Debugging Serious Application Error from Python Toolbox?

Question

I have written a few custom Python Toolboxes that my office uses.

One of my coworkers has an interesting issue that I cannot replicate on a different machine:

When he runs the tool, ArcGIS Desktop crashes and tries to send an error report. The script does not begin running. This happens when running the script in both ArcCatalog and ArcMap.

Only one of the scripts I have written causes this, others behave normally. The script began causing this behavior recently, it previously worked fine for him.

Is there anything I should check?

Re-installing ArcGIS Desktop seems like the only thing that might fix this problem.

• Vince: Application errors like this are really the domain of Esri Tech Support. It's unlikey we could reproduce the issue, especially if you can't reproduce it on all systems at your site.
• Michael Stimson: Look for another or different install of python than that which is installed by the ArcGIS installer. If I had any money that's what I would bet on! Can this user run the Esri scripts in the toolbox? They have a different picture to the tools.. Is this users' install a different version to the others? Prior to 10 instead of importing arcpy one used gp = arcgisscripting.create() to instantiate a geoprocessor.
• user2856: I would also ask your coworker whether he has installed/upgraded any third-party python libraries. I have in the past broken ArcGIS Desktop by accidentally upgrading numpy (by pip install pandas which automatically upgraded numpy)
• atxgis: while developing python I have to reinstall arcgis every few months.

Answer 1

You could review these previous Q&As tagged serious-application-error but, if you have not already uninstalled and reinstalled ArcGIS Desktop (and Python with it), then I think the expedient would be to do that first.

Also, check to see whether the user has tried turning off Background Geoprocessing.

• Craig T: Thanks for informing me of the serious-application-error tag, and yes he has turned off background geoprocessing.
• Craig T: Re-installing Arc solved the problem, answer accepted.