Aspnet_state.exe crashing on Xp

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I ran across an interesting situation with a customer today.

He had a workstation running Windows Xp Professional. He'd previously been running Framework 1.1 and had been using the ASP.NET State Service. He had now upgraded to framework 2.0. and upon shutdown he now received the following error:

aspnet_state.exe. Application Error. The instruction at "0x6a2a2fec" referenced memory at "0x0000000c". The memory could not be "read".

To make a long story short it turned out this was due to an access violation upon shutdown. We did the following and resolved the situation:

  • Start Regedit.
  • Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ASP.NET_2.0.50727 key.
  • Right-click "Names" and select Permissions on the context menu.
  • Click Add and enter NETWORK SERVICE, click "Check Names" and click Ok.
  • With NETWORK SERVICE highlighted in the "Groups or User Names" list click "Advanced".
  • On the "Advanced Security Settings for Names" dialogue highlight NETWORK SERVICE and click "Edit".
  • In the "Permission entry for Names" dialogue check the "Name" box is showing "NETWORK SERVICE" and put check marks against "Query Value", "Set Value", "Create Subkey", "Enumerate Subkeys", "Notify" and "Read Control".
  • Click Ok on all the dialogues and close Regedit.

As I assisted him it turned out my customer had searched the web for a solution and had found quite a few people experiencing the same problem. I guess most of you are working with Windows 2003 / Vista, so this information might be a bit obsolete. But I thought I should share the knowledge anyway.

Happy Holidays! / Johan