Qt Release build application (windows 7) works when invoked with debugger but not standalone

[KRP1]

I have a project that I am working on using OpenCV. I have both Release and Debug libs (version 3.0 from site) of OpenCV installed. I link to the Release library when building the Release build. I am using a 64bit build of Qt 5.2.1 with VS2012.

The gui application crashes straightaway, no gui comes up. The gui is just one window with a couple of buttons and a space to show images.

The main entry is this:

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QApplication a(argc, argv);
    MainWindow w;
    w.show();

    return a.exec();
}

The crash occurs in the moc generated code for setupUI:

void setupUi(QMainWindow *MainWindow)
    {
        if (MainWindow->objectName().isEmpty())
            MainWindow->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("MainWindow"));
        MainWindow->resize(905, 587);
        MainWindow->setMinimumSize(QSize(0, 340));
        actionQuit = new QAction(MainWindow);
        actionQuit->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("actionQuit"));
        centralWidget = new QWidget(MainWindow);
        centralWidget->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("centralWidget"));
        verticalLayout = new QVBoxLayout(centralWidget);
        verticalLayout->setSpacing(6);
        verticalLayout->setContentsMargins(11, 11, 11, 11);
        verticalLayout->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("verticalLayout"));
        widgetScreen = new ImageView(centralWidget);
        widgetScreen->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("widgetScreen"));
        QSizePolicy sizePolicy(QSizePolicy::Expanding, QSizePolicy::Expanding);
        sizePolicy.setHorizontalStretch(0);
        sizePolicy.setVerticalStretch(0);
        sizePolicy.setHeightForWidth(widgetScreen->sizePolicy().hasHeightForWidth());
        widgetScreen->setSizePolicy(sizePolicy);

        verticalLayout->addWidget(widgetScreen);

        checkBoxFlipRegistration = new QCheckBox(centralWidget);
        checkBoxFlipRegistration->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("checkBoxFlipRegistration"));
        checkBoxFlipRegistration->setToolTipDuration(-1);

        verticalLayout->addWidget(checkBoxFlipRegistration);

        horizontalLayout = new QHBoxLayout();
        horizontalLayout->setSpacing(6);
        horizontalLayout->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("horizontalLayout"));
        horizontalLayout->setContentsMargins(-1, 0, -1, -1);
        pushButtonLoad = new QPushButton(centralWidget);
        pushButtonLoad->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("pushButtonLoad"));

        horizontalLayout->addWidget(pushButtonLoad);

        horizontalSpacer = new QSpacerItem(80, 20, QSizePolicy::Minimum, QSizePolicy::Minimum);

        horizontalLayout->addItem(horizontalSpacer);

        ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
        // APPLICATION CRASHES HERE
        pushButtonDesine = new QPushButton(centralWidget);
        pushButtonDesine->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("pushButtonDesine"));

        horizontalLayout->addWidget(pushButtonDesine);

        pushButtonExport = new QPushButton(centralWidget);
        pushButtonExport->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("pushButtonExport"));

        horizontalLayout->addWidget(pushButtonExport);


        verticalLayout->addLayout(horizontalLayout);

        MainWindow->setCentralWidget(centralWidget);
        menuBar = new QMenuBar(MainWindow);
        menuBar->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("menuBar"));
        menuBar->setGeometry(QRect(0, 0, 905, 21));
        menuFile = new QMenu(menuBar);
        menuFile->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("menuFile"));
        MainWindow->setMenuBar(menuBar);
        statusBar = new QStatusBar(MainWindow);
        statusBar->setObjectName(QStringLiteral("statusBar"));
        MainWindow->setStatusBar(statusBar);

        menuBar->addAction(menuFile->menuAction());
        menuFile->addAction(actionQuit);

        retranslateUi(MainWindow);
        QObject::connect(actionQuit, SIGNAL(triggered()), MainWindow, SLOT(close()));

        QMetaObject::connectSlotsByName(MainWindow);
    }

I've seen similar problems occur when I have failed to initialize my objects correctly, but in those cases I would see a crash in the Release build whether I ran it from the debugger or standalone. It doesn't look like an OpenCV debug/release issue as we don't even get to code that loads that library.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what to do next? I'm stumped.

Thanks!

[raven-worx]

@KRP1
maybe your application is missing a dependency it cannot find outside QtCreator?
Check with DependencyWalker.

[KRP1]

I ran dependency walker and was able to resolve all the dlls correctly. I ran windeployqt and copied the remaining non-standard dlls by hand (opencv and litezip).

I had commented the ui setup code to show exactly where the program crashes but you may not have noticed because you have to scroll to see the comment.

To drill down further, I ran the release version and attached to QtCreator when it crashed. Here is the stack trace and loaded module information:

Any ideas on why this is crashing here? When I run the code from the debugger (cdb), the same modules as listed above are loaded but it doesn't crash.

[raven-worx]

@KRP1
any special compiler flags you set in your .pro file?

Otherwise try to delete the build directory and build it again

[KRP1]

Compiler flags turns out to be the source of the problem, or rather a pragma I had for aligning a data structure generated from hardware.

I had:

#pragma pack(1)

#include "hardware_struct.h"

This was never reset. The fix.

#pragma pack(push, 1)

#include "hardware_struct.h"

#pragma pack(pop)

Thanks for your help.

[JonB]

@KRP1
Lucky you didn't have other #includes with structs in that source file! And just as well you spotted it anyway :)