How to import .NET memory dumps into dotMemory if they were collected on a different Windows system – Support | JetBrains

Background/Situation

When using a process dump collected on one machine, one might encounter issues when trying to import this dump into dotMemory on another machine.

To solve this issue, one needs .NET DAC files. They act as a translation layer describing how dotMemory and other tools shoud interpret the dump to work with the internal, managed structures of a .NET application from a raw memory dump.

Question

How to collect DAC files on Windows and use them in dotMemory?

Answer

Follow the steps below to collect DACs and open the process dump with them:

Collect a process dump on the machine where profiling takes place
Download and place the dotMemory command-line tool (CLT) on the same machine
Open the directory containing the dotMemory CLT
Execute dotMemory.exe pack-dbg-libs command
Wait until dotMemory generates an archive containing the debug libraries
Transfer the dump file and the generated archive to the system where you are planning to analyze the dump
Extract the archive containing DACs and put its contents in the same directory as the dump directory. Note that all extracted .dll files should be located in a directory alongside the dump, not nested in any subdirectories