Capturing Transient Errors

Have you ever tried to fix a problem where you only got a glimpse of the error before the entire application disappeared in a puff of smoke?

Recently, I had an issue where an error message was only visible on screen for a fraction of a second before the window closed. As this was the only clue available to me to indicate the source of the problem, I needed a way to read the message.

After trying a number of fruitless techniques, mostly based around trying to time things properly, I had a brainwave.

I needed to lie to Windows a bit … “Yes, PowerShell is a Game. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

But then I could use the Windows Game Recorder to record my screen while the process ran.

After the crash, I saved the video, and on playback could then advance it frame by frame until the entire error message was visible.

Following the advice to fix it twice, I followed up a couple of weeks later by modifying the underlying application so that the next person with a problem didn’t need any fancy tricks to read any errors.