the service did not respond in a timely fashion / the service cannot accept control messages at this time

From: Ian Kershaw (iank_at_electricalcomparison.co.uk)
Date: 06/02/04 

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 12:03:08 +0100

Scenario:
I host 4 dynamic websites in an instance of IIS over an ADSL dial-up modem
connection to the internet with Norton Personal Firewall installed. I use 2
MSDE database instances on the same computer to run these sites. I also have
all the Windows updates downloaded and installed from MS Product Update
site - my computer is Windows 2000 Server SP4. I can provide a list of
installed updates if required. I also have VS.NET2003 with all prerequisites
including the Framework SDK v1.1 on the system so I can build and debug my
websites in .NET. I usually carry out ALL adminitrative functions through
the MMC snap in tool.

Problem:
Occasionally the traffic to my site dies and an IIS restart is required to
make it come back on line - I'm certain that this is connected to the
firewall software since disabling it occasionally allows external
reconnection - however an IIS restart almost always sorts out the problem
and since I am also a little low on memory anyway (512MB but a lot of apps
running) this helps to keep things running smoothly. Recently however the
MMC console hasn't been able to restart the services - I get the "timely
fashion" error followed by the "the service cannot accept control messages
at this time" message and then the MMC totally loses it's handle on IIS and
cannot seem to determine if each service (SMTP, WWW, FTP) is running or not.
If I persist trying to restart IIS then the MMC inevitably hangs and has to
be killed through Task Manager. Thereafter I have to reboot to get the
services to respond and get my site(s) back online. I get the
"administration tool discovery information" error logged in the system event
log when the server is BOOTING for all 3 services (WWW, SMTP, FTP) - but
only the following IIS kill information message is received prior to
shutdown: "IIS kill command received from user COMPUTER\Ian. The logged data
is the status code."

I have checked lots of articles and can confirm the latest updates are
installed, I have a NIC adaptor with Client for MS Networks bound to it
(also bound to my Dial Up ADSL connection) but in both cases Client for MS
Networks is unchecked. Are there any known issues with using a personal
firewall? - I had Zonealarm before Norton but the issues were identical
which prompted the change in the first place.

The 2nd Problem I'd like to raise is that my system will not shut down
properly - it hangs at the "Saving your settings prompt". Again I have
checked the articles and via the Group Policy Manager snap-in, have changed
the "Maximum retries to unload and update user profile" (Admin Templates >
System > Logon) to just one - but it is still hanging until I eventually
power off in frustration.

So I am left with a situation where I cannot restart IIS and when I try to
reboot it won't close down my computer. The problem seems to reoccur every 3
to 5 days. Please help - in frustration! 

-- 
Regards
Ian Kershaw
ian.kershaw@ukf.net
http://www.electricalcomparison.co.uk
07813 386002

Relevant Pages

  • Re: the service did not respond in a timely fashion / the service cannot accept control messages at
    ... I seriously doubt it is hardware to be honest. ... I have also semi-isolated the problem to be between the firewall and IIS. ... Remember that IIS is the ONLY service that behaves this way on a restart - ...
    (microsoft.public.inetserver.iis)
  • Re: the service did not respond in a timely fashion / the service cannot accept control messages at
    ... > I have also semi-isolated the problem to be between the firewall and IIS. ... > Remember that IIS is the ONLY service that behaves this way on a restart - ... >>> I have checked lots of articles and can confirm the latest updates are ...
    (microsoft.public.inetserver.iis)
  • Re: the service did not respond in a timely fashion / the service cannot accept control messages at
    ... > I host 4 dynamic websites in an instance of IIS over an ADSL dial-up modem ... > all the Windows updates downloaded and installed from MS Product Update ... > the MMC snap in tool. ... > Occasionally the traffic to my site dies and an IIS restart is required to ...
    (microsoft.public.inetserver.iis)
  • Re: I was hacked
    ... Only me noticing that the requests seemed to come from a LAN? ... To secure IIS somewhat, remove all the virtual directories even if they are ... > Do you have some kind of application level firewall on this machine? ... a series of attempts to attack IIS that the IIS log claimed were coming ...
    (microsoft.public.inetserver.iis.security)
  • Re: I was hacked
    ... I suspect the firewall looks like a typical address that a NAT ... use Apache to proxypass all requests to IIS and that way I can have some ... script to check if the url is valid and if so execute the script... ... :>: a series of attempts to attack IIS that the IIS log claimed were ...
    (microsoft.public.inetserver.iis.security)