Access violation writing location exception while debugging

I am trying to debug a c++ windows service when the following exception is thrown (only in debug mode, in realse the exception is not thrown): "Exception thrown at 0x00007FF75127C410 in xxxxxxxx.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x0000018818AF3000".

Importent note: the code worked for me before but probably some workspace changes has corrupted it. when it worked i was developing in VS 17 i have recentlly changed the IDE to VS 19. when the problem occured i have tried to go back to VS 17 but it didnt work.

• NOTHING IN THE CODE HAS CHANGE! its the same version as the one that worked before
• I have tried going back to VS 17
• I have tried changing project configuration like "basic runtime checks" or "Runtime Library" because i cant figure out why DEBUG and RELEASE work differently in this scenario

EDIT:

    USHORT          logFileHeaderVersion;
    DLLS_CHECK_MODE eDllCheckMode;
    LONGLONG        lastClientTimeZValue;
    LONGLONG        lastServerClientTimeDelta;
    wstring         computerName;
    string          macAddresses;
    BYTE*           buffer;
    DWORD           dwBytesToWrite  = 0;
    DWORD           dwBytesWritten  = 0;

    logFileHeaderVersion        = LOG_FILE_HEADER_VERSION;
    eDllCheckMode               = getConfigurationManager()->getDllsCheckMode();
    lastClientTimeZValue        = Globals::getLastClientTimeZValue();
    lastServerClientTimeDelta   = Globals::getLastServerClientTimeDelta();
    computerName                = getComputerName();
    macAddresses                = getMacAddresses();

    // Convert time delta values from ticks to milliseconds.
    lastClientTimeZValue        = lastClientTimeZValue      / MILLISECOND_IN_TICKS;
    lastServerClientTimeDelta   = lastServerClientTimeDelta / MILLISECOND_IN_TICKS;

    // Determine header size.
    dwBytesToWrite  +=  2;                                      // Header-size size.
    dwBytesToWrite  +=  2;                                      // Header version size.
    dwBytesToWrite  +=  1;                                      // Mode size.
    dwBytesToWrite  +=  8;                                      // Client time Z value size.
    dwBytesToWrite  +=  8;                                      // Server client time delta size.
    dwBytesToWrite  +=  (   (computerName.size() + 1) * 2   );  // Computer name size (+ null terminator, wide string).
    dwBytesToWrite  +=  (   macAddresses.size() + 1         );  // Mac addresses size (+ null terminator).

    // Allocate the header.
    buffer = new BYTE[dwBytesToWrite];

    // Fill the header.

    *((USHORT*)     (buffer + dwBytesWritten)) = (USHORT)   dwBytesToWrite;
    dwBytesWritten  +=  2;

    *((USHORT*)     (buffer + dwBytesWritten)) =            logFileHeaderVersion;
    dwBytesWritten += 2;

    *((BYTE*)       (buffer + dwBytesWritten)) = (BYTE)     eDllCheckMode;
    dwBytesWritten  +=  1;

    *((LONGLONG*)   (buffer + dwBytesWritten)) =            lastClientTimeZValue;
    dwBytesWritten  +=  8;

    *((LONGLONG*)   (buffer + dwBytesWritten)) =            lastServerClientTimeDelta;
    dwBytesWritten  +=  8;

    wcscpy_s(   (PWCHAR)(buffer + dwBytesWritten),  dwBytesToWrite - dwBytesWritten,    computerName.c_str());
    dwBytesWritten  +=  (   (computerName.size() + 1) * 2   );

The exception is thrown in the following line: i think its something to do with the usage of wstring. and maybe the RELEASE preforming some optimization that fix the problem in the DEBUG

    wcscpy_s(   (PWCHAR)(buffer + dwBytesWritten),  dwBytesToWrite - dwBytesWritten,    computerName.c_str());