Unmangle Async/Await stacktraces

I don’t know if there is a solution to this out there or if it can be even done.

When I log exceptions, my logs tend to have a lot of these:

--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.Internal.ObjectQueryExecutionPlan.<ExecuteAsync>d__0`1.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Data.Entity.Utilities.TaskExtensions.CultureAwaiter`1.GetResult()
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectContext.<ExecuteInTransactionAsync>d__3d`1.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Data.Entity.Utilities.TaskExtensions.CultureAwaiter`1.GetResult()
   at System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.DbExecutionStrategy.<ProtectedExecuteAsync>d__9`1.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Data.Entity.Utilities.TaskExtensions.CultureAwaiter`1.GetResult()
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectQuery`1.<GetResultsAsync>d__e.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Data.Entity.Utilities.TaskExtensions.CultureAwaiter`1.GetResult()
   at System.Data.Entity.Internal.LazyAsyncEnumerator`1.<FirstMoveNextAsync>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.IDbAsyncEnumerableExtensions.<FirstOrDefaultAsync>d__25`1.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.UserValidator`2.<ValidateUserName>d__4.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.UserValidator`2.<ValidateAsync>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.UserManager`2.<CreateAsync>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.UserManager`2.<CreateAsync>d__d.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at Tilt.Diabetes.Services.Controllers.UsersController.<Register>d__1.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Threading.Tasks.TaskHelpersExtensions.<CastToObject>d__3`1.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Web.Http.Controllers.ApiControllerActionInvoker.<InvokeActionAsyncCore>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Web.Http.Controllers.ActionFilterResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__2.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Web.Http.Filters.AuthorizationFilterAttribute.<ExecuteAuthorizationFilterAsyncCore>d__2.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at Tilt.Diabetes.Services.Auth.BasicChallengeResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Web.Http.Controllers.AuthenticationFilterResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at System.Web.Http.Dispatcher.HttpControllerDispatcher.<SendAsync>d__1.MoveNext()

Is there anyway to get cleaner stacktraces for async/await that understand the context?

[nblumhardt]

👍 let’s see how things go with that package; it’s still experimental, so with a bit of usage we might have a better idea where this is heading 😃 … Let’s close this old thread, finally!

[camp-007]

The work around of adding an additional property to the log event for “AsyncFriendlyException” ends up yielding two different stack traces in the log data. This works, but doesn’t yield the best end user experience. Especially given some sinks will perform special treatment/formatting of the built in stack trace, it may still be rendered very prominently (as in the case of Seq).

If I’m understanding things properly, Serilog.Core just carries an exception object and then the Sink implementations are left to decide what to do with it (mostly calling Exception.ToString() I presume). I don’t know what the proper api/abstraction should be, but if it could be assumed that all sinks will ultimately need/use a string representation of the exception details, then perhaps Serilog.Core could provide a way for the user to configure a Func<Exception, string> that instructs the Sink on how to convert the exception to text. This of course would require the Sinks to implement support for this and be able to optionally chose between the provided Func vs the built in Exception.ToString().

So perhaps this could be configured using something like:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
.Destructure.ExceptionsUsing(ex => ex.ToAsyncString())
.CreateLogger();

(Sorry, the Destructure configuration may not be the appropriate concept, but the idea would be to provide an overriding func at the time of configuration).

Just a thought. Ultimately this is a .NET Framework issue. I get why the stack traces end up the way they do, but this will eventually need to be addressed as it just introduces so much noise and makes debugging so much harder than it needs to be. I’d hope/expect for an eventual resolution from the MS team (https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/1370)