Sole's Blog

Archive for the ‘Bugs and Fixes’ Category

All PPTP VPN interfaces in ISA 2006 (sp1) disappeared from the Routing and Remote Access Service console, this problem was a cool problem both because it was challenging but also due to the unexpected results and solutions we found.

The first google attempt at finding a solution told us to try the following workaround – Not recommended!

• Run the following command: C:\> netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt

Well this solution might fix the problem here and now, but you might as well turn to the good old solution of restarting your server every time it fails, because this solution will do the following.

• Enable DHCP and remove all IP configuration of all interfaces.
  Not the smartest move on a server, and you are stuck with having to retype all your settings again.
• Most likely the problem will reappear again, since it does not fix the problem.

Now looking deeper into the error, we started looking at event logs – nothing here to help us (let us know if you had any usefull info here for this error). Then we tried various other things, including looking at a snapshot of the memory usage (you can just open taskmgr.exe) and found something surprising. Wspsrv.exe was using more memory handles than all other processes combined on the machine. A memory leak! It has been several years since I ran into a memory leak, it used to be the most common problem for programmers to avoid, but I rarely see them any more. Read the rest of this entry »

The updates I mentioned in a previous post here http://www.sole.dk/post/microsoft-security-bulletin-for-october-2009/

Happened to have an update that kills Office Communication Server 2007 all editions (R2/Standard/Enterprise) and Live Communication Server 2005 (and SP1 edition).

The error that comes up in the event logs is that the server believes that it is an evaluation and just expired with this message: “The evaluation period for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 has expired. Please upgrade from the evaluation version to the full released version of the product.”

I also got this message in the event logs: “Error Code: C3E93C23 (SIPPROXY_E_INVALID_INSTALLATION_DATA)”

Event ids logged: 12290 Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes the automatic updates service is interupted while updating the machine, this can result in updates with corrupted data that prevents the service from installing the updates correctly and failing the service. This means the machine will never get past the updates that are giving an error and continue to try and install over and over. This happens on just about any Windows machine that uses Automatic Updates, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

• The error prevents the workstation or server in installing updates, roll up packs, hotfixes and service packs, both manually and automatically.
• The error can also be that the Cryptographic service will not start correctly.
• The event error message contains information like not able to verify integrity of update.inf and similair.
• The error is in the verification of the update in Microsoft, this authentication is done with certificates by the Cryptographic service. 

The reason I am describing this error, is that it seems pretty normal, it can happen from servers being shutdown due to power failure, crashes, etc. It took me some while to find any good information on how to correct this error, or more correctly I found alot of information but little that helped.

Read the rest of this entry »

A small but anoying bug in Microsoft Exchange 2007 in combination with Windows Server 2008, will under certain conditions make Outlook Anywhere (OA) fail no matter how correct your settings are in Exchange 2007.

The Outlook Anywhere error only shows under theese conditions.

• Any Exchange 2007 version
• Client Access Server (CAS) and Mailbox Server roles installed on the same server
• Operating system any version and edition of Windows Server 2008, with RPC Proxy feature installed (required for OA).

The reason for the bug and the fix is very simple…

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had a problem at a customer, where Windows Server 2008 DNS, at times would not resolve requests for certain top level domains (Among others .CN, .BR, .DK and .CO.UK). The customer would experience the problem every 12-48 hours and fix it by restarting the DNS server service – not acceptable.

The problem is reproduceable and is limited to all Windows 2008 servers of all editions, including Small Business Server (SBS), where the DNS server uses root hints for internet resolution. Read the rest of this entry »