32-bit application on 64-bit windows

[Micke_nova]

Hi!

Has anyone encounter this problem:

On our dell 1955 64bit machine's we have installed ESX 3.0.1 and on that windows 2003 standard 64 bit. This virtual machines have IIS (in 32 bit compatible mode), dot net frameworks (64 bit mode) and Active Reports (32 bit) This combination generated problems like; windows hangs, corrupted memory and nic connections problems, when we generated a report.

So how did we found that out; we did the same configuration on a physical machine (no ESX just windows) everything works fine. After that we separated Active Reports and IIS to run on a 32-bit virtual machine and Dot Net frameworks together with IIS on to a 64bit machine. WORK fine. conclusion vmware ESX tougher with Windows 64bit and 32bit application on it don't work!!!

[calvind]

I had the same issue with a 64 bit SQL with Reporting Services running on ASP.NET in 32 bit mode which sounds like what you are seeing. This KB from Microsoft fixed it:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923028

[agesen]

I'd very much like of someone could file an SR on this

apparently serious problem so that we can get it

investigated asap.

Please email me the SR number or post it here,

whichever you prefer.

Sincerely,

Ole Agesen, VMware Monitor Group.

[GBromage]

Just a thought, but what happens when you try running it on a VM machine WITHOUT vmware tools installed.

If the problem is with thunking and memory pointers, maybe not having the VMWare memory management / baloon driver might help.

[EdTafoya]

Well I will not be filing an SR on this issue as my developers are moving back to 32-bit and do not want to spend any more calories on this issue. I can say that turning off memory sharing appeared to solve the issue. There were a few more errors thrown during testing but they pointed to some scripting issues and not memory issues.

I would have liked to drive this to resolution but my role is an admin for the ESX environment, I do not do any actual testing, just land, monitor, and ensure the ESX Virtual Pod is running. The customers drive my priorities and right now it is no longer this issue.

Eddie

[calvind]

Looking back I would guess that a good number of you are running in .net 2.0. I would advise checking the KB I posted as the .Net Framework is a common thread as drez pointed out earlier.

[agrusers]

We've now tried to apply the patch mentioned above (even though we don't use Remoting in our app). We've also set the sched.mem.pshare.enable setting to false, but it still crashes.

This is what we have in our .vmx file for the VM that crashes.

\----

---

#!/usr/bin/vmware

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "4"

floppy0.present = "false"

nvram = "vm47test553uc.nvram"

powerType.powerOff = "default"

powerType.powerOn = "default"

powerType.suspend = "default"

powerType.reset = "default"

displayName = "vm47test553uc"

extendedConfigFile = "vm47test553uc.vmxf"

sched.mem.pshare.enable = "false"[/b]

scsi0.present = "true"

scsi0.sharedBus = "none"

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"

memsize = "1048"

scsi0:0.present = "true"

scsi0:0.fileName = "vm47test553uc-000001.vmdk"

scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"

ide1:0.present = "true"

ide1:0.fileName = "/dev/cdrom"

ide1:0.deviceType = "atapi-cdrom"

ethernet0.present = "true"

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"

ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "false"

ethernet0.networkName = "VM Network"

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"

chipset.onlineStandby = "false"

guestOS = "winnetstandard-64"

sched.cpu.shares = "normal"

sched.mem.minsize = "0"

sched.mem.shares = "normal"

autostop = "poweroff"

priority.grabbed = "normal"

priority.ungrabbed = "normal"

ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

scsi0:0.redo = ""

ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:0b:c5:e0"

uuid.location = "56 4d 66 67 ef a6 46 d6-f2 94 58 ea ce 0b c5 e0"

uuid.bios = "56 4d 66 67 ef a6 46 d6-f2 94 58 ea ce 0b c5 e0"

sched.swap.derivedName = "/vmfs/volumes/46642fb1-1f0be2da-754d-001a4ba6f6c0/vm47test553uc/vm47test553uc-d37630a8.vswp"

logging = "FALSE"

checkpoint.vmState.readOnly = "FALSE"

checkpoint.vmState = ""

[drez]

We've also tried the Hotfix and also the sched.mem.pshare.enable=false setting. Still crashes all the time.

[EdTafoya]

After you set the memory sharing to false did you restart your VM?

I found that in order for the setting to take the VM had to be restarted.

[agrusers]

The VM was shut down before this setting was applied.

[vladojko]

Hi,

I am currious what kind of hardware you are using? I have same issue, and setting pshare flag to false (as suggested by Vmware support ) did not help. But, two weeks ago I got new AMD based server to play with - all other machines we were using were Intel based. The same 64bit virtual machines, that were constantly giving application crashes, now work without any problem at all!

[peacemaker1500]

We have seen the issue on both Physical and VMware boxes, it appears to be related to either R2 SP2 or SP2 on windows 2003 boxes.

64 bit OS running IIS in 32 bit mode of the dot net framework version 2.

No Dot net applications will run we continue to get application exceptions, and have rolled our systems back to none R2 none SP2 OS versions.

We will test again with SP2 none R2 and then R2 none SP2, to narrow down the problem.

We had a case open with MS for 3 weeks, they were no help at all.

We have over 200 servers, so we have a good testing ground

[agrusers]

I think both of the ESX servers are Intel.

I've tried to investigate this further on Workstation 6.0, one Intel based and one AMD. They've more or less behaved the same way.

[agrusers]

Interesting. We have still only seen this on VM machines. As soon as we set up the servers on physical boxes, it ceases to crash. We also converted a physical machine to a VmWare machine and it suddenly started to crash there as well.

We have both R2 and standard 2003 but I think all of them have SP2 installed, so I'll set up a new machine tomorrow without SP 2.

[Chris_McKown]

Has anyone come to a conclusion as to what the problem here is? We have been fighting this for days and are still scratching our heads. We are running ESX 3.0.2 with the latest tools installed on our guest OS. (Windows 2003 x64 SP2)

- Chris

[agrusers]

I still have a lof of testing to do, but I haven't had a crash since I installed this patch

I would be very interested to hear if this patch helps for anyone else.

Direct download link:

[James_Arenth]

Intel, Server 2003 STD x64 SP1

Page Sharing Disabled

.NET 2.0, SQL 2005, Studio 2005, BizTalk 2006

"Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt."

"Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation"

"The operation could not be completed. Invalid pointer"

[wila]

Not specifically a 32 bit / 64 bit issue, but here's another document from MS that talks about issues with SP2 and IIS:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3BEN-US%3B934903

[peacemaker1500]

This is one of the event error types that we saw in 2 different production applications, thes exact applications were still running without error on systems that were not a new build server in both vm and physical boxes. We saw this error in both vm and physical server new build systems. Right now I have a physical box rebuilt with win 2003 Sp2 without R2 for testing and a VM without R2 or SP2 built for testing. But i need to wait on our developers to give a go ahead for their use.

Asp--ISAPI 'C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll' reported itself as unhealthy for the following reason: 'Deadlock detected'.

*************************

W3p--A process serving application pool 'DefaultAppPool' exceeded time limits during shut down. The process id was '4392'.

*********************************

W3p--Event code: 3005

Event message: An unhandled exception has occurred.

Event time: 8/17/2007 4:49:40 PM

Event time (UTC): 8/17/2007 8:49:40 PM

Event ID: 2e4bc0dec0c744e0b8f5c72c1ffe32fd

Event sequence: 32

Event occurrence: 3

Event detail code: 0

Application information:

Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/1751276442/Root/Router-2-128318572438470573

Trust level: Full

Application Virtual Path: /Router

Application Path: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Mapping\Router\

Machine name: CMHSA4WPDX005

Process information:

Process ID: 4480

Process name: w3wp.exe

Account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE

Exception information:

Exception type: WebException

Exception message: The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error.

[Hans_van_Zonnev]

Hi,

I'm also having the same errors running 32 bits apps on a 64 bits Windows 2003 R2 SP2 server. Lots of "Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt" errors when using Visual Studio and SQL Management Studio.

These errors suddenly started to appear after applying the latest ESX patches so we are now building a new ESX server without the latest patches. Any follow ups on using Windows 2003 without SP2?

Thanks,

Hans

[agrusers]

I had the same crashes on SP1.