Messenger service stops working

[nicksheppard]

Hello to all,

On a couple of xp machines the messenger service simply stops working at random.

The service is still running and if manually restarted it starts working again for a random period of time.

Anti-virus is trend but this isn't blocking any connections. No local firewalls installed.

Machines are in a domain and have working dns (but not wins) but problem only affects a couple of machines. If anyone has any ideas or suspicions your thoughts would be welcome.

The event logs don't have any particularly usefull information, though one suspicious event is an occasional drop on the connection to the master browser but other services (file and data) are not interrupted...

The users use the messenger service through a piece of dental software called exact, the one test that I've got to do next time the problem occurs is see if the problem is just with exact or if NET SEND doesn't work either. I'll add an update when I've done that.

Cheers

 

[linney]

I wish you well in your diagnosis of this problem, random problems being the hardest type to troubleshoot. Does the "occasional drop on the connection to the master browser" correspond to the loss of the Messenger Service?

You might like to ask your question in one of the Server Forums too.

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=1674

This looks at alternative software.

XP Internal Domain instant messenger
thread779-1547795

I guess the time to attack this problem is when the fault is apparent, meanwhile you could try running the System File Checker program from the Run Box by typing.....Sfc /Scannow in it and have your XP CD handy.