eXpress Server service does not start

[Migration User]

Hi,

We have a DS 6.9 spk3 in a windows 2003 server (sql in same box)

Altiris eXpress Server does could not start
error 1053: the service did not respond to the star control request in a timely fashion

Have anyone experience similar issues?? I am wondering what can be broken as this start happening couple days ago (on updates has been applied to server)

I apply some script to check database but there is not error in the report!!!

Anyone have any suggestion how to address this problem..

Thanks for your help in advance....

[ianatkin]

Hi,

Do you have any logs you can share, and I take it this issue persists after a reboot? Also worth checking that any AV/Malware blocking software isn't doing a nasty on you...

Kind Regards,
Ian./

[Migration User]

When do you get this error, or where does it appear?  It's not clear to me when this pops up.  Do you try to restart a particular service when this appears, or is it in the logs, or is it there when you log in at the beginning of the day?

[Migration User]

Hi,

I checked but I do not have specific logs related to the problem...and yes the problem persist after restart

As I mentioned before the event viewer said  " The altiris eXpress Serve service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not resond to the start or control rquest in a timely fashion"

I ran a script with the following result

Transaction Log Size = 2 :Checked OK
MM Settings  = 1 :Checked OK
Subnets   = 126 :Checked OK
Wake On LAN Proxies = 4 :Checked OK
Multicast Proxies = 0 :Checked OK
Use Multicast  = 0 :Checked OK
Connections  = 0 :Checked OK

What I did not mentioned before was there is also and eXpressDatabase error
Error 17: SQL server does not exist or access denied   (I checked the permission for the Database access and it was ok)

I am not sure is these two issues are related or are totally separted problems

Sorry I can not give you more details, maybe you can guide me where to get some more information in order to be more helpful...

Thank you

[Migration User]

The altiris eXpress Serve service is not running, and the error pop up when I try to restart the service...

[ianatkin]

Hi,

This is odd -if the express server cannot run because of NT authentication at the OS or SQL level, a nice logon error is usually presented. So, this rules out account expiry on the service account, password changes and SQL security.

The fact though that you can run a vb script to access the database directly, but also get a SQL server access denied message. This is fairly contradictory!

Have you tried turning off temporarily any malware/AV scanning on this box to see if that helps the express service? 

Could you also step through the sequence of errors you are getting in your eventlogs, and let us know what other Altiris/Windows services are failing to start (if any?).

[Migration User]

For the error “Error 17: SQL server does not exist or access denied  “, it was fixed by running thefollowing from cmd
 
sc config "Altiris Deployment Server Data Manager" depend= MSSQLSERVER
sc config "Altiris Deployment Server DB Management" depend= MSSQLSERVER
sc config "Altiris eXpress Server" depend= "Altiris Deployment Server DB Management"
 
Problem at this time:
Deployment Console is not responding in time, just hang there when a task is enable to run for a client computer….

When I opened the services.msc I can see Altiris eXpress Server have not started

When I try to run the service, then an error msg popup:    “Could not start the Altiris eXpress Server service on Local computer. Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
 
.So far the Altiris eXpress server service is the only one failing to start…..

.I stopped AV scanning and no difference…
.I also stopped other altiris services, then I started Altiris express server first, but not different..

.In event viewer the only error msg so far is “The Altiris eXpress Server service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion”

I hope the above information could give you a better idea of the problem….

Thanks for your time in advance…much appreciated

Marc

[ianatkin]

RIght -I've got you now.

First to your SQL error. Normally when you reboot the server Deployment Server will log the precise error because DS is trying to start before the backend SQL services are up and running. This is fine -the services will sort themselves out automatically once SQL is up.

Your solution of putting in the dependency for MSSQLSERVER ensures the service doesn't fire up before SQL does, and hence removes this transient problem.

So, what you have is a problem isolated to your axengine (the underlying process which we call the Altiris Express Server Service). This handles all the client communications. 

Is it possible that someone has hotfixed axengine? Or restored from backup and old axengine? My first thoughts to resolve this one are to reinstall Deployment Server. Re-run setup, and choose to use the existing express database. This should take about 30minutes, and will ensure you've got all your files at the correct versions.

Ensure you've got a full server backup before doing this ;-)

[Migration User]

Thanks for your advise ianatkin, I will consider the option to rerun setup at this time as I do not see any other thing to try or test...

[ianatkin]

If it helps, the correct version of axengine for DS6.9SP3 is 6.9.430, but it might be that dependencies are missing. I haven't got my dependency walker to hand to confirm the other files and versions at the moment.

[Migration User]

I tried to start the services in different order with the following result:

..If I start express server first it is ok, but deployment server does not start
..If I start deployment server first, express server service does not start

the path on both is::  "altiris\express\deployment server\axengine.exe -service"

I tried reinstall Deployment server, but same issue?????

[ianatkin]

Hi Marc,

Could you clarify what services you have? For 6.9SP1-3 you should see something like the following,



Is this what you have?? The web console is optional.
 

[Migration User]

Hi Ian,

It seem that our server need some house cleaning!!!

When the server is restarted the following information is available in the Services

Name	Status	Log On As
Altiris Client Service	Off	Local System
Altiris Deployment Server	Started	Local system
Altiris Deployment Server Console Manager	Started	Local system
Altiris Deployment Server Data Manager	Started	Service account
Altiris Deployment Server DB Management	Started	Service account
Altiris eXpress Server		Service account
Altiris PXE Config Helper	Started	Local system
Altiris PXE Manager	Started	Local system
Altiris PXE MTFTP Server	Started	Local System
Altiris PXE Server	Started	Local System

 
I am wondering about  "Altiris Cleint service" and Altiris Deployent Server" in our services!!
If I try to restart "Altiris eXpress Server" I get error 1053

I hope this can give you an idea what is going on (wrong) in our system and what I should remove o change...

Again, thank you very much for your time Ian.....

[ianatkin]

Hi Marc, The "Altiris Client Service" is the AClient, so it looks as though you've got installed the Deployment Server agent on the server. This isn't a great problem, and is most often seen in Deployment Server hierarchies (where you've got one DS managing other DSs). If you don't need it though, i'd remove it,

C:\program files\altiris\aclient\aclient.exe /remove

As for the "Altiris Deployment Server" service i've seen posts in the past with people referring to this. Never understood though how it pops up. But then I always install as a standalone server, rather than as a solution through NS so perhaps that's it?

What executable does this point to? And do you have a Notification Server infrastructure in your environment?

[Migration User]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the quick respond,

The Altiris Deployment server point to:    altiris\express\deployment server\axengine.exe -service".....(same path as where altiris express server point)

We have a Notification server infrastructure. For the records, in the beginning Sql, DS and NS were installed in same virtual box (eg. svr1). Then NS was moved to a new server (svr2) to improve performance in svr1 as it was slows.

Therefore at this current time; we have svr1 (virtual server) that  host Sql 2005 and DS 6.9 and svr2 (virtual server) that host NS 7 ( but performance in svr1 has not improve much anyway)

If you need any other information, please just let me know 

Thanks

[ianatkin]

Out of interest, what happens if you set the service "Altiris Deployment Server" to manual, and reboot the server?

[Migration User]

I forgot to mentioned that, sorry:

 I configured "Altiris Deployment Server" service to manual and rebooted the server,..

After the restart and I checked the services and  "altiris eXpress Server" service Started ok....

What happend if I leave the "Altiris Deployment Server" service manual?? could it affect something, I am not sure how or when this service came to action...may be was there all the time and something else changed...

[ianatkin]

Hi Marc, I don't know where this service originates from. Its a duplicate and i'd get rid of it with the following command,

sc delete "Altiris Deployment Server"

So now that the "Altiris Express Server" starts, is everything sorted? Does your console work properly?

[Migration User]

Hi Ian,

So far "altiris eXpress server" service is running ok after "Altiris Deployment Server" was disabled...

I will keep on eye during this week to see how the client-server respond time is regarding to task deployment and connectivity

The server respond in general is still slow, but I think that is a different matter (may be to separate Sql and DS into their own virtual server), which is the next task to look into.....

I guess the problem for "Altiris eXpress server" service has been resolved at this time

I just want to thank you for you help and guideline in this matter...

Have a nice week....

[Migration User]

If you are putting them both into a virtual server, there are a couple of caveats.  Make sure that you have alloted enough memory and processor.  This is probably one of the number one causes of slowness.  Ideally, the SQL server should be separated onto it's own box, but if that is not possible, you should consider placing the SQL storage on faster disk and not on the same storage that the OS will run on in the virtual hdd.

[Migration User]

Thanks bhawer,

I will consider the option to have Sql in its on box, I  think this is the best option at this time..