Windows service not working (win 11)

[mtwango]

It used to work a while back, can't say if something changed in Windows or code. Starting as service will throw error, since it will be checking for sphere.ini in C:\Windows\System32 instead of actual sphere directory. I guess the part with changing directory in WinMain doesn't work.

Tested on Windows 11 [Version 10.0.26100.3775]

[mtwango]

I've traced the issue here: b9cf3e3

And its not the directory change. I guess it has to be something with the linker forgetting to link stuff.

[cbnolok]

Do you have an output error, an exit code or anything to further investigating it?

[mtwango]

Not yet, hopefully I can get something more usefull tomorrow. Its kinda hard to debug windows service. I was able to build before and after that commit, to check where it stopped working. From sphere I get "starting service (null) and thats it. Dispatching to service control seems ok.

[mtwango]

During service installation SphereSvrX64_nightly.exe -k install I get error:

AppName SphereSvrX64_nightly.exe 
  AppVersion 1.1.0.4032 
  AppTimeStamp 681ee876 
  ModuleName ntdll.dll 
  ModuleVersion 10.0.26100.3912 
  ModuleTimeStamp bae89f93 
  ExceptionCode c0000005 
  FaultingOffset 0000000000062673 
  ProcessId 0xe974 
  ProcessCreationTime 0x1dbc3d000654aae 
  AppPath C:\sphereX\SphereSvrX64_nightly.exe 
  ModulePath C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll 
  IntegratorReportId 7dfcc54f-8123-498f-9add-ee00f8bc5908 
  PackageFullName  
  PackageRelativeAppId  

Which I think is related to #1403, but service gets intalled. Log file contains:

08:26:Installing Service. (null)
08:26:Install OK Test (Sphere X)

When the service is started, it immediately shuts down with errors: A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the SphereServer - Test (Sphere X) service to connect. (Event ID 7009)

and second error from log (Event ID 7000):

The SphereServer - Test (Sphere X service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

The log file gets created in C:\Windows\System32\sphere2025-05-13.log with content:

Log date: 2025/05/13 08:30:43
08:30:ERROR:Can't find file 'sphere.ini' in any of the expected paths!.

If I modify the exe path with -I=path/to/ini argument in the service (for example with sc command: sc config "SphereServer - Test (Sphere X)" binPath= "C:\sphereX\SphereSvrX64_nightly -I=\"C:\sphereX\\""

Starting service doesn't die immediately, seems like it started loading. The ini file is loaded and the logfile gets created in proper directory, but service dies also.

Sphere log contains:

08:43:Starting Service. (null)
08:44:Starting Service. (null)
08:44:Starting Service. (null)

Windows event log = this is probably the culprit (Event ID 1000):

EventData 
  AppName SphereSvrX64_nightly.exe 
  AppVersion 1.1.0.4032 
  AppTimeStamp 681ee876 
  ModuleName ucrtbase.dll 
  ModuleVersion 10.0.26100.3912 
  ModuleTimeStamp bd96a17b 
  ExceptionCode c0000409 
  FaultingOffset 00000000000a4ace 
  ProcessId 0x1e08 
  ProcessCreationTime 0x1dbc3d264826d1e 
  AppPath C:\sphereX\SphereSvrX64_nightly.exe 
  ModulePath C:\WINDOWS\System32\ucrtbase.dll 
  IntegratorReportId 496daacd-2703-4071-a318-bce59456ed6e 
  PackageFullName  
  PackageRelativeAppId  

And then log with Event ID 7031: The SphereServer - Test (Sphere X) service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 10000 milliseconds: Restart the service.