We very recently discovered a bug in classic ASP (asp.dll) you get installing the Service Pack 2 for Windows 2003; removing the SP2 makes it work again as expected, so this is a regression bug introduced by the service pack itself. Basically with SP2 installed, the Session_OnEnd() method in classic ASP is not fired anymore, thus breaking all applications which rely on that event to run cleanup code.
We already have some reports from customers, either directly to CSS or in Newsgroups. I know my colleagues are already well on this, a private fix has been produced and is being tested internally (as far as I know it works) and we are writing a KB article to document this.
The process is still ongoing so I don't have (and can't give you) further details on this, but I guess it's a matter of days before this will be publicly available; of course I'll update this post when we'll have the KB available.
Update (03/04/2007)The KB article is still a draft and not public yet (should be released soon, anyway) but the fix is ready; you can get it calling CSS and ask for the hotfix #934903.
Update (17/04/2007)The KB article has been published: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;934903
Cheers
Would this affect remote desktop. I noticed that after installing SP2 on 3 different servers Remote Desktop was SLOW and would disconnect. After uninstalling SP2 remote desktop worked just fine.
No, this is specific to classic ASP so Remote Desktop can't suffer for it; I've not heard any reports about this slowness in Remote Desktop but I'll check this (probably I'll test RD on my server) and report it internally if needed.
Thanks for your comment!
When something official is going to come up on this from Microsoft?
Unfortunately at the moment I don't have any further update on this, other than we are investigating the issue (so I also don't know how long this will take, I'm not directly involved in the process).
But I'll update this post (or create a new one, depending on the circumstances) to let you know as soon as possible.
V andaag belde een klant met het probleem dat zijn twee sites alleen nog maar 500 server errors gaf.
It appears that there is a bug in Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 - session_OnEnd events no longer
Having just migrated to a new server, windows 2k3 with SP2, that'd be why my site says I have 2,243 current users.
I'd rather it was working and I did have the users. :-o
Because your google ranking for this article is high you just saved me hours of hair pulling though, thanks :D
Jarrod.
We just received the hotfix #934903 from Microsoft PSS and it does fix the problem. They will send it to you free of charge if you call them.
Is there anybody who could send me the hot fix, urgent ? Or post it somewhere to be downloaded ? I´d hate having to remove SP2.
Thanks any way....
/Kiko
Hi Kiko, you can receive this hotfix (which is not pubblicly available for download) calling Microsoft CSS (Customer Service and Support, formerly PSS), the Engineer who'll take ownership of your call will send you the private URL and password to download and install it.
Note that the password expires every 7 days, so you must go through CSS to have the correct one...
You can find the phone number to call for your country (along with other infos) at http://support.microsoft.com.
I need this hotfix also
Who can send a copy to me, thx~
nance
Support is listed as almost $300/call. Are we supposed to pay $300 to get a patch for a bug MS caused? When will this patch be made public?
Ryan (and others interested in this topic): the answer is "no". Microsoft support policy about bugs is very clear at this regard: if you open a support call to request a hotfix, the call will be free of charge for you, you'll not be charged for the service.
Moreover, if troubleshooting a problem we discover that it's due to a bug (either a known one and we alrady have a fix for it, or a new one and we'll have to create the fix), the service will still be free for you, no matter how much time and efforts we made to find and correct it.
To be even more clear: if it's a Microsoft bug causing the problem, you'll get the fix for free.
Of course the above applies only if the problem is really due to a bug; if your problem turns out to be due to some other reason (by design, errors in your code, misconfiguration etc...) the call will be turned into a payment one, which may be either "Incident", or "Pay Per Incident" (the one Ryan describes), hourly based if you have that kind of contract etc...
Hope this helps to shed some light on the matter.
I just got off the phone with Microsoft support and they were very helpful in sending me a link to the hotfix. The hotfix is installed and worked correctly.
Yeap we called and no charge, they gave us a password protected file to unzip and apply. The fix worked great... We were wondering why we had over 40,000 online... Geez...