Friday, November 17, 2017

Server Manager crashing - fixed!

All of a sudden Server Manager stopped working on my Windows 2016 Servers. When I launched SM it displays the dashboard that appeared to search some information, then a box popped up. See below. There has been no windows updates within a week. And it was working fine yesterday.


Checking Windows Application Log showed this error message:

Faulting application name: ServerManager.exe, version: 10.0.14393.1737, time stamp: 0x59bafc80
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.14393.1770, time stamp: 0x59bf2ba6
Exception code: 0xe0434352
Fault offset: 0x0000000000033c58
Faulting process id: 0x334
Faulting application start time: 0x01d35fdfbfc29a54
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\ServerManager.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 7f16cc8e-5221-4f10-9ed8-3f9de97760f8
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

I first attempted to fix the problem by renaming registry key

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ServerManager\ServicingStorage\ServerComponentCache
to \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ServerManager\ServicingStorage\ServerComponentCacheOLD

Upon a server reboot the key was recreated. And I was able to launch SM normally on one of the servers just for one time. The other two server still experienced the same error despite of registry changes. The working server again threw the SM error upon a second try.


I then checked the server role and features I installed lately. I found alongside the MPIO feature I wanted to install for clustering, I accidentally chose Multipath Connector at the same time. So using the registry trick I gained access to SM. Under Manage -> uninstall roles and features I quickly removed Multipath Connector for all servers. After rebooting, all are working fine now!


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9 comments:

  1. LukitoDecember 27, 2018 at 7:26 AM

    I'm able to open ServerManager.exe but it still doesn't work, when I select destination server, it seems to loop and don't go forward...

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 1, 2019 at 6:50 AM

    Thankyou for this, I did exactly the same thing as you on one of my server2019 boxes and as a consequence lost server manager on the other 4. This saved me a lot of time. Annoying that enabling this feature causes server manager to crash.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Richard DingAugust 1, 2019 at 8:01 AM

      Glad my lesson helped someone. thanks for feedback.

      Delete
  3. NorbiiNovember 1, 2019 at 8:01 AM

    MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN fkin love you. helped me a lot.:D

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousFebruary 6, 2020 at 6:08 AM

    I did exactly the same as this. Thanks for blogging it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownJuly 15, 2020 at 5:25 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  6. sherazabbasiMay 27, 2021 at 4:40 AM

    I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to start my own BlogEngine blog now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it.
    richard touil

    ReplyDelete
  7. lygoldAugust 26, 2021 at 6:04 AM

    THANK YOU. The registry key did the trick. I didn't have to restart, the server manager worked and i was able to add roles

    ReplyDelete

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