We use VC to execute a number of applications on the local server.

These have been running fine for over a year but 2 months ago, on version 4.9.40, the tasks started failing. Running the applications through the command line worked fine, but VC would fail. The only change was windows updates were applied 2 weeks before.

We removed all reference to VC and reinstaled 5.3.1, then recreated all the jobs manually. This morning, after windows updates this weekend, the jobs started to fail again.

The jobs are running every 15 mins for a few hours at a time, then just failing. Trying to stop the VC service, it seems to stop but does not allow us to restart the service. Eventually we have to log off and back on, then restart the service. Then the tasks will run, sometimes.

Any known issues like this? Anywhere we can check for troubleshooting?

This is a critical issue in a production enviroment for us.

1. How does the Tasks fail? What error do you get?
2. What do the failing Tasks do?

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1)

10/26/2009 3:36:15 PM Err Exception in Task: Non zero exit code
10/26/2009 3:36:15 PM Err Task "TASK NAME" exited with code: 77777(VisualCron specific error)
10/26/2009 3:36:15 PM Info Task completed: TASK NAME (1120)

I also seem to be getting this error on some tasks:

10/26/2009 3:53:24 PM Err Error OpenDesktop: 5 - Access is denied


2)

We have executables that, for example, perform certain file conversion tasks - we use the VC Execute function to execute these executables. Some have arguments, some don't.

They all run in hidden windows, with profile, with a domain user account that is a local admin and has privs to any other relevant file stores.

As said, this has been running sicne we rebuilt it 2 months ago, without issue.

1. Have you restarted the server since the error?
2. Have you tried changing from API to Managed execution?

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Yes we restarted - some tasks are running, some fail.

What is the difference in API vs Managed?

Managed - we just .NET functions
API - we just Windows API

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If you compare those that are running from those are not - are those that are not running using the same user?

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1. Have you restarted the server since the error?

We have restarted the Visual Cron service, not the server. When this happened previously, restarting the server did not correct the problem.

We will be unable to restart the server for another 2 hours, due to other jobs running on the server.

If you compare those that are running from those are not - are those that are not running using the same user?

All jobs are using the same credentials. The account is no locked out. In order to run the job manually, we need to do a RUNAS, and then use the same credentials as entered into VC.

Did you try the Managed mode?

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We changed to Managed and seem to have hit an issue with the permissions.

Some of the processes do file conversions to a file share on a remote server. It appears after changing to managed code, it was not accessing the file share correctly using the stored credentials (with profile).

After changing back to API, it appears to be accessing the shares successfully again.

Did you try restarting the server yesterday - did API work better then?

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We did not restart the server but we did restart the VC service.

When this happened 2 months ago, restarting the server had no effect.