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Server 2003 and Handles

Answered Server 2003 and Handles

  • Monday, June 15, 2009 7:41 PM
     
     
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    Good Afternoon all!

    Maybe someone could answer my question?

    I am monitoring a Windows Server 2003 box, particularly the application handles from the Task manager.  This one application, I noticed, continuously increases its handles infinitely at 1 handle every 5 seconds.  At this rate, in about 2.5 months, without a reboot, the handle count approaches approximately 1.5 million. This is in turn, at some point, affects other applications running on the box.   Common issues include Run Time '13' and '91' errors with the other applications.

    Is is right for me to conclude, that other applications, as a result of a high number of handles from this one application, that their performance is negatively affected by the excessive handles?  Are these applications indirectly affected by this one application?

    I am really not familiar with handles, but i dont think a high number of handles is a good thing.

    Is there a normal handle limit at which typical applications should be operating at? What is a handle?

    pardon my ignorance with this issue, but any help will be great!

    thanks
     

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  • Wednesday, June 17, 2009 6:21 AM
     
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    Hi Tuzz,

    You can find the detailed explanation of Handle here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handle_(computing)

    To monitor the system handle, you can use the sysinternal utility Handle.exe.  By using that utility, we can see what application hangs on which handles in the windows system.

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896655.aspx

    Actually, the handle numbers depends on the specific application. If you want to know more about the handle, please consider make a new post in the Windows sysinternals forum. The guys there are much more farmiliar with Windows internal.

    http://forum.sysinternals.com/forum_topics.asp?FID=9

    Thanks and regards,
    Scorprio
    MCTS: Windows Vista | Exchange Server 2007 MCITP: Enterprise Support Technician | Server & Enterprise Admin
     
  • Wednesday, June 17, 2009 6:27 AM
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    hi there,

    sorry for the delayed response.

    can you tell me which application is consuming lot of handles. Handles are always application specific , so you need to trace which applicaiton / exe is consuming lot of handle for that you can use process explorer which is really good tool to give you more info abuot application and handle leak if any.

    if you have an handle leak then the next step is to debug the application , either by taking user mode dump / like debugging ( if you have exposure to windbg )

    sainath !analyze
     
  • Wednesday, June 17, 2009 1:29 PM
     
     
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    Scorpio and Sainath,

    Thank you both for your replies, it is greatly appreciated.  I am going to try and run the Process Explorer utility and see what it finds.  I was able to track which program that had infinitely many handles; it was a non-system application that checks every 5 seconds to make sure Process related programs are functioning.  I suspect that there is an error in the way it is programmed.  I think it never actually closes an open handle after it completes its process; therefore opens a new handle every 5 seconds, while also keeping open the previous.

    Thanks and Best Regards,

    Joe