Demangled type names reference missing types

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#4,551 6 comments 4 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@plafosse is already working on this.

Since Apr 30, 2026.

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Description

Component: Demangler Effort: Medium Impact: High

Version and Platform (required):

  • Binary Ninja Version: 3.5.4288-dev
  • OS: macOS
  • OS Version: 12.4
  • CPU Architecture: M1

Bug Description:
When the Demangler constructs a type from a name, it can create Named Type References to types that do not yet exist in the analysis. These types are not created even afterwards, leaving you with a bunch of broken type references to missing names. This is especially noticeable when loading a PDB with mangled names and stripped type information.

Steps To Reproduce:
Please provide all steps required to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Grab the binary from https://github.com/Vector35/binaryninja-api/issues/4235
  2. In the load options, disable pdb.features.createMissingNamedTypes (it is a workaround for PDBs for this bug)
  3. Go to 0x140056c08
  4. Try to navigate to the type of that variable
  5. Notice it does not exist

Expected Behavior:
I expected types used in the analysis to exist, even if just as forward declared empty structures or something.

Screenshots:
image
This type does not exist.

Additional Information:
Demangler plugins #467 is blocking on this Demangler plugins proceeded without fixing this haha

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