Expired APC will cause 2003 Server forever to load

[toddman33]

I just replied to this issue in another forum, but thought I'd post this so more people have a chance to see this.
MarkLappin a user in another forum was having the same problem I was. Here's his work:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1099923&page=6

The core issue is that booting Windows 2003 Server will take forever, it never blue screens but just sits on "applying computer settings" for hours before it displays the login window. Mark's post helped me figure out the issue and below I stated what I found:

Mark, thank you for your post, you helped me out. I also have Windows 2003 Server with APC and Symantec Antivirus 9.0.

I actually started experincing the slow logon right after I installed the critical updates from Windows. It would literally take 2 hours to display the log on screen but right before that it would display an Application error with IcePack.exe. IcePack.exe is the core component for Symantec Antivirus on the quaritine side, so I thought for sure it was Norton causing the slow logon. But after taking a chance and following your tip(booting to safe-mode and disabling the APC service) I was able to boot right into Windows with no lag time.

Since APC is the culprit in this problem, I was only able to find the website stating a critical update, but no descriptions on possible problems. It's looks as if once the java time is expired, your server will take forever to load windows if the APC service is still enabled. What a huge problem.

Also APC on their website states:
CRITICAL UPDATE REQUIRED PowerChute Business Edition - Customers Using 6.x Must Upgrade to 7.x due to Java Runtime Environment expiration

http://nam-en.apc.com/cgi-bin/nam_e...hp?ISOCountryCode=us&p_faqid=7202&p_olh=1

This is a longshot, but I think the expiration may be the whole issue and that's conflicting with Norton because now on Norton's site they are stating problems:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...AntiVirus Corporate Edition&ver=9.0&tpre=

That article was published two days ago, so it's still a farely new problem. If this problem is causing Windows 2003 to take an extremely long time to load, you'd think there would be more activity in the forums.

Todd

 

[KRPGroup]

I'm having the same problem and I am currently waiting for my server to shutdown. I was going to remove the new udpates in safe mode but will try the APC suggestion first.

 

[Empmark]

I had the same thing happen over the weekend and it was the APC Java expiration. I'm glad it was an easy fix (once you figure it out of course) but what a poor design. Thanks for posting for others to find.

 

[KRPGroup]

Thanks for the post..

It is confirmed.. it was the APC PowerChute software/services for me as well.

Since I had already started a Shutdown before reading this post and I had to kill the processes remotely using taskkill /s ServerName /pid #### on both

pbeagent.exe
pbeserver.exe

to get the server to actually shutdown. I just removed all PowerChute software in Safe Mode and rebooted and all was normal.

 

[dbezaire]

Thank you Thank you Thank you!!

I had an office full of people breathing down my neck to get my server fixed, and as a last ditch effort (before just killing myself) i did a google search, and it pointed me to this thread. Sure ehough that was my problem too.

Cheers,
Dave

(ps. i wasn't really going to kill myself... it isn't that high pressure of a work environment)

 

[jdam]

Microsoft killed this : see KB 905716 regarding expiry of Java on July 27.

QUOTE
This problem occurs because of a problem with version 6.x of APC PowerChute Business Edition Software.

APC has issued the following official statement about this issue:
The APC 6.x software uses Sun Microsystems Java Cryptography Extension(JCE) 1.2.1 Package. The digital certificate that was used to sign the JCE 1.2.1 jar files expired on July 27, 2005. Because of this, the system causes the above detailed symptoms.