SNABASE Hangs When 256th Process Added to Internal Process Table

ID: Q188893

The information in this article applies to:

SYMPTOMS

The Control Panel Services tool may indicate that the SnaBase service is not running even though Snabase.exe appears in the Windows NT Task List. If you attempt to stop the SnaBase service from an MS-DOS command prompt when it is in this state, it results in an error message indicating that the service cannot be controlled in this state.


CAUSE

The Snadmod.dll file (running underneath the SnaBase service) keeps track of each SNA application that is running on a system in a table that can contain up to 255 entries. This problem can occur if the table is full and a two hundred fifty sixth entry is added to the table. The addition of the two hundred fifty sixth entry to a table defined for 255 entries causes memory owned by other SNA Server processes to be overwritten, which can cause unpredictable results. In this case, the result was that the SnaBase service stopped responding and could no longer respond to requests.


RESOLUTION

SNA Server 3.0

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for SNA Server version 3.0. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q184307 How to Obtain the Latest SNA Server Version 3.0 Service Pack

SNA Server 4.0

This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft SNA Server version 4.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining this Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces): 


   S E R V P A C K


STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SNA Server, versions 3.0, 3.0 SP1, 3.0 SP2, 3.0 SP3, 4.0, and 4.0 SP1. This problem was first corrected in SNA Server 3.0 Service Pack 4.


MORE INFORMATION

Although this problem can potentially occur on an SNA Server system, the only reported occurrence of this problem was on Windows NT clients for SNA Server. In this case, the clients were no longer able to accept new connections to process incoming APPC requests.

The table that is used to track the active SNA applications should rarely reach 255 entries because it is rare to have 255 distinct, active SNA applications on a single SNA Server or client.

Additional query words: 


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Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbbug

Last Reviewed: July 8, 1999