I'll start out by saying I am BSA / Web developer being thrown into the deep
end of trying to figure out why our application is all of a sudden hanging.
We have three web servers and one database server dedicated to one ASP vended
application. Two of the web servers were part of the original installation
by the vendor. The application is used throughout the year, but most
heavily from September to February. Because of additional users, we built a
3rd machine just to be safe and put it in the farm a couple months ago.
Everything seemed to be fine until a couple weeks ago when usuage started to
pick up. Two of the web servers now hang over time (usually every few
hours), never usually at the same time, which is resolved by rebooting the
server until it then happens the next time. If you view the performance
monitor, the current connections just starts flying off the charts but if you
look at the database sessions, we may only have a dozen or so at most. The
new web server seems has not yet had an issue. For now, we have drained the
two boxes from the load balancer, allowing the 3rd server to handle all the
traffic. All three boxes are Windows 2000 SP 4. We have uninstalled and
reinstalled the application. We had the vendor walk through their
configuration. Their suggestion ....rebuild the original two boxes. Well,
having to deal with Corporate IT and the paperwork necessary (and all the
darn politics and approvals) to make this happen is not our first choice as
we are in the midst of our most busy time. Is there ANYTHING anyone can
think of that we should look at that might be different between the two boxes
and the new box? There's got to be something but right now it feels like I'm
chasing ghosts....

Thanks in advance for ANY suggestions....

RE: 3 servers - 2 hanging HELP! by DominicRyan

DominicRyan
Sun Nov 20 19:27:03 CST 2005

I assume you have scanned the event logs of the two servers that are causing
your issues? You could also try using the new debugdiag tool for tracking
down the issue. Instructions for obtaining this tool can be found in the
following links;

http://msmvps.com/bernard/archive/2005/05/27/49117.aspx

http://www.adopenstatic.com/cs/blogs/ken/archive/2005/10/05/60.aspx

"jennmk" wrote:

> I'll start out by saying I am BSA / Web developer being thrown into the deep
> end of trying to figure out why our application is all of a sudden hanging.
> We have three web servers and one database server dedicated to one ASP vended
> application. Two of the web servers were part of the original installation
> by the vendor. The application is used throughout the year, but most
> heavily from September to February. Because of additional users, we built a
> 3rd machine just to be safe and put it in the farm a couple months ago.
> Everything seemed to be fine until a couple weeks ago when usuage started to
> pick up. Two of the web servers now hang over time (usually every few
> hours), never usually at the same time, which is resolved by rebooting the
> server until it then happens the next time. If you view the performance
> monitor, the current connections just starts flying off the charts but if you
> look at the database sessions, we may only have a dozen or so at most. The
> new web server seems has not yet had an issue. For now, we have drained the
> two boxes from the load balancer, allowing the 3rd server to handle all the
> traffic. All three boxes are Windows 2000 SP 4. We have uninstalled and
> reinstalled the application. We had the vendor walk through their
> configuration. Their suggestion ....rebuild the original two boxes. Well,
> having to deal with Corporate IT and the paperwork necessary (and all the
> darn politics and approvals) to make this happen is not our first choice as
> we are in the midst of our most busy time. Is there ANYTHING anyone can
> think of that we should look at that might be different between the two boxes
> and the new box? There's got to be something but right now it feels like I'm
> chasing ghosts....
>
> Thanks in advance for ANY suggestions....
>
>

RE: 3 servers - 2 hanging HELP! by jennmk

jennmk
Sun Nov 20 20:34:01 CST 2005

Dominic:

Yes, we've reviewed the event logs and nothing noteworthy is coming up;
that's the most frustrating part.

Since we have drained these two web servers from the load balancer, no one
will be hitting them except my small development team; hopefully we'll be
able to generate whatever is the cause with some simple testing to actually
come up in the debugdiag tool. I'm going to give it a shot tomorrow morning.

"Dominic Ryan" wrote:

> I assume you have scanned the event logs of the two servers that are causing
> your issues? You could also try using the new debugdiag tool for tracking
> down the issue. Instructions for obtaining this tool can be found in the
> following links;
>
> http://msmvps.com/bernard/archive/2005/05/27/49117.aspx
>
> http://www.adopenstatic.com/cs/blogs/ken/archive/2005/10/05/60.aspx
>
> "jennmk" wrote:
>
> > I'll start out by saying I am BSA / Web developer being thrown into the deep
> > end of trying to figure out why our application is all of a sudden hanging.
> > We have three web servers and one database server dedicated to one ASP vended
> > application. Two of the web servers were part of the original installation
> > by the vendor. The application is used throughout the year, but most
> > heavily from September to February. Because of additional users, we built a
> > 3rd machine just to be safe and put it in the farm a couple months ago.
> > Everything seemed to be fine until a couple weeks ago when usuage started to
> > pick up. Two of the web servers now hang over time (usually every few
> > hours), never usually at the same time, which is resolved by rebooting the
> > server until it then happens the next time. If you view the performance
> > monitor, the current connections just starts flying off the charts but if you
> > look at the database sessions, we may only have a dozen or so at most. The
> > new web server seems has not yet had an issue. For now, we have drained the
> > two boxes from the load balancer, allowing the 3rd server to handle all the
> > traffic. All three boxes are Windows 2000 SP 4. We have uninstalled and
> > reinstalled the application. We had the vendor walk through their
> > configuration. Their suggestion ....rebuild the original two boxes. Well,
> > having to deal with Corporate IT and the paperwork necessary (and all the
> > darn politics and approvals) to make this happen is not our first choice as
> > we are in the midst of our most busy time. Is there ANYTHING anyone can
> > think of that we should look at that might be different between the two boxes
> > and the new box? There's got to be something but right now it feels like I'm
> > chasing ghosts....
> >
> > Thanks in advance for ANY suggestions....
> >
> >

Re: 3 servers - 2 hanging HELP! by Adrian

Adrian
Sun Nov 20 21:18:48 CST 2005

try this one -> Debug Diagnostics 1.0 a microsoft product.


Re: 3 servers - 2 hanging HELP! by jennmk

jennmk
Mon Nov 21 18:49:03 CST 2005

This is probably a stupid question but now that we've drained the two problem
servers from the load balancer so the end user don't utilize them, how will I
be able to make the system crash in order to capture the issues using the
Debug Diagnostics tool? It sounds like it can potentially provide me with
some valuable information but not sure how I'll be able to recreate the
issues if the servers aren't being hit by consecutive users.

"Adrian" wrote:

> try this one -> Debug Diagnostics 1.0 a microsoft product.
>
>

Re: 3 servers - 2 hanging HELP! by Ken

Ken
Thu Jan 05 20:10:52 CST 2006

Recreate the environment using your two boxes. Hit the boxes yourself. See
if you can replicate the problem. You can use tools like Microsoft WAST or
VS.NET's Application Center Test to generate the client requests. WAST is
downloadable from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e2c0585a-062a-439e-a67d-75a89aa36495&displaylang=en

Cheers
Ken

"jennmk" <jennmk@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:55ABE894-3EF8-410C-B97D-595E89C96859@microsoft.com...
: This is probably a stupid question but now that we've drained the two
problem
: servers from the load balancer so the end user don't utilize them, how
will I
: be able to make the system crash in order to capture the issues using the
: Debug Diagnostics tool? It sounds like it can potentially provide me with
: some valuable information but not sure how I'll be able to recreate the
: issues if the servers aren't being hit by consecutive users.
:
: "Adrian" wrote:
:
: > try this one -> Debug Diagnostics 1.0 a microsoft product.
: >
: >