.NET Global exception handler in console application

If you have a single-threaded application, you can use a simple try/catch in the Main function, however, this does not cover exceptions that may be thrown outside of the Main function, on other threads, for example (as noted in other comments). This code demonstrates how an exception can cause the application to terminate even though you tried to handle it in Main (notice how the program exits gracefully if you press enter and allow the application to exit gracefully before the exception occurs, but if you let it run, it terminates quite unhappily):

static bool exiting = false;

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   try
   {
      System.Threading.Thread demo = new System.Threading.Thread(DemoThread);
      demo.Start();
      Console.ReadLine();
      exiting = true;
   }
   catch (Exception ex)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("Caught an exception");
   }
}

static void DemoThread()
{
   for(int i = 5; i >= 0; i--)
   {
      Console.Write("24/{0} =", i);
      Console.Out.Flush();
      Console.WriteLine("{0}", 24 / i);
      System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);
      if (exiting) return;
   }
}

You can receive notification of when another thread throws an exception to perform some clean up before the application exits, but as far as I can tell, you cannot, from a console application, force the application to continue running if you do not handle the exception on the thread from which it is thrown without using some obscure compatibility options to make the application behave like it would have with .NET 1.x. This code demonstrates how the main thread can be notified of exceptions coming from other threads, but will still terminate unhappily:

static bool exiting = false;

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   try
   {
      System.Threading.Thread demo = new System.Threading.Thread(DemoThread);
      AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += new UnhandledExceptionEventHandler(CurrentDomain_UnhandledException);
      demo.Start();
      Console.ReadLine();
      exiting = true;
   }
   catch (Exception ex)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("Caught an exception");
   }
}

static void CurrentDomain_UnhandledException(object sender, UnhandledExceptionEventArgs e)
{
   Console.WriteLine("Notified of a thread exception... application is terminating.");
}

static void DemoThread()
{
   for(int i = 5; i >= 0; i--)
   {
      Console.Write("24/{0} =", i);
      Console.Out.Flush();
      Console.WriteLine("{0}", 24 / i);
      System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);
      if (exiting) return;
   }
}

So in my opinion, the cleanest way to handle it in a console application is to ensure that every thread has an exception handler at the root level:

static bool exiting = false;

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   try
   {
      System.Threading.Thread demo = new System.Threading.Thread(DemoThread);
      demo.Start();
      Console.ReadLine();
      exiting = true;
   }
   catch (Exception ex)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("Caught an exception");
   }
}

static void DemoThread()
{
   try
   {
      for (int i = 5; i >= 0; i--)
      {
         Console.Write("24/{0} =", i);
         Console.Out.Flush();
         Console.WriteLine("{0}", 24 / i);
         System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);
         if (exiting) return;
      }
   }
   catch (Exception ex)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("Caught an exception on the other thread");
   }
}

No, that's the correct way to do it. This worked exactly as it should, something you can work from perhaps:

using System;

class Program {
    static void Main(string[] args) {
        System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += UnhandledExceptionTrapper;
        throw new Exception("Kaboom");
    }

    static void UnhandledExceptionTrapper(object sender, UnhandledExceptionEventArgs e) {
        Console.WriteLine(e.ExceptionObject.ToString());
        Console.WriteLine("Press Enter to continue");
        Console.ReadLine();
        Environment.Exit(1);
    }
}

Do keep in mind that you cannot catch type and file load exceptions generated by the jitter this way. They happen before your Main() method starts running. Catching those requires delaying the jitter, move the risky code into another method and apply the [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)] attribute to it.

You also need to handle exceptions from threads:

static void Main(string[] args) {
Application.ThreadException += MYThreadHandler;
}

private void MYThreadHandler(object sender, Threading.ThreadExceptionEventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine(e.Exception.StackTrace);
}

Whoop, sorry that was for winforms, for any threads you're using in a console application you will have to enclose in a try/catch block. Background threads that encounter unhandled exceptions do not cause the application to end.

I just inherited an old VB.NET console application and needed to set up a Global Exception Handler. Since this question mentions VB.NET a few times and is tagged with VB.NET, but all the other answers here are in C#, I thought I would add the exact syntax for a VB.NET application as well.

Public Sub Main()
    REM Set up Global Unhandled Exception Handler.
    AddHandler System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException, AddressOf MyUnhandledExceptionEvent

    REM Do other stuff
End Sub

Public Sub MyUnhandledExceptionEvent(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As UnhandledExceptionEventArgs)
    REM Log Exception here and do whatever else is needed
End Sub

I used the REM comment marker instead of the single quote here because Stack Overflow seemed to handle the syntax highlighting a bit better with REM.