n.............

Honestly, though, this doesn't actually look like anything is "hung", as this is completely normal behavior in IE8 on Win7. There were some bugs for F12 tools in IE8 fixed in the later 72xx builds before RTM, so perhaps trying this on a non-RC box (preferably RTM) would be in order, to see if it still reproduces. Assuming this also repros with iexplore.exe -extoff as the command starting IE, I'm not sure what's happening here, because IE does not appear hung at all in these dumps.

[MtK]

Honestly, though, this doesn't actually look like anything is "hung", as this is completely normal behavior in IE8 on Win7. There were some bugs for F12 tools in IE8 fixed in the later 72xx builds before RTM, so perhaps trying this on a non-RC box (preferably RTM) would be in order, to see if it still reproduces. Assuming this also repros with iexplore.exe -extoff as the command starting IE, I'm not sure what's happening here, because IE does not appear hung at all in these dumps.

yes, I forgot to mention that this is RC (7100), but this didn't happen until now, and it doesn't happen in a similar installation on a different PC...

I'm not sure I know at wchi point this started.

[MtK]

I got it working!

apparently, it was (somehow) not properly minimized, which caused it to not maximize properly.

after playing a little with Win+Tab, I managed to click the maximize button - and now everything is back to normal...