ASP.NET Restart Problem

We are experiencing the following problems concerning ASP.NET: our
ASP.NET application, written in .NET 1.1 platform, and hosted in IIS 5.0
environment, experience frequent session timeout problem. After tracing, we
find that it should be caused by "ASP.NET Application Restart" (proved by
incremented counter for "Application Restarts" of "ASP.NET 1.1.4322" in
"Performance" whenever the timeout happens).

From MSDN documentation, we find that the possible reasons are:
- changes in web.config or machine.config
- changes in files in \bin folder
- new folder under web application folder
- changes of files under web application folder
Besides, MS KB also tells us of the possible effect of anti-virus
product. However, we have eliminated the above factors (no files added /
modified, anti-virus product shut down), and the problem remains.

So, we want to ask for the following:
1. We want to know the exact / detailed reason why asp.net application
would restart (e.g. if caused by files changes, which file? what application
changes that file?), is there any place / log file we can find for that?
2. is there any reason behinds those listed above that would cause the
restart?
3. Any method to turn off the ASP.NET restart function
4. If it is turned off, what will be the side effect

The following is more details of the OS environment:
- Windows Server 2000 Sp4 (Eng.)
- .NET 1.1 (no hotfix applied explicitly unless downloaded through windows
update)
- IIS 5.0 (no hotfix applied explicitly unless downloaded through windows
update)

=?Utf-8?B?YW1kaXNoaWdo?=

have a look at your application log on the webserver. it lists the reason
for the asp.net process restart.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney
[ASP.NET MVP http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx]
Got tidbits? Get it here... http://tinyurl.com/27cok
"amdishigh" <> wrote in message
news:40839B34-7DF5-4265-B61C-...
> We are experiencing the following problems concerning ASP.NET: our
> ASP.NET application, written in .NET 1.1 platform, and hosted in IIS 5.0
> environment, experience frequent session timeout problem. After tracing,
> we
> find that it should be caused by "ASP.NET Application Restart" (proved by
> incremented counter for "Application Restarts" of "ASP.NET 1.1.4322" in
> "Performance" whenever the timeout happens).
>
> From MSDN documentation, we find that the possible reasons are:
> - changes in web.config or machine.config
> - changes in files in \bin folder
> - new folder under web application folder
> - changes of files under web application folder
> Besides, MS KB also tells us of the possible effect of anti-virus
> product. However, we have eliminated the above factors (no files added /
> modified, anti-virus product shut down), and the problem remains.
>
> So, we want to ask for the following:
> 1. We want to know the exact / detailed reason why asp.net application
> would restart (e.g. if caused by files changes, which file? what
> application
> changes that file?), is there any place / log file we can find for that?
> 2. is there any reason behinds those listed above that would cause the
> restart?
> 3. Any method to turn off the ASP.NET restart function
> 4. If it is turned off, what will be the side effect
>
> The following is more details of the OS environment:
> - Windows Server 2000 Sp4 (Eng.)
> - .NET 1.1 (no hotfix applied explicitly unless downloaded through windows
> update)
> - IIS 5.0 (no hotfix applied explicitly unless downloaded through windows
> update)
>
>
>
>
>

Alvin Bruney [MVP]

Hi Alvin,

Thank you for your reply. But what source should we look at? Is it "ASP.NET [Version No]" (our version no is 1.1.4322.0)? Our problem - ASP.NET AppDomain Restart - does not make a new entry there of this source. Should we configure any switch to turn this logging on?

Regards,
Patrick

"Alvin Bruney [MVP]" wrote:

> have a look at your application log on the webserver. it lists the reason
> for the asp.net process restart.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Alvin Bruney
> [ASP.NET MVP http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx]
> Got tidbits? Get it here... http://tinyurl.com/27cok
> "amdishigh" <> wrote in message
> news:40839B34-7DF5-4265-B61C-...
> > We are experiencing the following problems concerning ASP.NET: our
> > ASP.NET application, written in .NET 1.1 platform, and hosted in IIS 5.0
> > environment, experience frequent session timeout problem. After tracing,
> > we
> > find that it should be caused by "ASP.NET Application Restart" (proved by
> > incremented counter for "Application Restarts" of "ASP.NET 1.1.4322" in
> > "Performance" whenever the timeout happens).
> >
> > From MSDN documentation, we find that the possible reasons are:
> > - changes in web.config or machine.config
> > - changes in files in \bin folder
> > - new folder under web application folder
> > - changes of files under web application folder
> > Besides, MS KB also tells us of the possible effect of anti-virus
> > product. However, we have eliminated the above factors (no files added /
> > modified, anti-virus product shut down), and the problem remains.
> >
> > So, we want to ask for the following:
> > 1. We want to know the exact / detailed reason why asp.net application
> > would restart (e.g. if caused by files changes, which file? what
> > application
> > changes that file?), is there any place / log file we can find for that?
> > 2. is there any reason behinds those listed above that would cause the
> > restart?
> > 3. Any method to turn off the ASP.NET restart function
> > 4. If it is turned off, what will be the side effect
> >
> > The following is more details of the OS environment:
> > - Windows Server 2000 Sp4 (Eng.)
> > - .NET 1.1 (no hotfix applied explicitly unless downloaded through windows
> > update)
> > - IIS 5.0 (no hotfix applied explicitly unless downloaded through windows
> > update)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>

=?Utf-8?B?YW1kaXNoaWdo?=

Hi Patrick,

As for the asp.net application restart problem. Yes, the reasons you listed
in the first message covered almost all the general causes. In addition,
you may also have a look at the <processModel> setting in the
machine.config file and the this element has some certain attributes for
example, the
1. responseDeadlockInterval attribute which specifies the time interval,
in standard process model format (hr:min:sec), after which the process will
be restarted if the following conditions are met:
a.There are queued requests.
b.There has not been a response during this interval. The default is 3
minutes.

2.memoryLimit attribute which specifies the maximum allowed memory size,
as a percentage of total system memory, that the worker process can consume
before ASP.NET launches a new process and reassigns existing requests. The
default is 60 percent. If the application's memeory use exceed this
limitation, the application will also restart.

#<processModel> Element
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...cessmodelSecti
on.asp?frame=true

In addition, generally such application restart behavior may have some logs
info in the Server's EventViewers. You can have a further check in the
Application node of the EventViewer to see whether it can provide any
clues. Thanks.

Regards,

Steven Cheng
Microsoft Online Support

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
(This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
rights.)

Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx

Steven Cheng[MSFT]

Hi Steven,

Thx for your reply. Concerning the "processModel" setting, is this controlling the "worker process" restart and/or application restart? From my understanding, it would lead to worker process start but not application restart; and my monitoring shows we are experiencing session timeout coz of application restart.

For the "application log" in event log, what source should we monitor for? Is it "ASP.NET [version]"? Searching for this yields not much result; the only entries we found are "asp.net unexpectedly ended" that appear when aspnet_wp.exe is killed in task manager. If that's not the correct source, what else should we look at? We are getting quite many / frequent new entries in application log so it would be quite difficult to locate the exact entries should the source not known.

Thank in advance!


"Steven Cheng[MSFT]" wrote:

> Hi Patrick,
>
> As for the asp.net application restart problem. Yes, the reasons you listed
> in the first message covered almost all the general causes. In addition,
> you may also have a look at the <processModel> setting in the
> machine.config file and the this element has some certain attributes for
> example, the
> 1. responseDeadlockInterval attribute which specifies the time interval,
> in standard process model format (hr:min:sec), after which the process will
> be restarted if the following conditions are met:
> a.There are queued requests.
> b.There has not been a response during this interval. The default is 3
> minutes.
>
> 2.memoryLimit attribute which specifies the maximum allowed memory size,
> as a percentage of total system memory, that the worker process can consume
> before ASP.NET launches a new process and reassigns existing requests. The
> default is 60 percent. If the application's memeory use exceed this
> limitation, the application will also restart.
>
> #<processModel> Element
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...cessmodelSecti
> on.asp?frame=true
>
> In addition, generally such application restart behavior may have some logs
> info in the Server's EventViewers. You can have a further check in the
> Application node of the EventViewer to see whether it can provide any
> clues. Thanks.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steven Cheng
> Microsoft Online Support
>
> Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
> (This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
> rights.)
>
> Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx
>
>
>

=?Utf-8?B?YW1kaXNoaWdo?=

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your followup. Yes, the <processModel> limitations I mentioned
is concerned with asp.net process's recycle issue. Since you mentioned that
your application only restart the application domain, yes? How do you find
this behavior? Just by noticing that the sessionstates are lost?
I think you can try adding some codes in the Global object's
Application_Start event and write a log file to see whether the application
is really random restarted and also the Server.GetLastError api may help
provide some info on whether there is any error at that time.
Thanks.

Regards,

Steven Cheng
Microsoft Online Support

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
(This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
rights.)

Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx

Steven Cheng[MSFT]

Hi Patrick,

Since you found that the "Application Restart" counter increase in your
performance monitor, how much is its top value? Also, are there many other
asp.net web applications running on this machine? The "Application Resart"
counter may log all the applications on the server's restart event.

Regards,

Steven Cheng
Microsoft Online Support

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
(This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
rights.)

Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx

Steven Cheng[MSFT]

Hi Steven,

The server host two ASP.NET application; and two of them exhibit the same session timeout problem. And the counter value would keep incrementing until the server is rebooted. The top value we have noticed of is around 80 times. One more thing worth to mention is that the "worker process restart" is always very low (always 0; seldom incresed to 2 -3); so i think we can eliminate the chance that the session timeout is actually caused by worker process restart but mistakenly thought as caused by application restart?

Regards,
Patrick

"Steven Cheng[MSFT]" wrote:

> Hi Patrick,
>
> Since you found that the "Application Restart" counter increase in your
> performance monitor, how much is its top value? Also, are there many other
> asp.net web applications running on this machine? The "Application Resart"
> counter may log all the applications on the server's restart event.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steven Cheng
> Microsoft Online Support
>
> Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
> (This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
> rights.)
>
> Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx
>
>
>
>

=?Utf-8?B?YW1kaXNoaWdo?=

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your reply. Then, are there any unhandled exceptions occur in
the applicatoin? As far as I know ,when there is unhandled exception occur
in application, the current session will also ended and a new one start.
In addition, does the problem occur when you're visiting some particular
pages in the application? Or is that any particular operations in the web
application which is possbile to cause the restart?


Regards,

Steven Cheng
Microsoft Online Support

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
(This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
rights.)

Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx

Steven Cheng[MSFT]

Hi Steven,

What type of "unhandled exception" would trigger this? We've experienced some type of unhandled exception in our application that would cause the notorious yellow error page (showing the details what errors occured and where) to appear. Is there some other more serious exception that would trigger the application to restart? And, in that case, is there any exception handler that can be defined on the application, like in global.asax, that can capture such unhandled exception? Thank you very much!

Regards,
Patrick

"Steven Cheng[MSFT]" wrote:

> Hi Patrick,
>
> Thanks for your reply. Then, are there any unhandled exceptions occur in
> the applicatoin? As far as I know ,when there is unhandled exception occur
> in application, the current session will also ended and a new one start.
> In addition, does the problem occur when you're visiting some particular
> pages in the application? Or is that any particular operations in the web
> application which is possbile to cause the restart?
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Steven Cheng
> Microsoft Online Support
>
> Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
> (This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
> rights.)
>
> Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx
>
>
>
>

=?Utf-8?B?YW1kaXNoaWdo?=