TargetInvocationException makes no sense

[dudi]

Hi, very puzzling...
I have one perfectly working solution, in which I use a a.dll which has a
class A. that class loads data from
the database and for each row deserialize the cell into class A1. works
great.
I made a new solution, I linked to the same a.dll, and In a new project in
this new solution I call the same function in a.dll that will load the
datatable and for each row deserialize the info into class A1.
however, this time in the line of code that calls the deserialize I get:
An unhandled exception of type
'System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException' occurred in mscorlib.dll
Additional information: Exception has been thrown by the target of an
invocation.

I tried several thinks, first I checked I am using in both solution vs.NET
2003 and not 2002 in one of them by mistake, I tried copying the code that
does the deserialization into the new solution instead of linking to a.dll,
I also tried adding the a.dll project to the new solution (instead of just
adding a reference to the dll)... nothing works. I get that exception and I
can not make any sense of it!
the only intuition I have is that it might be because of security or name
space issues that deserialization is known to be sensitive to, but I can not
find any path to the light. any ideas?

some code follows:
Dim dt As DataTable = _dbmaster.getDataTable(_sqlSel)
Dim row As DataRow
Dim bf As New Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryForm atter
Dim topic As iProgramTopic.Topic
For Each row In dt.Rows
Dim byts As Byte() = CType(row("srlz"), Byte())
Dim ms As New IO.MemoryStream(byts)
topic = CType(bf.Deserialize(ms), iProgramTopic.Topic)
'------------EXCEPTION!!!!!---------
_ht.Add(topic.topicId.strKey, topic)
Next
regards.

[Dmitriy Lapshin [C# / .NET MVP]]

Hi,

This exception is usually thrown when a remoting call is made across
application domain boundaries. It is not that meaningless if you know where
to look for details. The key property is InnerException - you should examine
this one to obtain the real exception occured. Chances are this property
will contain another TargetInvocationException instance - so you should
continue digging into the InnerException chain until you've found something
meaningful.

--
Dmitriy Lapshin [C# / .NET MVP]
X-Unity Test Studio
http://www.x-unity.net/teststudio.aspx
Bring the power of unit testing to VS .NET IDE

"dudi" <Da*********@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:%2****************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

Hi, very puzzling...
I have one perfectly working solution, in which I use a a.dll which has a
class A. that class loads data from
the database and for each row deserialize the cell into class A1. works
great.
I made a new solution, I linked to the same a.dll, and In a new project in
this new solution I call the same function in a.dll that will load the
datatable and for each row deserialize the info into class A1.
however, this time in the line of code that calls the deserialize I get:
An unhandled exception of type
'System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException' occurred in mscorlib.dll
Additional information: Exception has been thrown by the target of an
invocation.

I tried several thinks, first I checked I am using in both solution vs.NET
2003 and not 2002 in one of them by mistake, I tried copying the code that
does the deserialization into the new solution instead of linking to a.dll, I also tried adding the a.dll project to the new solution (instead of just
adding a reference to the dll)... nothing works. I get that exception and I can not make any sense of it!
the only intuition I have is that it might be because of security or name
space issues that deserialization is known to be sensitive to, but I can not find any path to the light. any ideas?

some code follows:
Dim dt As DataTable = _dbmaster.getDataTable(_sqlSel)
Dim row As DataRow
Dim bf As New Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryForm atter
Dim topic As iProgramTopic.Topic
For Each row In dt.Rows
Dim byts As Byte() = CType(row("srlz"), Byte())
Dim ms As New IO.MemoryStream(byts)
topic = CType(bf.Deserialize(ms), iProgramTopic.Topic)
'------------EXCEPTION!!!!!---------
_ht.Add(topic.topicId.strKey, topic)
Next
regards.

[Uri Dor]

wouldn't it be nice if the debugger's exception message allowed my to
dig into that chain?

Dmitriy Lapshin [C# / .NET MVP] wrote:

Hi,

This exception is usually thrown when a remoting call is made across
application domain boundaries. It is not that meaningless if you know where
to look for details. The key property is InnerException - you should examine
this one to obtain the real exception occured. Chances are this property
will contain another TargetInvocationException instance - so you should
continue digging into the InnerException chain until you've found something
meaningful.

[Dmitriy Lapshin [C# / .NET MVP]]

Yeah it would be a nice feature so you might wish to suggest it to the
Visual Studio team.
One can browse the chain by adding the exception variable to the Watch
window and expanding the InnerException nodes.

--
Dmitriy Lapshin [C# / .NET MVP]
X-Unity Test Studio
http://www.x-unity.net/teststudio.aspx
Bring the power of unit testing to VS .NET IDE

"Uri Dor" <re***************@mivzak.com> wrote in message
news:eQ**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

wouldn't it be nice if the debugger's exception message allowed my to
dig into that chain?

Dmitriy Lapshin [C# / .NET MVP] wrote:

Hi,

This exception is usually thrown when a remoting call is made across
application domain boundaries. It is not that meaningless if you know where to look for details. The key property is InnerException - you should examine this one to obtain the real exception occured. Chances are this property
will contain another TargetInvocationException instance - so you should
continue digging into the InnerException chain until you've found something meaningful.

[Dave]

"Uri Dor" <re***************@mivzak.com> wrote in message
news:eQ**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

wouldn't it be nice if the debugger's exception message allowed my to
dig into that chain?

Try opening a watch window on the exception object's ToString method. That
should give you then entire stack trace, including that of inner exceptions.
It's not the most convenient format but the data is there.