MapServer+Windows 64 bit+Apache=Crash?¶

date:: 2010-03-11 15:38
author:: admin
category:: bugs, mapserver
tags:: 64bit, apache, bug, mapserver
slug:: mapserverwindowsapachecrash
status:: published

|image0|I developed my MapServer application on Windows 2003 (a virtual 64 bit server running), using MS4W (MapServer for Windows), and had set up TileCache, and some Python scripts to run through Apache. I had managed to crash the set up numerous times in development, but I hadn’t come across any errors not of my own making.

The installation went well on the production server which was also a 64 bit machine, but was using Windows Server 2008. The site had an unpublicised release as it is still in beta, and from this was getting about 60 - 70 visitors a day.

I use host-tracker.com - a web site monitoring service which lets me know if a site is down, and I was soon made aware that it was.. There were no responses at all coming from Apache, even though the Apache service was still running. Not even HTML pages were returned. Restarting Apache returned the service to normal, but this was happening every other day.

The Windows Error Log¶

The Windows Event Log had lots of the following errors:

Faulting application name: mapserv.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x4935ad86
Faulting module name: MSVCR71.dll, version: 7.10.3052.4, time stamp: 0x3e561eac
Exception code: 0xc0000005Faulting process id: 0xe08
Faulting application start time: 0x01caa0e28e6dcbb6
Faulting application path: C:\ms4w\Apache\cgi-bin\mapserv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\ms4w\Apache\cgi-bin\MSVCR71.dll
Report Id: 4bc3555e-0cd7-11df-9e56-00155d002601

The MSVCR71 refers to the Microsoft C run-time libraries, so I *think* the errors are likely to be from a program that uses them (ie. MapServer) rather than the DLL itself. Windows 2003 has this DLL in its system32 folder, whereas Windows 2008 does not, but as long as it is in the application directory (cgi-bin in MapServer’s case) then it should not be a problem. In short I don’t believe this DLL was the root of the problem. I tried turning on MapServer debugging, but there were no errors reported from MapServer itself.

The Apache Error Log¶

On the other hand the Apache log (C:\ms4w\Apache\logs\error.log) had several warnings such as the following:

[Thu Jan 28 15:37:15 2010] [warn] (OS 64)The specified network name is no longer available. :
winnt_accept: Asynchronous AcceptEx failed.

The Apache documentation suggests that a possible cause of these errors is due to “virus scanning or virtual private network packages, have bugs that interfere with the proper operation of AcceptEx().” While I could rule the first out, the second was a definite possibility as I was required to use Juniper’s NetScreenRemote to connect to the server. The Juniper site now states “No Longer Available. Use Standards based IPSec client.”

I’ve had horrible problems with this software before, including no longer being able to connect to wi-fi networks (repairing IPSEC was the eventually solution), and corrupting a Cisco VPN client. The 0.5 star review on CNET show I am not alone in this opinion.

I tried using the Win32DisableAcceptEx directive to try and stop these errors and hopefully resolve the Apache crashes. Apache runs in 32 bit mode, so hopefully the 64 bit server wouldn’t mind..In C:\ms4w\Apache\conf\httpd.conf add the following line, and restart the Apache service:

Win32DisableAcceptEx

Final Outcome¶

Unfortunately although the Apache changes stopped the errors it didn’t stop the crashing. In the end I had to set up MapServer with IIS and the site has been working fine ever since. As a bonus I was also able to use the 64 bit versions of MapServer.

.. |image0| image:: images/2010/01/mapserver_error-277x300.png

target:

images/2010/01/mapserver_error.png

orphan:

Comments¶

1. Tweets that mention geographika » MapServer & SQL Server 2008 Tips – Topsy.com **

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mssqlserver, geographika. geographika said: MapServer and SQL Server 2008 performance notes by..err me! http://geographika.co.uk/?p=149 […]

2. Harry **

I’m developing a server folder (ms4w), but have difficulty connecting between Chameleon with sql server 2005 Express. For information i use windows xp sp 3, ms4w, SQL Server 2005 Express. How do the steps for that? could you please send the answer to my email. Thank you. Harry

3. geographika **

@Harry

I’d recommend upgrading to SQL Server 2008 so you can use the spatial

data types and SQL 2008 connector. | With SQL 2005 you have to use a plug=in to use spatial data http://www.codeplex.com/wikipage?ProjectName=MsSqlSpatial

4. dariapra **

On MapServer’s official page on optimization, the last advice says not to inmediately close the database connection by using PROCESSING “CLOSE_CONNECTION=DEFER”, and it will work with PostGIS, Oracle and MySQL.

Although I am not a MS software user - and happy with PostGIS -, I wonder if it will also work with SQL Server?

5. Chris **

Out of interest when using the MSSQL 2008 plugin in a mapfile, how do you retrieve feature attributes (or call them correctly) to produce labels etc?

Cheers

6. no xtreme **

Valuable info. Lucky me I found your site by accident,

and I’m stunned why this coincidence didn’t happened earlier!

I bookmarked it.

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