"Resource Allocation Error"

[AYabroudy]

We've been experiencing a problem with HM for some time. HM will run fine for a while and then several tests will all of the sudden start going bad with the reply text "Resource Allocation Error". The additional message "The system cannot find the path specified." is often in the "log.htm" file. Rebooting the server running HM or restarting the HM service resolves the problem.

We've experienced this problem in several releases of HM and we are currently running the 6.82. Over the last couple of weeks this "Resource Allocation Error" problem has begun happening more and more frequently. It used to happen once every couple of weeks. Now it's happening every day or every other day, sometimes a couple of times a day.

We're running HM 6.82 on Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition R2 on a Dell PowerEdge 1950 with a 3.2Ghz Xeon and 2GB of RAM. We are running around 400 tests with a load of around 6 test/sec.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how we can reduce or eliminate this problem?

Sincerely,
Alan Yabroudy

[KS-Soft Europe]

Could you provide more information, please?
- Is HostMonitor started as a service or as an application?
- Do you use ODBC logging or ODBC Query test method? If yes, what ODBC driver do you use?
- Do you have installed antivirus monitor? Personal firewall? Content monitoring software? Non-standard winsock components? Network packet analyzer?
- Do you see any error messages in Event Viewer (Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer applet)?
- What exact test methods do show the "Resource Allocation Error"?

Can you check resource usage for each process? You may use standard Windows Task Manager to check Handles, GDI and USER objects. What is the total resource usage on your system? How many Handles, GDI and USER objects are used by hostmon.exe process? What exact process does use the most of resources?

To avoid resource allocation error you should change some registry settings, described below:
According to the Microsoft, you should change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems\Windows registry key.
There are present SharedSection parameter. By default, it is set as SharedSection=1024,3072,512. We recommend you to increase second and third values. You should set SharedSection=1024,6144,1024
Please read following articles to understand the meaning of changes:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;126962
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184802/

Please note: foregoing articles contain information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs.

Regards,
Max

[AYabroudy]

Could you provide more information, please?

Gladly!

- Is HostMonitor started as a service or as an application?

HostMonitor is running as a service

- Do you use ODBC logging or ODBC Query test method? If yes, what ODBC driver do you use?

We are not doing ODBC logging or ODBC query tests. We do perform a few MS SQL check tests.

- Do you have installed antivirus monitor? Personal firewall? Content monitoring software? Non-standard winsock components? Network packet analyzer?

We are running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5.0i.

- Do you see any error messages in Event Viewer (Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer applet)?

Unfortunately, no.

- What exact test methods do show the "Resource Allocation Error"?

HTTP Test

Can you check resource usage for each process? You may use standard Windows Task Manager to check Handles, GDI and USER objects. What is the total resource usage on your system? How many Handles, GDI and USER objects are used by hostmon.exe process? What exact process does use the most of resources?

The following resource usage stats below represent the system when it is not throwing resource allocation errors:
Total Handles = 18969
Total Threads = 739
Total Processes = 50

hostmon.exe is using the most resources:
Handles = 4773
User Objects = 164
GDI Objects = 245

To avoid resource allocation error you should change some registry settings, described below:
According to the Microsoft, you should change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems\Windows registry key.
There are present SharedSection parameter. By default, it is set as SharedSection=1024,3072,512. We recommend you to increase second and third values. You should set SharedSection=1024,6144,1024
Please read following articles to understand the meaning of changes:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;126962
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184802/

Please note: foregoing articles contain information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs.

We made the change you recommended on Friday and haven't had a resource allocation error since then but they don't generally occur during weekends often.

Regards,
Max

Thank you for the quick and detailed response! KS-Soft has the best technical support of any organization I deal with! I really appreciate how quickly you respond to forum posts.

Sincerely,
Alan Yabroudy

[KS-Soft Europe]

We are running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5.0i.

Most of antiviruses, like Symantec, McAfee, TrendMicro often leads to problems, they even can crash HostMonitor. At the same time antivirus scanners work fine (scanner - module that checks files and processes from time to time, scanners does not modify system DLLs and registry, does not intercept TCP traffic and so on). If you are unable to disable antivirus, we recommend at least to disable real-time protection module or include HostMonitor into exclusions list. In fact, we recommend to install HostMonitor onto clean system.

hostmon.exe is using the most resources:Handles = 4773

Too many handles... But it might ne caused by antivirus. Could you try to disable antivirus for a while? Just for testing?

Thank you for the quick and detailed response!

You are welcome!

KS-Soft has the best technical support of any organization I deal with! I really appreciate how quickly you respond to forum posts.

Thank you very much! We appreciate your opinion.

Regards,
Max