Deadlock in Service Control Manager During System Shut Down

Last reviewed: February 5, 1999
Article ID: Q157911

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

When a system with many services shuts down, Windows NT may hang (stop responding) for two minutes and then continue. If the WaitToKillService setting in the registry is less than that, it is possible the system will shut down without sending a shutdown notification to some services. This creates the possibility of corrupted data stores.

NOTE: This problem has only been observed with Cheyenne ARCServe, but this is not a problem with ARCServe.

CAUSE

Service Control Manager (SCM) uses Named Pipes to talk to services. The services report status changes via Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) to SCM. Because of the way SCM uses two synchronization objects, there is a race condition which can cause a deadlock.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT version 4.0. For more information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

   ARTICLE-ID: Q152734
   TITLE : How to Obtain the Latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack

NOTE: The files included with this hotfix are system files. You must use Mv.exe /x /d from the Windows NT Resource Kit to overwrite the files.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 4.0. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4.

Additional query words: sbs slow shutdown
Keywords : kbbug4.00 ntnetserv NTSrvWkst kbfix4.00.sp4 kbenv NT4SP4Fix
Version : WinNT:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbbug
Solution Type : kbfix

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