Visual Studio Toolbox: Debug Threads & Tasks with Parallel Stacks

Leslie Richardson introduces the latest episodes of the Visual Studio Toolbox show, featuring Mark Downie and Ramkumar Ramesh from the Visual Studio Diagnostics team. The episodes demonstrate how the Threads and Tasks views of the Parallel Stacks window in VS 2022 can be used to debug multithreaded applications.

Debugging Threads with the Parallel Stacks Window

When debugging multithreaded applications, understanding the relationship between threads is important for properly designating and negotiating resources between them. Mark and Ram use a demo app containing deadlocked threads to show how the Parallel Stacks window can be used to see a visual representation of all the threads in a process. This can help you find out where and why the deadlock has occurred.

Debugging Tasks with the Parallel Stacks Window

The async/await programming model is used by lots of developers to unlock the benefits of parallel programming. In this episode, Mark and Ram show an example of two tasks waiting on each other, causing a cycle or a deadlock. They use the Parallel Stacks window to find the problem and understand how to solve it.

If you are building multithreaded applications, these episodes can help you discover your threading and task issues faster and easier.