Determining if a process is not responding using vba

[abousetta]

Hello,

Quick background... I have a windows-based program that frequently hangs. Normally, I have to manually terminate and restart the program. I have created a subroutine that does this automatically using the Windows API, but I can't get the trigger (program not responding) part to work. It should be something like this (modified from vb posts on the net):

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Any advice is highly welcomed.

Thank you.

abousetta

P.S. In case anyone is interested, here is the code to close then open the program.

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[JosephP]

that first routine looks like vb.net code to me-is it?

also do you require 64bit compatibility as implied by the second set of code?

[abousetta]

Hi JosephP,

I believe it is vb.net, and I have been unable to amend the code. The process is running as 32 bit (I believe) as in the Task Manager it is presented as EndNote.exe *32.

I just found code in vba that uses windows management to identify the processes that are currently running. Using it I can isolate the program but I can't find out if it is 'responding' or not.

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Hope you are more familiar with these methods than I am.

Thanks again for your insight.

abousetta

[JosephP]

what I was asking is if you need it to be 64bit compatible?

the wmi process data doesn't seem to be much use for this-the executionstate property just returns null for me no matter what. it may be possible to use the threadstate information from the process' threads but I'm not sure-I will do some experimenting. it may also be possible to use additional api calls so I will look into that

[Kyle123]

Hi,

Why not just write your application in .Net? I've written 90% of the above for you in C#, seems like a trivial task to adapt the vb code you have to include into your project?

[JosephP]

I don't currently have a hanging process to test but perhaps this will help-requires a window handle which you seem to have

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[abousetta]

Thanks JP. I've modified my code above to use the FindWindowLike and WindowText APIs to get the handle and pass it to SendMessageTimeout. My only remaining problem is that regardless of the time I put, it initiates the WM_CLOSE. Do you know what I'm doing wrong?

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Thanks.

abousetta

[abousetta]

I should also that yes, I am trying to make it compatible with both 32 and 64-bit systems that I run these programs on different setups at work and at home.

Thanks again.

abousetta

[JosephP]

I don't think you are doing anything wrong-I misunderstood the purpose

I will try and find an alternative

[JosephP]

perhaps add

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and send WM_NULL instead of WM_CLOSE in the SMTO call?

[abousetta]

Thanks JP. With a few modifications I got it work. It seems that WM_CLOSE does not terminate the process but rather attempts to close the program more or so naturally. Therefore with no hangups it works fine, but when the hang happens it stops waiting for the program to respond. Therefore I just used a different code using windows management to kill the process if this happens.

Here is my final code:

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Have a great day.

abousetta