Vista - Programs will simply not run after a while in vista 64

Greetings all,

First of all my vista ultimate 64 bit runs some server software (e-mail,
www,..) so I keep it online as long as possible. But actually the problem is
after a while (maybe 10-20 hours) it stops running certain programs..

For example if I try to start Firefox nothing happens. I have checked task
manager and closed all instances of Firefox.. but after starting it only
takes around 1KB memory and doesn't actually bring up any UI.

I also traced it a little bit and also mysql_connect stops working from my
php script, it just simply does nothing. I have tried to restart apache and
mysql services and they seem to work but doesn't solve the problem.

So basically I've noticed so far that only a Windows restart helps here.
Anyone have an idea what could cause this weird problem that programs cannot
be run? Is there any service etc that I could try restarting to get it back
working without restarting?

Sysinfo HW:
[Hardware Resources]
[Conflicts/Sharing]

Resource Device
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller

I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF VIA PCI to PCI Bridge Controller
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF Radeon X1300 Series

IRQ 21 VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
IRQ 21 VIA Serial ATA Controller - 0591
IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 21 VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller

IRQ 17 PCI Serial Port (COM3)
IRQ 17 High Definition Audio Controller

Memory Address 0xC0000000-0xCFFFFFFF VIA PCI to PCI Bridge Controller
Memory Address 0xC0000000-0xCFFFFFFF Radeon X1300 Series

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF VIA PCI to PCI Bridge Controller
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Radeon X1300 Series

I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB VIA PCI to PCI Bridge Controller
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB Radeon X1300 Series

Thanks,
Star

"Stargyver" <Stargyver@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote ...
> First of all my vista ultimate 64 bit runs some server software (e-mail,
> www,..) so I keep it online as long as possible. But actually the problem
> is
> after a while (maybe 10-20 hours) it stops running certain programs..
> Anyone have an idea what could cause this weird problem that programs
> cannot
> be run? Is there any service etc that I could try restarting to get it
> back
> working without restarting?

It sounds very much like you're hitting some form or resource depletion.
Something in the system is leaking some finite resource; after a period of
time, the global supply of that resource becomes depleted; and anything
which needs it, can no longer run. Typical finite resources which can leak
like this are: desktop heap, handles, non-paged pool memory.

To troubleshoot, you need to measure these resources while the system runs,
and look for any process which claims more and more handles, or non-paged
pool, or whatever, and does not release them again. When you have isolated
the offending process, you can either debug it to find the underlying cause;
or report the problem to the supplier of the software and ask for a fix.
Resource leaks are usually bugs in applications, rather than in Windows
itself (but not always).

You can get a quick overview of handles and non-paged memory using Task
Manager.
While the system is running normally, start Task Manager (ctrl-alt-delete,
or right click on task bar).
Choose the Processes tab
Choose the View menu, Select Columns
Add columns for handles, thread, session ID, Process ID, Handles Threads,
Memory - Non Paged Pool.
Click OK to accept the changes.

When the system gets into the rude state, run Task Manager again. You can
sort processes by each column heading. See what process has the highest
count for handles, threads and non-paged pool. This is not necessarily the
culprit - a process might have a high count for any of these, just because
it is legitimatly busy and performing a lot of work. But often, it provides
a clue as to resource hogs.

You can get more details information on resource consumption (and leakage)
by running Performance Monitor in the Administrative Tools. Add counters for
the Process object, All Instances, and Pool non paged, Threads, and anything
else which looks interesting.

The problem you're desccribing actually sounds most like a Desktop Heap
leak. For background information on this, see here:
http://beta.blogs.msdn.com/ntdebuggi...-overview.aspx
When Desktop Heap is exhausted, you cannot lauch new applications, they
often just die silently when you try to run them.

Microsoft has aan excellent tool for debugging desktop heap leaks, called
"Desktop Heap Monitor" or DHeapMon:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
UNFORTUNATELY, Dheapmon is closely tied to operating system version; and as
yet it has not been ported to Vista* :-( So, you could troubleshoot your
services if they were running on Windows Server 2003 ... but not on Vista.
So far, I haven't found any good way to monitor desktop heap on Vista, apart
from raw debugging in WinDBG. This is not easy!! An alternative strategy is
to use the empirical method: disable processes and services one-by-one,
reboot, and let the system run. If it continues to run indefinitely with one
service or process disabled, that's your culprit. Obviously this is not
always practical for a production server. But if you're running on a desktop
OS like Vista, perhaps it isn't a mission critical situation (or, maybe it
is).

If you are lucky, the resource hog wil release its resources again when the
process is terminated. So when the system gets into the rude state, try
stopping or killing processes one by one, and look to see if the system
springs back into life after any particular process has been stopped. If you
stop the "fobar" service and suddenly you can run new applications agin,
then th foobar service is very likely to be the culprit. But with problems
like Desktop Heap depletion, the resources are never freed again, even when
the process is terminated. Closing and restarting the session may be the
only way to recover. For interactive applications, you can do this by
logging out and logging back in again. Services run in Session 0, which can
only be restarted by rebooting the whole box, so a reboot is necessary in
these cases.

If you google for terms like "Windows performance resource leak handles
heap" you'll find lot of technical articles about troubleshooting resource
leaks.

Other folks might have better ideas for you - hope this helps a bit, anyway.
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

* there's a good reason for this - Microsoft shares the source code licence
for DHeapmon with several other vendors; and every new release requires
complex legal wrangling and agreement. It usually takes some time. The
actual dev guys who write the tool are total gurus and legends.

"Andrew McLaren" wrote:

> "Stargyver" <Stargyver@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote ...
> > First of all my vista ultimate 64 bit runs some server software (e-mail,
> > www,..) so I keep it online as long as possible. But actually the problem
> > is
> > after a while (maybe 10-20 hours) it stops running certain programs..
> > Anyone have an idea what could cause this weird problem that programs
> > cannot
> > be run? Is there any service etc that I could try restarting to get it
> > back
> > working without restarting?
>
> It sounds very much like you're hitting some form or resource depletion.
> Something in the system is leaking some finite resource; after a period of
> time, the global supply of that resource becomes depleted; and anything
> which needs it, can no longer run. Typical finite resources which can leak
> like this are: desktop heap, handles, non-paged pool memory.
>
> To troubleshoot, you need to measure these resources while the system runs,
> and look for any process which claims more and more handles, or non-paged
> pool, or whatever, and does not release them again. When you have isolated
> the offending process, you can either debug it to find the underlying cause;
> or report the problem to the supplier of the software and ask for a fix.
> Resource leaks are usually bugs in applications, rather than in Windows
> itself (but not always).
>
> You can get a quick overview of handles and non-paged memory using Task
> Manager.
> While the system is running normally, start Task Manager (ctrl-alt-delete,
> or right click on task bar).
> Choose the Processes tab
> Choose the View menu, Select Columns
> Add columns for handles, thread, session ID, Process ID, Handles Threads,
> Memory - Non Paged Pool.
> Click OK to accept the changes.
>
> When the system gets into the rude state, run Task Manager again. You can
> sort processes by each column heading. See what process has the highest
> count for handles, threads and non-paged pool. This is not necessarily the
> culprit - a process might have a high count for any of these, just because
> it is legitimatly busy and performing a lot of work. But often, it provides
> a clue as to resource hogs.
>
> You can get more details information on resource consumption (and leakage)
> by running Performance Monitor in the Administrative Tools. Add counters for
> the Process object, All Instances, and Pool non paged, Threads, and anything
> else which looks interesting.
>
> The problem you're desccribing actually sounds most like a Desktop Heap
> leak. For background information on this, see here:
> http://beta.blogs.msdn.com/ntdebuggi...-overview.aspx
> When Desktop Heap is exhausted, you cannot lauch new applications, they
> often just die silently when you try to run them.
>
> Microsoft has aan excellent tool for debugging desktop heap leaks, called
> "Desktop Heap Monitor" or DHeapMon:
> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
> UNFORTUNATELY, Dheapmon is closely tied to operating system version; and as
> yet it has not been ported to Vista* :-( So, you could troubleshoot your
> services if they were running on Windows Server 2003 ... but not on Vista.
> So far, I haven't found any good way to monitor desktop heap on Vista, apart
> from raw debugging in WinDBG. This is not easy!! An alternative strategy is
> to use the empirical method: disable processes and services one-by-one,
> reboot, and let the system run. If it continues to run indefinitely with one
> service or process disabled, that's your culprit. Obviously this is not
> always practical for a production server. But if you're running on a desktop
> OS like Vista, perhaps it isn't a mission critical situation (or, maybe it
> is).
>
> If you are lucky, the resource hog wil release its resources again when the
> process is terminated. So when the system gets into the rude state, try
> stopping or killing processes one by one, and look to see if the system
> springs back into life after any particular process has been stopped. If you
> stop the "fobar" service and suddenly you can run new applications agin,
> then th foobar service is very likely to be the culprit. But with problems
> like Desktop Heap depletion, the resources are never freed again, even when
> the process is terminated. Closing and restarting the session may be the
> only way to recover. For interactive applications, you can do this by
> logging out and logging back in again. Services run in Session 0, which can
> only be restarted by rebooting the whole box, so a reboot is necessary in
> these cases.
>
> If you google for terms like "Windows performance resource leak handles
> heap" you'll find lot of technical articles about troubleshooting resource
> leaks.
>
> Other folks might have better ideas for you - hope this helps a bit, anyway.
> --
> Andrew McLaren
> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>
> * there's a good reason for this - Microsoft shares the source code licence
> for DHeapmon with several other vendors; and every new release requires
> complex legal wrangling and agreement. It usually takes some time. The
> actual dev guys who write the tool are total gurus and legends.
>
>
>

Thanks Andrew for the long explanation. This "desktop heap" issue certainly
sounds exaclty like my problem. I even tried changing the heap settings and I
managed to "freeze" my system in less time (30 min or so). But the thing is I
don't really understand, all they say this shouldn't happen in vista 64
because the values are a lot higher (20M for the second etc.)

I didn't see any real differences in task manager handles etc stuff. they
all seemed to be same as just after restart.

But I will start monitoring the things you said, I believe I will catch it
eventually. Just too bad that heap app is not available for vista

"Stargyver" wrote:

>
>
> "Andrew McLaren" wrote:
>
> > "Stargyver" <Stargyver@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote ...
> > > First of all my vista ultimate 64 bit runs some server software (e-mail,
> > > www,..) so I keep it online as long as possible. But actually the problem
> > > is
> > > after a while (maybe 10-20 hours) it stops running certain programs..
> > > Anyone have an idea what could cause this weird problem that programs
> > > cannot
> > > be run? Is there any service etc that I could try restarting to get it
> > > back
> > > working without restarting?
> >
> > It sounds very much like you're hitting some form or resource depletion.
> > Something in the system is leaking some finite resource; after a period of
> > time, the global supply of that resource becomes depleted; and anything
> > which needs it, can no longer run. Typical finite resources which can leak
> > like this are: desktop heap, handles, non-paged pool memory.
> >
> > To troubleshoot, you need to measure these resources while the system runs,
> > and look for any process which claims more and more handles, or non-paged
> > pool, or whatever, and does not release them again. When you have isolated
> > the offending process, you can either debug it to find the underlying cause;
> > or report the problem to the supplier of the software and ask for a fix.
> > Resource leaks are usually bugs in applications, rather than in Windows
> > itself (but not always).
> >
> > You can get a quick overview of handles and non-paged memory using Task
> > Manager.
> > While the system is running normally, start Task Manager (ctrl-alt-delete,
> > or right click on task bar).
> > Choose the Processes tab
> > Choose the View menu, Select Columns
> > Add columns for handles, thread, session ID, Process ID, Handles Threads,
> > Memory - Non Paged Pool.
> > Click OK to accept the changes.
> >
> > When the system gets into the rude state, run Task Manager again. You can
> > sort processes by each column heading. See what process has the highest
> > count for handles, threads and non-paged pool. This is not necessarily the
> > culprit - a process might have a high count for any of these, just because
> > it is legitimatly busy and performing a lot of work. But often, it provides
> > a clue as to resource hogs.
> >
> > You can get more details information on resource consumption (and leakage)
> > by running Performance Monitor in the Administrative Tools. Add counters for
> > the Process object, All Instances, and Pool non paged, Threads, and anything
> > else which looks interesting.
> >
> > The problem you're desccribing actually sounds most like a Desktop Heap
> > leak. For background information on this, see here:
> > http://beta.blogs.msdn.com/ntdebuggi...-overview.aspx
> > When Desktop Heap is exhausted, you cannot lauch new applications, they
> > often just die silently when you try to run them.
> >
> > Microsoft has aan excellent tool for debugging desktop heap leaks, called
> > "Desktop Heap Monitor" or DHeapMon:
> > http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
> > UNFORTUNATELY, Dheapmon is closely tied to operating system version; and as
> > yet it has not been ported to Vista* :-( So, you could troubleshoot your
> > services if they were running on Windows Server 2003 ... but not on Vista.
> > So far, I haven't found any good way to monitor desktop heap on Vista, apart
> > from raw debugging in WinDBG. This is not easy!! An alternative strategy is
> > to use the empirical method: disable processes and services one-by-one,
> > reboot, and let the system run. If it continues to run indefinitely with one
> > service or process disabled, that's your culprit. Obviously this is not
> > always practical for a production server. But if you're running on a desktop
> > OS like Vista, perhaps it isn't a mission critical situation (or, maybe it
> > is).
> >
> > If you are lucky, the resource hog wil release its resources again when the
> > process is terminated. So when the system gets into the rude state, try
> > stopping or killing processes one by one, and look to see if the system
> > springs back into life after any particular process has been stopped. If you
> > stop the "fobar" service and suddenly you can run new applications agin,
> > then th foobar service is very likely to be the culprit. But with problems
> > like Desktop Heap depletion, the resources are never freed again, even when
> > the process is terminated. Closing and restarting the session may be the
> > only way to recover. For interactive applications, you can do this by
> > logging out and logging back in again. Services run in Session 0, which can
> > only be restarted by rebooting the whole box, so a reboot is necessary in
> > these cases.
> >
> > If you google for terms like "Windows performance resource leak handles
> > heap" you'll find lot of technical articles about troubleshooting resource
> > leaks.
> >
> > Other folks might have better ideas for you - hope this helps a bit, anyway.
> > --
> > Andrew McLaren
> > amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
> >
> > * there's a good reason for this - Microsoft shares the source code licence
> > for DHeapmon with several other vendors; and every new release requires
> > complex legal wrangling and agreement. It usually takes some time. The
> > actual dev guys who write the tool are total gurus and legends.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Thanks Andrew for the long explanation. This "desktop heap" issue certainly
> sounds exaclty like my problem. I even tried changing the heap settings and I
> managed to "freeze" my system in less time (30 min or so). But the thing is I
> don't really understand, all they say this shouldn't happen in vista 64
> because the values are a lot higher (20M for the second etc.)
>
> I didn't see any real differences in task manager handles etc stuff. they
> all seemed to be same as just after restart.
>
> But I will start monitoring the things you said, I believe I will catch it
> eventually. Just too bad that heap app is not available for vista

Actually now I saw something quite interesting in task manager:

Apache.exe *32
NP Pool = 18 014 398 509 481 936 K

"Stargyver" <Stargyver@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote...
>> I didn't see any real differences in task manager handles etc stuff. they
>> all seemed to be same as just after restart.
>>
>> But I will start monitoring the things you said, I believe I will catch
>> it
>> eventually. Just too bad that heap app is not available for vista
>
> Actually now I saw something quite interesting in task manager:
>
> Apache.exe *32
> NP Pool = 18 014 398 509 481 936 K



Hmm, interesting. 18,014,398,509,481,936 ... K, or bytes??? In bytes, that
would be almost exactly 16,384 GB of memory (16,384 being 2^14 of course - a
suspiciously round number!!!).

Haven't thought it through yet, but I'd start wondering about how Apache is
using Non-Paged Pool, on your system. Maybe use PerfMon to set a counter,
tracking NP Pool.

(I mean ... Apache itself is a fine bit of software, but what you're seeing
sounds bit screwy )

I'll let you know if I have any big insights...

--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

"Andrew McLaren" wrote:
> Hmm, interesting. 18,014,398,509,481,936 ... K, or bytes??? In bytes, that
> would be almost exactly 16,384 GB of memory (16,384 being 2^14 of course - a
> suspiciously round number!!!).
>
> Haven't thought it through yet, but I'd start wondering about how Apache is
> using Non-Paged Pool, on your system. Maybe use PerfMon to set a counter,
> tracking NP Pool.
>
> (I mean ... Apache itself is a fine bit of software, but what you're seeing
> sounds bit screwy )
>
> I'll let you know if I have any big insights...
>
> --
> Andrew McLaren
> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>

Thanks Andrew,

Vista just shows a big K letter after the number. Anyway I have now
re-installed 64-bit versions of apache and php + mysql and I don't see the NP
Pool issue anymore.

But.. another really scary thing I noticed that is probably the original
reason to my problems. It seems certain files keep disappearing from my
C-Drive. For example today I noticed php.ini disappeared from c:\windows and
most of the mysql binaries c:\server\mysql\bin disappeared into thin air. I
have no idea what could be causing files to vanish like that. Also my
enviromental settings seem to vanish/rollback, e.g. I have
c:\server\mysql\bin in path and it was not there after a while. It seems like
whole windows is resetting to certain system restore point etc. automatically
even without any restarts. And so I even tried disabling system restore but
no help there.

Anyway I have now moved my server software to D-Drive.. If that works I'm
still far from fixing the problem fully.

"Stargyver" wrote:


>
> But.. another really scary thing I noticed that is probably the original
> reason to my problems. It seems certain files keep disappearing from my
> C-Drive. For example today I noticed php.ini disappeared from c:\windows and
> most of the mysql binaries c:\server\mysql\bin disappeared into thin air. I
> have no idea what could be causing files to vanish like that. Also my
> enviromental settings seem to vanish/rollback, e.g. I have
> c:\server\mysql\bin in path and it was not there after a while. It seems like
> whole windows is resetting to certain system restore point etc. automatically
> even without any restarts. And so I even tried disabling system restore but
> no help there.
>

Another similar thing. I have to re-install my graphics card drivers every
now and then. It seems to lose them as well in some level because games and
such just say "cannot find device".. So either it's a certain Vista "feature"
or my hard disk is going to tilt or something else.. All I know it's really
annoying.

"Stargyver" wrote:
> Anyway I have now moved my server software to D-Drive.. If that works I'm
> still far from fixing the problem fully.
>

Moving software to another physical drive does not help so the problem
shouldn't be the hard drive imo.

Stargyver wrote:
>
> "Stargyver" wrote:
>> Anyway I have now moved my server software to D-Drive.. If that works I'm
>> still far from fixing the problem fully.
>>
>
> Moving software to another physical drive does not help so the problem
> shouldn't be the hard drive imo.


Remember that what's written to the drive originates in the RAM so it is
not impossible there's a RAM (or just possibly another hardware) fault.
I had the same kinds of problems that turned out to be bad RAM, but
didn't show up right away because "Most" of what was being written back
to disk was okay... over a period of time however all hell would break
loose (That was brand new boards / RAM / everything.)

"Stargyver" <Stargyver@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote...
>> But.. another really scary thing I noticed that is probably the original
>> reason to my problems. It seems certain files keep disappearing from my
>> C-Drive. For example today I noticed php.ini disappeared from c:\windows
>> and
<snip>
> Another similar thing. I have to re-install my graphics card drivers every
> now and then. It seems to lose them as well in some level because games
> and
> such just say "cannot find device".. So either it's a certain Vista
> "feature"
> or my hard disk is going to tilt or something else.. All I know it's
> really
> annoying.

Wow. Well I don't know what the cause is, but it sounds like there is
something seriously wrong on your system.

I'm all in favour of finding new bugs in Vista, but ... I would be surprised
if this is a Vista bug, as such. Or if it is, it's a bug which only appears
in an extremely specific combination of softwares and/or hardware. Otherwise
we'd be hearing hundreds or thousands of reports like this; but so far it
seems pretty rare.

My feeling is that you would need the system examined by a skilled computer
technician. It is close to the boundary of what can be resolved via
newsgroup style support. General diagnostic strategy would be:

1) check system integrity using tools like CHKDSK, S.M.A.R.T monitoring if
your hard disks support it; Memory Integrity test (boot from Vista DVD, go
to Repair options), etc.

2) comb through the System and Application event logs, and reconcile all
warnings and errors. You don't need to fix every one; but just understand
what each error indicates about how your system is running.

3) use tools like Windows Auditing (under Admin Tools, Local Security) or
Process Monitor
(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx)
to watch what is happening on your disk and see if you can isolate the
process responsible for deleting files incorrectly.

4) simplify system configuration to a stable minimum (such as, in extreme
cases, a clean installation of Windows) then start adding components of the
current system back one by one, watching at each stage for the problems to
start re-occurring. When you see them re-occur, go back and look at the last
change made to the system.

Good luck with it!
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au