Windows process activation service the data field contains the error number

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After this huge November 2019 update forced on us, IIS (and all of my web-based development tools. include custom git repository managers) stopped working.

IIS won’t start because WAS (Windows Process Activation) service fails to start (this has been a problem since at least early 2018 from all the posts on the web about it). And that service has 3 error logs saying:

«Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) is stopping because it encountered an error. The data field contains the error number.» EventID: 5005, EventData: 0F000780

«The Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) failed to execute initialization for offline setup. The data field contains the error number.» EventID: 5215

«The Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) encountered an error while handling key generation. This will prevent WAS from starting corrently. The data field contains the error number.» EventID: 5217

There is also a fourth error with it for Service Control Manager with EventID 7023 saying:

Scott Hanselman

Fixed: «Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) is stopping because it encountered an error.»

I’m not yet clear what I did, but I’m blogging it so it can be found if someone else has this issue.

For whatever reason, last week both of my Vista 64-bit machines suddenly stopped being able to start IIS (Internet Information Server). The service just wouldn’t start. I started getting this error instead «Cannot start service W3SVC on Computer ‘.'» which wasn’t too helpful.

A visit to the System Event Log via the Event Viewer in Computer Management told me these four errors:

«The World Wide Web Publishing Service service depends on the Windows Process Activation Service service which failed to start because of the following error: The system cannot find the file specified.»

«The Windows Process Activation Service service terminated with the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified.»

«Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) is stopping because it encountered an error. The data field contains the error number.»

«The directory specified for the temporary application pool config files is either missing or is not accessible by the Windows Process Activation Service. Please specify an existing directory and/or ensure that it has proper access flags. The data field contains the error number.»

Unfortunately there’s little information to go on in any of these error messages. However, it’s clear (as mud) from the last error that there’s a directory missing or not accessible. I’ll add «anymore» to that because it worked before. That means that something changed.

If IIS won’t start because Windows Process Activation Service won’t start, then I need to get WAS started up first. However, I don’t know what directory it doesn’t have access to.

I can see from the Services application that WAS isn’t its own executable, but rather lives inside of an instance of svchost.exe, where a lot of services live.

So I’ll fire up Process Monitor and set the filters (filters are VERY important if you want to avoid being overwhelmed quickly in procmon) to show only svchost.exe processes.

Even still, there’s a lot of svchost.exe processes out there and they will quickly fill the monitor up. I’ll need to setup some strategic (read: guessed) highlighting as well.

The hotkey to stop capturing in procmon.exe is Ctrl-E. Basically I’ll clear the screen, hit Ctrl-E to capture, try to start WAS (pronounced WAAZ), watch it fail, the stop capture with Ctrl-E.

Based on the vague message about application pools temporary files and a directory I’ll make a guess and configure highlighting to find paths that contain «temp,» «log,» «config» or «app» in Process Monitor as seen in the screenshot below.

After I run the capture, I scroll around looking for suspicious stuff. One of the nice things about Process Monitor is that you can EXCLUDE things in a given capture after that fact. For example, I saw a pile of Audio and Media related stuff that was visually confusing and cluttering the point, so I excluded it.

The result is here:

It looks like there SHOULD be a folder call c:\inetpub\temp\apppools and on my Vista 64 machines, in the last two weeks to a month, it just disappeared. No idea why. I just noticed recently when I tried to move from a local web development service to IIS itself.

I created the folder, started WAS, then IIS and I was back up and running.

I’ll pass the feedback on to the WAS team about the obscure error messages, but I thought I’d share this little ten minute debugging session to point out a few things that I think are important and possibly helpful, Dear Reader:

• Know What Your Processes Are Doing (or at least, know how to find out)
  • Knowing how to look INSIDE the Windows «Black Box» using tools like ProcMon makes you realize that no OS is a Black Box at all. It’s very empowering to know that you CAN see inside.
  • TASK: Learn Process Monitor and Process Explorer.
• Enable Your Intuition
  • Debugging is 95% tools and 5% intuition. Know what tools can get you that next bit of information you need to take the next step in your analysis.
  • If you feel you’ve hit a wall in your analysis, knock that wall down. Your process is doing IO to a file/registry/device/network/etc. Watch it. Look for failures.

My next mission is to find out WHY and HOW this directory disappeared on both my machines. What did I install or run recently? Enjoy!c

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

Cannot start Windows process activation service on Windows 10

After upgrading from Windows 7 Pro x64 to Windows 10 Pro x64, I cannot start IIS. Most of the Windows 10 system works fine. Some study tells me that the primary problem is that the Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) will not start.

I have another machine that upgraded to Windows 10 with IIS fine (Windows 7 Home Premium x64 up to Windows 10 Home Premium x64). The IIS on that machine works OK (it only serves one website; so simpler setup.)

• I have had NO LUCK finding anything on the Internet that resolves this.
• I tried using the clean.iinstall IIS config files (no improvement).
• I tried uninstalling IIS — uninstall failed and rolled back (see below).
• I tried uninstalling WAS — uninstall failed, and rolled back.

My first error trying to run IIS Manager program:

(The link to see the IIS 7.0 compatibility information was a dead link.)

I decided to give it a try despite the compatibility warning. I started the services IIS, MSFTP, WAS and W3SVC (depends on WAS), then tried to start IIS Manager.

The IIS configuration files exist with non-zero length; they look coherent.

I have a backup that I made that should be good (not just the automatic backups).

machine.config exists ok: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config

The appPools folder exists: C:\inetpub\temp\appPools

The upgrade changed IIS from v7.5 to v10.0.10240.16384

This machine has one user account (me) and the account is marked Administrator.

My previous Windows 7 Pro with IIS 7.5 worked FINE for several years. IIS was giving no trouble before the upgrade.

I can use other network stuff OK: Internet, Outlook, PuTTY, MySQL Workbench (remote & local), and FileZilla.

Trying to start the Microsoft FTP service, or run appcmd or start W3SVC or WAS all give the same error: Error 183: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.

appcmd list backup —> failed (running as Admin) ERROR ( hresult:800700b7, message:Command execution failed. Cannot create a file when that file already exists.)

Event Log after error starting WAS: The configuration manager for Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) did not initialize. The data field contains the error number. error # = B7000780

I used the MS error lookup tool:

To see the appcmd error ( 800700b7)

for hex 0x800700b7 / decimal -2147024713 :

Windows process activation service the data field contains the error number

Вопрос

Некоторое время назад я провел миграцию c Exchange 2010 на 2016cu11 (windows 2016). Всё работало штатно, однако после установки обновления для Windows 2016 KB4493470 вместе с обновлением для Exchange KB4487563 в системных логах с периодичностью в несколько минут стала появляться ошибка:

A process serving application pool ‘MSExchangeServicesAppPool’ suffered a fatal communication error with the Windows Process Activation Service. The process id was ‘ разные числа >’. The data field contains the error number.

1. Рвутся, восстанавливаются соединения с Outlook на всех Mac,

2. В Outlook не отображаются сведения о доступности переговорных комнат (долго обновляет, после чего пишет, что не удается связаться с сервером), через owa доступность показывает без проблем.

3. Один пользователь заметил, что через owa письма в ящике не показывает вообще никакие, в Outlook же все работает.

Удаление обновления KB4487563 ничего не изменило. Сегодня ночью буду откатывать обновление для Windows.

Буду признателен за любую помощь.

Ответы

Сделал все по инструкции:

In fact, I would say that this process not only solved my issue but also got rid of a majority of the little warnings and errors on both my Exchange 2013 and Lync 2013 servers. they seem to enjoy life more when they can exchange tokens directly with each other.

For a majority of you, you will have the certificate in place, and setting up the integration will be super easy. If by chance, you do not have the cert, then this is your easy 2 min fix.

1. New-ExchangeCertificate -KeySize 2048 -PrivateKeyExportable $true -SubjectName «cn= Microsoft Exchange Server Auth Certificate» -DomainName «*.yourdomain.com» -FriendlyName «Microsoft Exchange Server Auth Certificate» -Services smtp

Do not accept to replace the SMTP certificate when prompted

2. Note the thumbprint of the new certificate. Let us assume it is 7A39541F8DF58D4821967DD8F899B27410F7C081

4. Set-AuthConfig -NewCertificateThumbprint 7A39541F8DF58D4821967DD8F899B27410F7C081 –NewCertificateEffectiveDate $a

Accept to continue despite the fact that the certificate effective date is not 48 hours into the future

5. Set-AuthConfig –PublishCertificate

6. Make sure to remove any potential reference to the previous certificate (which might not exist anymore) by doing Set-AuthConfig -ClearPreviousCertificate.

После всего этого сделал iisreset /stop /start и, на всякий случай, shutdown -r -t 0

Возможно заработало. Жду завтра.

Все ответы

1. Сделайте Recycle Pool если ещё не делали.

Установил дебаггер, в процессе разбирательства обратил внимание на ошибку в Application от ASP.NET 4.0.30319.0

An unhandled exception occurred and the process was terminated.
Application ID: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT/EWS
Process ID: 28880
Exception: Microsoft.Exchange.Security.OAuth.OAuthTokenRequestFailedException
Message: Missing signing certificate.

StackTrace: at Microsoft.Exchange.Security.OAuth.V1ProfileLocalTokenIssuer..ctor(ILocalConfiguration localConfiguration)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Security.OAuth.V1ProfileOAuthTokenBuilder..ctor(ILocalConfiguration localConfiguration, ITokenIssuerHelper tokenIssuerHelper, OAuthSnapshot oAuthSnapshot)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Security.OAuth.OAuthExchangeToExchangeTokenFactory..ctor()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.GetClientAccessToken.<>c. b__49_0()
at System.Lazy`1.CreateValue()
at System.Lazy`1.LazyInitValue()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.GetClientAccessToken.GetExchangeUserTokenForConnectors(ADUser user)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.GetClientAccessToken.CreateConnectorsToken(ADUser user)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.GetClientAccessToken.ExecuteGetClientAccessToken()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.GetClientAccessToken.Execute()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.ExceptionHandler`1.Execute(IRequestDetailsLogger logger, CreateServiceResult createServiceResult, Int32 index, ExecutionOption executionOption)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.BaseStepServiceCommand`3.InternalExecuteStep(Boolean& isBatchStopResponse)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.ServiceCommandBase`1. b__82_0()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.ServiceCommandBase`1.<>c__DisplayClass88_0. b__0()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Common.IL.ILUtil.DoTryFilterCatch(Action tryDelegate, Func`2 filterDelegate, Action`1 catchDelegate)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.ServiceDiagnostics.SendWatsonReportOnUnhandledException(ICallContext callContext, Action methodDelegate)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.ServiceCommandBase`1.ExecuteHelper(Func`1 action)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.ServiceTask`1.<>c__DisplayClass11_0. b__0()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Common.IL.ILUtil.DoTryFilterCatch(Action tryDelegate, Func`2 filterDelegate, Action`1 catchDelegate)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.BaseServiceTask`1.SendWatsonReportOnGrayException(Action callback, Action exceptionHandlerCallback, Boolean isGrayExceptionTaskFailure)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.ServiceTask`1.ExecuteHelper(Func`1 multiStepAction)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.ServiceTask`1. b__7_0()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Diagnostics.RequestDetailsLoggerBase`1.TrackLatency[TResult](Enum latencyMetadata, Func`1 method)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Diagnostics.RequestDetailsLoggerBase`1.TrackLatency[TResult](Enum latencyMetadata, Func`1 method, Double& latencyValue)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.ServiceTask`1.InternalExecute(TimeSpan queueAndDelay, TimeSpan totalTime)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.BaseServiceTask`1.<>c__DisplayClass33_0. b__0()
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.BaseServiceTask`1.LocalTimedCall(Action action)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.BaseServiceTask`1.ExecuteWithinCallContext(Action action)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.BaseServiceTask`1.Execute(TimeSpan queueAndDelayTime, TimeSpan totalTime)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Services.Core.Types.BaseServiceTask`1.ExecuteLoop(Boolean synchronously)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
at System.Threading.QueueUserWorkItemCallback.System.Threading.IThreadPoolWorkItem.ExecuteWorkItem()
at System.Threading.ThreadPoolWorkQueue.Dispatch()

Эта ошибка происходит в ту же секунду, в которую валится msexchangeserviceapppool. В сертификатах всё в порядке, по крайней мере через GUI. Развернул рядом еще один чистый эксчейндж cu12 на Win 16 cu5, думаю, перекидывать на него концы, если не придумаю, как пролечить правильно asp и сертификаты — надеюсь, я в правильную сторону копаю.