InstallShield - why is ServiceAddService returning -1? - windows-services

We have a product that we install using InstallShield. In the product are 3 separate windows services, all installed using the ServiceAddService method.
One of the services, however, consistently returns -1 from ServiceAddService (which indicates some kind of error). The service, however, does get installed successfully, though sometimes (but not always) it fails to start automatically. I found an old support thread from 2008 here that seems to indicate that the service didn't start in time, though it's difficult to understand how this could be the case if the default timeout is infinite as stated there.
Any other ideas how to get this seemingly bogus error to stop appearing?

Related

Request for working configurations of openresty + mobdebug + EmmyLua remote debugging in PHPStorm

I'm out of my wits. I'm trying to set up remote debugging of lua code in dockerized openresty. I use PHPStorm with EmmyLua extension, and the mobdebug library on the Lua end. I have been reading and hearing reports of this working for people, but for me stopping on a breakpoint (or immediately after mobdebug.start()) works about 15% of the time (evidence that I am not completely misconfiguring the thing), including exactly 0% of those places in my code that I actually want to debug.
I will not be debugging this issue. I intend to work around it by using an exact setup that is known to work, so I need someone for whom it does work to tell me what their setup is:
OS version
openresty version
mobdebug version
any custom patches or hacks you might have applied to get the debugging working
luasocket version (probably relevant)
PHPStorm version
EmmyLua version
docker and docker-compose version, if applicable
whatever you may suspect to be relevant
I am willing to completely raze my development environment and rebuild it exactly to the working spec, just to have working Lua debugging.
EDIT: for those interested, here are my detailed symptoms:
I can't stop at actual breakpoints, ever (i.e. after I initially stop after mobdebug.start() and then "Resume program" and a line with a breakpoint is hit, but it doesn't stop there)
I can stop after mobdebug.start() in code executed from init_by_lua_block, i.e. once per server start / config reload
I can't stop after mobdebug.start() in any code executed during handling a request, i.e. ssl_certificate_by_lua_block, rewrite_by_lua_block etc. This is probably understandable because coroutines are involved
All my attempts at enabling coroutine debugging in request handling code either error out or have no effect:
mobdebug.coro() in init_worker_by_lua_block() errors out with "API disabled in current context" somewhere in mobdebug.lua
mobdebug.on() in the function I want to debug either has no effect, or errors out with "attempt to yield across C-call boundary"; I haven't discerned the pattern yet.
stopping on a breakpoint (or immediately after mobdebug.start()) works about 15% of the time
Stopping after mobdebug.start() should work under all circumstances, except when there is a connection already established to the same debugger controller, so the fact that it doesn't usually points to the system that tries to establish multiple debugging sessions to the same controller/IDE (or no connection can be established at all).
Similarly, there are several reasons why breakpoints may not be working, but if they work in a file as part of a specific setup, then I'd expect them to always work in that case. Some of the reasons why breakpoints may not be working are listed in the documentation: https://studio.zerobrane.com/doc-faq#why-breakpoints-are-not-triggered.
mobdebug provides a command line-based controller, so for troubleshooting purposes it may be easier to use that instead of a more complex setup.

IBM i (AS/400) command works locally but not remotely

I have a Windows service written in VB.NET 2.0 which connects to an IBM AS/400 server. Queries work fine, but when I try to do something like deleting a spool file, I get errors. For example:
CPYSPLF FILE(PO630A) TOFILE(MPLCDATPAR/PO630APF) JOB(083064/ARUSER/POASYNCMON) SPLNBR(80) MBROPT(*REPLACE)
Running this command with ExecuteNonQuery yields:
CPF3342 - Job not found 083064/ARUSER/POASYNCMON
However, if I run that same command locally in AS/400, it works just fine. We already checked permissions. What else could be causing the command to fail this way? How can I get more information about the error, or go about troubleshooting this?
EDIT: This problem (and a lot of other ones) appeared when we migrated our server (where the .NET service runs) from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008.
How can I get more information about the error, or go about troubleshooting this?
The first thing is to verify that the IBM AS/400 server [what OS Version Release and Modification level, Technical Refresh (TR) level (if instead IBM i), Cumulative PTF level were all omitted.?.?] used for the connection is the same server used to perform the command-line invocation; i.e. on the server where the command-line invocation will be made to verify the command is functional, find the active server job in which the CPF3342 is still visible in the log.
The second thing to do is to get the spooled joblog showing the full details of the CPF3342 [and possibly any preceding message(s) that might be related]. If for example the message is not actually that message or is not sent by the expected program QSPCPYF, then immediately the direction of investigation probably would change. What is shown is apparently what is presented at the client, not what came from the server joblog; the USEnglish formatting I believe is "Job &5/&4/&3 not found." for which the formatting "CPF3342 - Job not found &5/&4/&3" is suspect.
To ensure the most appropriate comparison to the request made from the client:
• the local user that is signed-on to perform the same request should be the same user as the Current User of the active job found to be servicing the client request
• the local user should establish the same System Library List as the active job found to be servicing the client request
If such an incident recurs or even if the same incident persists, then verify the once again the re-create is still possible using the same interface [i.e. the condition\failure persists] and again verify the command-line request is successful [i.e. the circumvention is confirmed, that the same request is possible to be performed at the command-line]; and according to my earlier comment, first ensuring the same server by finding the active job that logs the CPF3342. Immediately afterward:
• Collect a job trace for the Copy Spooled File (CPYSPLF) request; for the failing case, review for any exception\interrupt conditions [with or without a message as accompanying trace data] that precede the program flow for the issuance of the msg CPF3342.
• Review the audit log for any T-AF or anything odd\unexpected at very close to the time of the failing request; expansive auditing should have been established since before the connection to the server.
• Contrast those data collections of the failing case with the same data taken from the successful processing.
Although the symptom [as lightly described, without the full joblog] the possibility of command-exits seems remote, the trace would reveal if the command in either scenario were intercepted by the Command Exit points; these can be reviewed separately [rather than looking in the trace] for any Exit Program, using the Work With Registration Information (WRKREGINF) to review any QIBM_QCA* entries in the repository for what exit programs might impact the CL Command request. But IIRC the trace-data shows which command was invoked, so the trace would also reveal if the unqualified command requests resolved to different *CMD objects.

Service Not Responding - Error 1053

The program starts correctly if I double-click it or if I debug it from VS2010, but it doesn't respond when I try running it from Services.msc. It used to work just fine, but I tried to un-register and then re-register the service to fix a different bug and now I get the following error:
Could not start the PFAdapterMng service on Local Computer.
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
I tried putting logs at the beginning of main(), and I found out that the service stops responding before it even gets there.
I've tried using Procmon to figure out if there's some registry key missing, but I couldn't find any problems through Procmon.
I've also tried re-registering the service to try to fix it, since re-registering the service was what caused the error in the first place. It doesn't seem to fix anything either.
I've stepped through the program with the parameters -UnregServer and -Service to ensure that the program was being unregistered and registered successfully, and it looks like it's being registered as a service correctly.
Is this because of some error in the registry? I don't see how or why my program stops responding before it even gets to main().
What else could I try to do to debug this problem?
UPDATE:
So, I tried un-registering the service after trying to run it, and it seemed to work fine. I look in services.msc, and I still see that the application is a service. In the past, before I got error 1053, it would just disappear after the first time. I tried un-registering it again, and I got a message box:
Service could not be deleted
So I decided to run the application with the parameter -UnregServer inside of Visual Studio 2010 to figure out what the error is. The function DeleteService() is failing with the error:
ERROR_SERVICE_MARKED_FOR_DELETE
The service is not removed until all open handles to the service have been closed. I stepped through the calls to the CloseServiceHandle() function and it seems like the handles were closed successfully. The service is also not removed if the service is running. I checked Process Manager, and the service was not running. Is the service not being removed because the service stopped responding earlier?
I tried restarting my computer and it was gone. Still, I don't understand why I have to restart my computer when the service used to un-register without the need of a restart before I was getting error 1053. Unless of course I can't un-register the service because the service was not stopped because it stopped responding.
I'll keep trying some more things, but I'm running out of ideas.
UPDATE2:
I tried rebuilding the original application, which I know worked as a service. This means the problem is not related to any of my code. Something is messed up with the Services Control Manager. I don't understand why I only get this error with this application. I have another application which communicates with this application which also needs to be registered as a service. I have no problems with that application. It works perfectly.
But for some reason, this application just stopped responding all of a sudden. I don't know what I changed or broke to cause the service to hang before it even gets to my main() function. The only thing I can think of now to fix the problem is to reformat the server, which is not an option.
Thanks,
Krzys
I feel stupid.
I've been using Remote Desktop Connection to connect to this server. Well, the service is starting and erroring out. The reason I didn't see any errors or message boxes was because they were appearing on the console session. I was not connected to the console session. I connected to the server using:
mstsc.exe /admin
And now I can see where the program stops responding.
Feels great to waste 10 hours though.

what is dsac.exe.config

I have a windows service installed on a machine running Windows 2008 which automatically stops every night between 2300-0100 hrs.
In the eventviewer I get "dsac.exe.config" file changed. Apart from this I also get the below error in event viewer:
The description for Event ID 1001 from
source Windows Error Reporting cannot
be found. Either the component that
raises this event is not installed on
your local computer or the
installation is corrupted. You can
install or repair the component on the
local computer.
If the event originated on another
computer, the display information had
to be saved with the event.
The following information was included
with the event:
0 CLR20r3 Not available 0
wsbestfarefinder.exe
337.0.0.0 4d8b67b0 Ttl.BestFareFinder.Harvester
337.0.0.0 4d8b67af 301 6 System.TypeInitialization
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\AppCrash_wsbestfarefinder_74e68497d40658e979de885388289e269c39c_c41e675c
0 9a6e7446-661e-11e0-9ac4-005056bc2f52
4
The handle is invalid
Based on KB article 2462585,
Active Directory Administrative Center (Dsac.exe) to manage Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) objects
That suggests that between those times, something is changing the .config file for dsac.exe. Whether this is relevant to your service or not is something that I suspect is unlikely. You can try to determine this though.
In your development/test/staging environment (you do have one, or all of those, right? :) start your service running and then change the dsac.exe.config file. Does this cause your service to stop? If yes, work out what's causing it to be changed in your production environment.
All that said, I don't think the change to dsac.exe.config is the issue, or at best it's a symptom and not the cause Your service is encountering an exception, specifically a TypeInitializationException at some point in the night. You need to improve your logging and exception handling to get to the root cause of this. Start by hooking the AppDomain.UnhandledException event, logging any exceptions and ensuring that you ship .pdb files with your service.

Starting a windows service fails with error 1053

I have a windows service that is failing to start, giving an error "Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion".
Running the service in my debugger works fine, and if I double click on the the service .exe on the remote machine a console window pops up and continues to run without problem - I can even see log messages showing me that the program is processing everything the way it should be.
The service had been running fine previously, though this is my first time, personally, trying to deploy it with the most recent changes made to the program. I've evaluated those changes and cant figure out how they might cause this problem, particuarly since everything runs fine when not started as a service.
The StartRoutine() method of the service impelmentation is empty, so should be returning in a "timely fashion".
I've checked the event logs on the computer, and it doesn't give any additional information other than it didn't hear back from the service in the 30 second requisite time frame.
Since it works on my machine, and as a double-clicked executable, how would I go about figuring out why it fails as a service?
Oh, and it's .NET 2.0, so it shouldn't be affected by the 1.1 framework bug that exhibited this symptom (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839174)
The box is a windows server 2003 R2 machine running SP2.
This is a misleading error. It's probably an unhandled exception.
Empty your OnStart() handler then try this in your constructor...
public MainService()
{
InitializeComponent();
try
{
// All your initialization code goes here.
// For instance, my exception was caused by the lack of registry permissions
;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
EventLog.WriteEntry("Application", ex.ToString(), EventLogEntryType.Error);
}
}
Now check the EventLog on your system for your Application Error.
Could be a number of things and it might help to get a stack trace on the machine exhibiting the problem. There are a number of ways to do this but the point is that you have to see where this is failing in the code.
You can do this with remote debugging, but a simple thing might be to just log to the event logger, or file log if you have that. Literally, putting "WriteLine("At class::function()") throughout portions of the code to see if you've made it there.
This will at least get you looking in the right direction (which ultimately is the code).
Update:
See Microsoft's How to Debug Windows Services article for details in troubleshooting startup problems using WinDbg.
This related question details nice ways to debug services that are written in .NET.
I agree with Scott, the easiest way to find out what's happening is to put some traces in the start-up code (maybe it doesn't even come to your start-up code).
If this doesn't help, you can post your code here so others can take a look.
perhaps lacking some dependence, try this :
- deregister your service
- register again
If fail at register means that lack an module.
If the StartRoutine is empty, you are probably starting it somewhere else.
IIRC you need to fire off a worker thread, and then return from StartRoutine.
One of the problems which may lead to this error is if windows service which needs to be deployed consists of some error i.e it may be simple authorization error or anything as in my case I have referenced some folders and files for logging which were not existing, but when provided the right path of those file and folders it solved my problem.
I ran through every post on this particular subject and none of the responses solved the problem, so I'm adding this response in case this helps someone else. Admittedly this only applies to a new service, not this specific case.
I was writing a File listening service. As a console app, it worked perfectly. When I ran it as a service, I got the same error as above. What I didn't know (and many of the MSDN articles about services conveniently leave out) is that you need to have your class executed from within ServiceBase.Run( YourClassName());. Otherwise, your app executes and immediately terminates and because it terminated, you get the error above even if no error or exception occurred. Here is a link to an article about this. It actually discusses setting up your app for dual use - Console app and service: Create a combo command line / Windows service app
I had that issue and the source of my problem was config file. I edited it in notepad and notepad added one special character which cause service not to run properly because config file was ruined. I saw that special character in notepadd++ and after delete it, service started to run successfully as previous did.
In my case, the correct .NET framework was not installed on the server that I was installing the Windows service on.
One other reason is If you copy the DLL in 'debug' mode to installation folder this issue will come.What you need to do is Run the project in 'Release' mode copy the DLL or directly form Release folder rather than Debug folder,,and copy that DLL in to installation folder,it will work.You can see the reduction in size of DLL ,it will not contain any debug symbols and like that

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