Error 1053 the service did not respond to the star

Question

I have created and installed a service a couple of times. Initially it was working fine, but after some changes in the service Code it start giving the error when I restart the service in Services.msc :

Error 1053: the service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion

Code:

public partial class AutoSMS : ServiceBase
{
    public AutoSMS()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        eventLog1.Clear();

        if (!System.Diagnostics.EventLog.SourceExists("MySource"))
        {
            System.Diagnostics.EventLog.CreateEventSource(
                "MySource", "MyNewLog");
        }
        eventLog1.Source = "MySource";
        eventLog1.Log = "MyNewLog";

        Timer checkForTime = new Timer(5000);
        checkForTime.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(checkForTime_Elapsed);
        checkForTime.Enabled = true;

    }

    protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
    {
        eventLog1.WriteEntry("In OnStart");
    }

    protected override void OnStop()
    {
        eventLog1.WriteEntry("In onStop.");
    }


    void checkForTime_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {
        string Time = "15:05:00";
        DateTime dateTime = DateTime.ParseExact(Time, "HH:mm:ss",
                                        CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

        if (DateTime.Now == dateTime) ;
            eventLog1.WriteEntry(Time);
    }
}

Here is my main method code

static void Main()
{
    ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun;
    ServicesToRun = new ServiceBase[] 
    { 
        new AutoSMS() 
    };
    ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);
}

I also tried the following steps :

• Go to Start > Run > and type regedit
• Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
• With the control folder selected, right click in the pane on the right and - select new DWORD Value
• Name the new DWORD: ServicesPipeTimeout
• Right-click ServicesPipeTimeout, and then click Modify
• Click Decimal, type '180000', and then click OK
• Restart the computer

I used to install and uninstall it with following command :

installutil AutoSMS.exe

installutil /u AutoSMS.exe

Answer 1

I encountered the same issue and was not at all sure how to resolve it. Yes this occurs because an exception is being thrown from the service, but there are a few general guidelines that you can follow to correct this:

• Check that you have written the correct code to start the service: ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun; ServicesToRun = new ServiceBase[] { new WinsowsServiceToRun() }; ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);

• You need to ensure that there is some kind of infinite loop running in the class WinsowsServiceToRun

• Finally, there may be some code which is not logging anything and closing the program abruptly (which was the case with me), in this case you will have to follow the old school of debugging which needed to write a line to a source (text/db/wherever). What I faced was that since the account running the service was not "Admin", the code was just falling off and not logging any exceptions in case it was trying to write to "Windows Event Log" even though the code was there to log exceptions. Admin privilege is actually not needed for logging to Even Log but it is needed to define the source. In case source of the event is not already defined in the system and the service tries to log it for the first time without admin privilege it fails. To solve this follow below steps:

  1. Open command prompt with admin privilege
  2. Paste the command : eventcreate /ID 1 /L APPLICATION /T INFORMATION /SO <<Source>> /D "<<SourceUsingWhichToWrite>>"
  3. Press enter
  4. Now start the service

Answer 2

This worked for me. Basically make sure the Log on user is set to the right one. However it depends how the account infrastructure is set. In my example it's using AD account user credentials.

In start up menu search box search for 'Services' -In Services find the required service -right click on and select the Log On tab -Select 'This account' and enter the required content/credentials -Ok it and start the service as usual

Answer 3

After spending too much time on this issue. I found the EventLog cause all that mess although I used it properly.

Whoever tackle this issue, I would suggest you to get rid of the EventLog. Use better tools like "log4net".

Answer 4

One of possible solutions for this problem [It fixed issue at my end and my application is JAVA based application ]:

1) check your application is pointing to correct java version(check the java version and path in your application).

OR

2)check the configured java version i.e check whether it is 32-bit version or 64-bit version(based on your application). if you are using 32-bit then you should use 32-bit version JSL, else JSL will cause this issue.

Answer 5

In my case, the issue was about caching configuration which is set in the App.config file. Once I removed below lines from the App.config file, the issue was resolved.

<cachingConfiguration defaultCacheManager="MyCacheManager">
<cacheManagers>
  <add name="MyCacheManager" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.CacheManager, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching, Version=5.0.414.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
       expirationPollFrequencyInSeconds="60"
       maximumElementsInCacheBeforeScavenging="50000"
       numberToRemoveWhenScavenging="1000"
       backingStoreName="NullBackingStore" />
</cacheManagers>
<backingStores>
  <add type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.BackingStoreImplementations.NullBackingStore, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching, Version=5.0.414.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
       name="NullBackingStore" />
</backingStores>

Answer 6

As nobody has mentioned I will add it (even if it is a stupid mistake). In case you are on Windows 10 you don't usually need to restart, but

-> Make sure to CLOSE any open properties pages of the "services"-window in case you have just installed the service (and still have opened the properties page of the old service).

I'm talking about this window:

After closing all services windows and re-trying -> it worked. In contrast to the OP I got Error 1053 basically immediately (without windows waiting on anything)