[df07]

This is exactly what we did to diagnose (source: I was on the call). The only tricky part was figuring out which post it was, since it wasn't in the stacktrace. To do that, we grabbed the 3000 most recent posts and ran the regex against them. By that point we already had the code fix (another dev working on it in parallel), but if we hadn't we also could have gotten back up by just deleting the post.

[ww520]

Kudos for thinking clearly under tremendous pressure. A production server down is always a highly stressful situation.

If time pressure is not a factor and the production server has the VStudio or WinDbg installed, attaching the debugger to the process can see the data related to the post. But the symbol file and source files might be needed; it's just more hassle to set up. For stressful situation, simple steps and simple tools are more useful. Whatever works.

[JoelBennett]

Any idea if it was a malicious attempt? It kind of sounds like it was.

[ars]

Nah, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor

If it was malicious they would have made a bunch of them, not just one. I personally have seen many files with unreal amounts of whitespace at the end.

[aalear]

Yeah, that's kinda what we're thinking. If it were malicious, the question itself would be unlikely to actually look like a real honest question, too. It'd just be a bunch of garbage input.