Upgrade Error SparkGateway.exe in Use by Another Process

[Fabian Näf]

Hi my friends of Passwordstate

 

In my test-environment on (almost) every update of Passwordstate I get the following error:

 

- Stopping Passwordstate Windows Service.....
- Download started.....
- Extracting new files.....
- Installing new files.....
- Upgrade error detected - The process cannot access the file 'c:\inetpub\Passwordstate\hosts\gateway\SparkGateway.exe' because it is being used by another process. - Method = CopyNewFiles

Please check/test your settings on the screen Administration -> Backups and Upgrades -> Settings button. There is also full documentation and troubleshooting steps in the Security Administrators Manual under the Help menu - refer to the section "Backups and Upgrades".

 

This error is not really an issue. After that I get logged out and after log in again I get the step 2 of the update and everything works as expected. I’m just wondering if this is a known error? Does anybody else already got this error?

 

I already excluded the whole Passwordstate folder from my anti-virus scanning activities...

 

All the best,

 

Fabian
 

[Sarge]

7 hours ago, Fabian Näf said:

- Stopping Passwordstate Windows Service.....

 

Check that this is actually occurring. 
For the "Passwordstate" and "Passwordstate-Gateway" service.

Majority of the time I do an IPU the service for Passwordstate doesn't actually stop, so I manually stop it and carry on with the upgrade - I've not performed an upgrade since having the gateway in place, so can't confirm if it occurs with the Passwordstate-Gateway service as well.

[support]

Hey Guys,

 

Thanks for the forum post and sorry you're running into this.

 

During the upgrade process, the Passwordstate service and the Gateway service should be stopped right at the beginning, and then restarted as a very last step.  We have had several support calls over the years where there was some service monitoring software running on the web server, and half way through the upgrade process the monitoring software restarts the service, breaking the upgrade.   Do you think that could be happening in this case?

 

Also, do you have your services configured for any other account other than Local System?  Normally we would only recommend Local System or an MSA account if you are using one to be configured on the Passwordstate service.  The gateway service should always run under Local System.  If you've changed settings on these at all, then maybe the account that is performing the backup does not have permissions to stop the service, and event log entries might confirm this?

 

But yeah in theory, you should not see these errors!

 

Regards,

Support

 

[Fabian Näf]

Hi Guys,

 

Sorry for the very very late answer with this topic!
Now if finally got the chance to check the state of the services during the update progress.

After the process told me "- Stopping Passwordstate Windows Service....." (and was downloading then) I checked the service states: Passwordstate Service was stopped, but Passwordstate-Gateway was still running. This time I stopped the Gateway service manually and I didn't get the error.

 

I don't have any monitoring system which could restart the service. Both my services are running under Local System. 

 

Here are some more information about the configuration of the Gateway Service:

PS C:\Users\[...]> Get-Service Passwordstate-Gateway | fl *


Name                : Passwordstate-Gateway
RequiredServices    : {Afd, Tcpip}
CanPauseAndContinue : False
CanShutdown         : False
CanStop             : False
DisplayName         : Passwordstate-Gateway
DependentServices   : {}
MachineName         : .
ServiceName         : Passwordstate-Gateway
ServicesDependedOn  : {Afd, Tcpip}
ServiceHandle       : SafeServiceHandle
Status              : Stopped
ServiceType         : Win32OwnProcess
StartType           : Automatic
Site                :
Container           :

Regards,

 

Fabian

[support]

Hi Fabian,

Thanks for the information, and our code should be stopping the service prior to trying to upgrade files. We'll do some more testing to see if we can somehow replicate what you are seeing.

Regards

Click Studios

[Fabian Näf]

Hi Guys,

 

I think I got the cause of the issue.... My backup and upgrade runs under a specific service account which has very limited rights. This account had only rights to start and stop the Passwordstate Service, but not rights to start and stop the Passwordstate-Gatway Service. So I granted this permission to this account as well. I think this will resolve the issue (well see with the next upgrade).

Thanks for all the help and sorry for the trouble ;-)

 

Regards,

 

Fabian

[support]

Thanks for letting us know Fabian - we appreciate it