Deadlock in Service Control Manager During System Shut Down

• 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 following fix or wait for the next Windows NT service pack.

This fix should have the following time stamp:

   08/25/97  05:00               246,544 Advapi32.dll (Intel)
   08/25/97  04:59               411,920 Advapi32.dll (Alpha)

   08/12/97  07:14               131,856 Services.exe (Intel)
   08/12/97  06:13               242,448 Services.exe (Alpha)

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 4.0. A supported fix is now available, but has not been fully regression-tested and should be applied only to systems experiencing this specific problem. Unless you are severely impacted by this specific problem, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next Service Pack that contains this fix. Contact Microsoft Technical Support for more information.