Problem connecting to the Windows Error Reporting service

hi ALSmith,

hope you are well,

just wanted to confirm, that you say this erorr it is not a firewall issue,

so that would mean that you do have windows firewall check box selected for performance logs and alerts allowed.

the only reason i ask is due to the fact that i myself had the same issue.

untill i allowed performance logs and alerts through my firewall then every report went through to Microsoft afterwards.

hope this helps.

please do let me know.

yours

ashley

ashelytalbot -- Just saw your posting now, I had alerts set and didn't receive a notice.  My alert settings look fine; I'll check my junk mail folder . . . .   I've unmarked your post as answer . . .

I don't believe it is a firewall issue.  I don't have Windows firewall turned on, I am using Zonealarm.  I've checked Zonealarm and there is no entry in log showing that it is blocking me.  I've also checked all of the settings and can't find anything where logs and alerts would be blocked.

Just to be sure, I did an experiment.  I shut off Zonealarm and switched to Windows firewall.  I enabled performance logs and alerts for both home and public networks.  I tried checking for an answer on a problem that hasn't been reported yet due to connection issue described above.  I get the same error message.

Also, it seems that the firewall setting you mention would block reporting any issues that required sending information.  That is not the case for me.  As mentioned above, many problems do get reported; the issue lies with problems that I believe are trying to upload a MEMORY.DMP file.

Some questions:

1. does the error reporting site reject any uploads that are greater than a certain number of MB?
2. if answer to 1 is yes, then is there a way to get reliability monitor to upload minidump file instead of MEMORY.DMP file?  The minidump file is much smaller; maybe it won't trigger a limit.

Any other suggestions of things to try are welcome.

ashelytalbot -- Just saw your posting now, I had alerts set and didn't receive a notice.  My alert settings look fine; I'll check my junk mail folder . . . .   I've unmarked your post as answer . . .

I don't believe it is a firewall issue.  I don't have Windows firewall turned on, I am using Zonealarm.  I've checked Zonealarm and there is no entry in log showing that it is blocking me.  I've also checked all of the settings and can't find anything where logs and alerts would be blocked.

Just to be sure, I did an experiment.  I shut off Zonealarm and switched to Windows firewall.  I enabled performance logs and alerts for both home and public networks.  I tried checking for an answer on a problem that hasn't been reported yet due to connection issue described above.  I get the same error message.

Also, it seems that the firewall setting you mention would block reporting any issues that required sending information.  That is not the case for me.  As mentioned above, many problems do get reported; the issue lies with problems that I believe are trying to upload a MEMORY.DMP file.

Some questions:

1. does the error reporting site reject any uploads that are greater than a certain number of MB?
2. if answer to 1 is yes, then is there a way to get reliability monitor to upload minidump file instead of MEMORY.DMP file?  The minidump file is much smaller; maybe it won't trigger a limit.

Any other suggestions of things to try are welcome.

hi alsmith,

thanks for getting back to me.

a little confused as to your statement quote " it seems that the firewall setting you mention would block reporting any issues that required sending information " the only setting that i suggested was to allow performance logs through windows firewall. this does not in any way pervent the report from being sent.!

have you also checked your action centre settings in regard to how reports are sent and what information is sent along with who is allowed to send the reports.?

as i myself have everything set to automatically check and send extra information if needed along with allowing all user's to check for error's.

i do refer you back to my last thread as like i said, i did have to set performance logs in windows firewall to allow the reports to go through.

however as you have thrid party software installed, i wouls suggest to perform a complete external back up and disable/uninstall all thrid party software. then perform an upgrade install. then set performance monitor settings and then check for solutions for error's. to see if that repiars the issue.

this way you will know if is is due to a corrupt/missing file or an network issue due to your thrid party software

hope this helps

yours 

Let me rephrase to make it more clear (the italics are the added part.)

. . . . Also, it seems that if the firewall setting you mention was not enabled it would block reporting any issues that required sending information.  That is not the case for me.  As mentioned above, many problems do get reported; the issue lies with problems that I believe are trying to upload a MEMORY.DMP file.  . . . .

In other words, not having performance logs and alerts enabled in Windows firewall would block all problem reports that want to upload data, not just a select few.  So, that can't be the problem.

I did try allowing performance logs and alerts in Windows firewall as you suggested, it didn't help.

There is only 1 user account on this HTPC and it is set to automatically check for solutions.  Win7 was asking if I wanted to send more information about the problem.  After I click "Send Information" is when I get the error.  I tried setting it to automatically check for solutions and send additional report data if needed; now I get the error without being asked to send additional information.

Since this is a trivial problem I am not going to spend the hours required to implement your other suggestion.  However, I have tried something that is probably just as good:

1. I did a sfc /scannow check and no problems were found.  This should find any missing/corrupted files for the OS.
2. I updated Zonealarm since they just released an update and then completely reset it (shift-ctrl-right click then choose reset from menu).  This should take care of any missing/corrupted files and/or setting for ZASS.

Problem is still there.

Since your problem reporting seems to be working here is an experiment you can try -- see what happens if you have a problem where you get a BSOD and have a memory dump.  Then see if the problem is reported without error when Win7 tries to upload the memory dump file.  Here is what you need to do.

1. In advanced system properties set Write Debugging Information to Kernel Memory Dump.  This will give you a big MEMORY.DMP file in the Windows folder along with a minidump in Windows\minidump.
2. Create a BSOD.  From experts exchange website I found this trick - "in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters, create a DWORD value called CrashOnCtrlScroll, and set it to 1. Then reboot, and after that, you can cause a crash by holding the right Ctrl key, and pressing the Scroll Lock key twice."
3. Check to see if problem is reported.  You can manually check for solution so you don't have to wait for automatic check.  If the entry stays in bold face type then it isn't being reported completely.

Let me know what you find out.

hi alsmith,

thank you for getting back to me,

due to the fact that i myself have windows 7 ultimate and have performance monitor reporting set to automatic and have all the check boxes selected in windows firewall set to allow...and no error's in reporting regardless of the size of the file (i.e memory.dmp). it is safe to say that this error that you have is not a windows 7 error, unless you have missing/corrupt instailation. which could be repiared in about 1-2 hours with an upgrade. sfc/scan will not always detect all error's, i had ran the same scan over five times in the past to attempt recovery of bad files and sfc/scan still reported no error's. evan though i could see them myself. however considering that you do not wish to perform this recovery operation, and the fact that you do have thrid party software managing your os. then the only other option open to you is to establish if it is a corruption/interferance of those said third party programs.(i.e a network issue)

you also say the problem is "trivial", please do not class an error as trivial. (remember the snowball effect) my own system took 3 install's but i did also wait and check everything before i reinstalled all my other software. i would strongly recomend that you complete an upgrade now before issue's become worse....evidently.

yours

I am having the same problem. I tried many of the proposed solutions, but I am not ready to try a complete upgrade as ashley suggests. I think ALSmith is correct in that MS just doesn't want to accept those large memory dumps. 

@ashleytalbot, did you try ALSmith's experiment? You may help confirm that ALSmith's theory is correct. 

I have had win7 "shut down unexpectedly" five times in the last 3 weeks that I have had win7, and the only reports that can't be sent to MS are the ones with memory dumps. 

Microsoft really needs to fix this error sending issue and then fix the BSOD issue that causes the error in the first place.  I thought Windows 7 was supposed to be 'more' stable than XP?

I am having the same problem. I tried many of the proposed solutions, but I am not ready to try a complete upgrade as ashley suggests. I think ALSmith is correct in that MS just doesn't want to accept those large memory dumps. 

@ashleytalbot, did you try ALSmith's experiment? You may help confirm that ALSmith's theory is correct. 

I have had win7 "shut down unexpectedly" five times in the last 3 weeks that I have had win7, and the only reports that can't be sent to MS are the ones with memory dumps. 

Microsoft really needs to fix this error sending issue and then fix the BSOD issue that causes the error in the first place.  I thought Windows 7 was supposed to be 'more' stable than XP?

 

hi hermetic,

thanks for joining this thread sorry to see that you are having simalar issue's. i have outlined steps above to repiar the instailation of corrupt/missing files, as that is the quickest and safest opion to complete. any information given in any thread is only a suggestion you do not have to follow any of the points that i have made. as you have stated that you do not wish to follow the steps outlined above then there is no further assistance that i can offer you. in regard to your suggestion, that i follow alsmith's expeirment. i would strongley suggest to anyone NOT to follow that idea as it is not good practice to have a fully operational pc and force a crash.(next your be asking me to crash my porsche to check its safety record) the correct procedure is to repiar. to prevent further issue's developing. fix now or fix later your choice.

yours

hi ashleytalbot

Wow!  You had to do 3 repair installs to get Win7 running properly??  That's too bad.  My five installs of Win7 (3 Ultimate, 2 Home Premium) went very smoothly -- much faster than XP install, no drivers needed to be added for initial install, etc.  Evidently, the snowballs are in your computer room!  :-)

I've really only had 3 glitches - the Windows Cardspace error it seems everyone had (I disabled the service, I don't use it), this issue, and one more that I will start a new thread for - 0x9F BSOD which is a DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE.  This also seems to be a very 'popular' issue with many people's network drivers.  I've gotten that one to settle down but it still happens every couple of weeks.  And no, it doesn't affect network communications, just going into/out of standby.

So, all five of my PC's with the two flavors of Win7 have this same issue with problem reporting.  I can't imagine that all 5 of my computers have been corrupted in such a way that they all produce the same error.

Well, just to be safe I tried the BSOD experiment myself.  Unfortunately, it seems that it only works in XP.  No BSOD occurred in Win7 so this test method must have been removed from the driver.  For anyone that might be interested in using it for XP here is more info:  http://www.tomstricks.com/how-to-manually-force-windows-xp-to-generate-a-stop-error/  All this does is create a stop error.  Actually, it's safer than pressing the reset button; for the stop error the OS does a protective shutdown and gracefully restarts whereas for a reset button press the OS gets stopped in its tracks.  Just make sure no files are open, OS isn't doing update in background, etc. and you should be fine.

I wouldn't compare inducing a stop error with a driver test routine to crashing a car; its more like the technician at the car dealership invoking one of the built-in diagnostics in the engine control module with their test tool.  No harm done, the problem is diagnosed and they fix your car.

Well, I think I'll wait a few more days to see if anyone else has any other ideas -- if not, I'll ask to close this thread with 'no solution found.'

hi alsmith,

thank you for your feedback, not as smooth as you say or there would be no thread. just cause you can not imagine something does mean that it can not happen. to make sure its got to be worth an hour of your time to complete an upgrade install, after all, it will not do any harm. at least then you can positively rule that out. as you have to agree if one user has this issue with the same os as another user that does not, (i.e windows 7 ultimate) then it is fair to say that it is not a os fault but either a configuration,network,third party interferance or install error by the user (installer) this is why i suggested that you have the os cleanly installed and fully tested before you then install your thrid party software. as from experiance having microsoft's settings first, fully established is best practice, with nothing else connected or installed. then build up from the foundations.

yours