Operation failed - (null)

[morguen]

Greetings all.

For well over six months, our SourceOffSite server has been working perfectly. However, as of this morning, it stopped functioning entirely.

Whenever a user attempts to connect, they receive an error dialogue of 'Server closed connection' and the following in the status window:

(Note that the IP address is being withheld)

----------

Connecting to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080...
Server sending 128 bit challenge.
Using 128 bit encryption to communicate with server.
Logging in...
Operation failed - (null)

----------

Do note that the only change to the server configuration the morning this happened was a user account and key were removed a few minutes beforehand.

The server is no longer generating logs as of 10:00AM this morning around the time the above error messages started being thrown.

The SOS version is 3.5.3 with Cryptography
The server interacts with VSS version 6.0
Running on Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (NT 5.2 SP1)

Any assistance you could offer would be great. Thanks for your help.

[lbauer]

Operation failed - (null)

This can indicate some type of problem with the VSS automation component, ssapi.dll file, provided by the VSS client on the SOS Server machine.

Did anything change with your VSS client configuration? A VSS client needs to be on the SOS Server machine.

Did anything change with Windows 2003 -- an update or service pack?

If you try restarting the SOS Server service, do you get an error message?

Anything in the Windows Event viewer that might provide a clue?

[morguen]

Did anything change with your VSS client configuration? A VSS client needs to be on the SOS Server machine.

There were no changes other than the ones mentioned in my original post.

Did anything change with Windows 2003 -- an update or service pack?

No changes were made to the operating system.

If you try restarting the SOS Server service, do you get an error message?

No error messages on the service restart.

Anything in the Windows Event viewer that might provide a clue?

The event viewer logs were empty.

However, we managed to create a workaround through the following procedure:

- Installed the service to a new directory.
- Pointed the service to the new directory.
- Regenerated and applied the encryption keys.

If you have any insight in regards to how everything managed to fall apart as it did, that would be most appreciated.

Thank you for your help.

[lbauer]

If you have any insight in regards to how everything managed to fall apart as it did, that would be most appreciated.

Gremlins?

Something changed, but it's not clear what. Perhaps the SOS installation became corrupted somehow.

Glad you were able to find a workaround.