The Pipe state is invalid...

[vijay_pahuja]

This error has literally started to give me nightmares as this error has halted many things in my server. I am using Windows Server 2008 x64 Standard.

List of problems that i face:

1. Network and Sharing center shows no map of internet connection. It simply mentions the text 'server execution failed.' It shows a red cross in network icon near my clock tray. Surprisingly, my server is responding to all directory service requests.

2. When i ping localhost, it says ip driver failed. Surprisingly, other hosts are able to receive the reply when my server is attempted to ping.

3. Many services which are not working now including DHCP server service cannot be started because while starting that or anyother service it says 'The pipe state in invalid'.

Need to fix things desperately, can u guys explain me what 'The pipe state is invalid' mean?? I tried searching on internet but nothing useful.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Did you get this straightened out Vijay? Sounds like basically something in your network stack took a dump or became corrupt. If shooting in the dark... I'd start be removing and reinstalling nics (in device management), and installing updated drivers to see if basic network functionality operates as expected. If that fails, you may try a repair install on the OS.

This sort of problem doesn't just occur in my experience - what changed? Software updates, new applications installed, anything of that nature could be relevant. These sorts of answers should lead to the best course of action to remedy the situation.

What service pack level are you on or is this server 2008 r2?

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

This error has literally started to give me nightmares as this error has halted many things in my server. I am using Windows Server 2008 x64 Standard.

List of problems that i face:

1. Network and Sharing center shows no map of internet connection. It simply mentions the text 'server execution failed.' It shows a red cross in network icon near my clock tray. Surprisingly, my server is responding to all directory service requests.

2. When i ping localhost, it says ip driver failed. Surprisingly, other hosts are able to receive the reply when my server is attempted to ping.

3. Many services which are not working now including DHCP server service cannot be started because while starting that or anyother service it says 'The pipe state in invalid'.

Need to fix things desperately, can u guys explain me what 'The pipe state is invalid' mean?? I tried searching on internet but nothing useful.

Looks like a corrupted Windows installation. Sorry.

Looks a lot like malware or buggy software borked Windows.

This may have been an exploit attack. Especially, if errors occur all of a sudden with good hardware.

You may be able to thank Microsoft for this, because Microsoft likely has more services running than needed and leaving ports wide open to the WAN!

This is how Microsoft got pwned with Blaster and Sasser. (remote code execution attacks and remote code injection attacks)

Even though this seems real rare with current routers. Because of ports usually being stealthed from the WAN.

 

[vijay_pahuja]

Guys, My installation was good and fine.
This error is also preventing me to start com+ event system service. Which prevents BITS from starting and this leads me Windows updates to fail.

My OS is Windows Server 2008 x64 SP1 (no R2)

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Have you reinstalled? Your installation is most certainly not fine, so either the install itself was corrupted, or something happened to break it.

Since you've given no indication of anything that may have gone wrong after installation, the only thing left to reason is that the install itself was bad or the hardware has an issue.

I'd suggest a repair install, and if that fails then a fresh install. I work with MS server OSs every day, and this sort of stuff doesn't just happen - we have about 400 servers at work. Either there's a hardware failure causing the OS to go haywire, or the OS is corrupt requiring repair install or fresh install.

Picking out a single error message, and trying to troubleshoot a problem based upon that error message when you have numerous services failing is no way to troubleshoot a problem. You need to establish some sort of baseline, and that can't be done with a system in a state of massive failure.

You could start by running hardware diagnostics, hopefully provided by the hardware vendor if its real server hardware, otherwise you could get diagnostics from the manufacturer of your components or atleast run memtest to ensure you don't have memory errors corrupting the OS everywhere. If hardware passes diagnostics, then you are back to software problems and repair or reinstall.

 

[Psycogeec]

the Pipes are the cross communications between programs, to "pipe data" from one program to another , to pipe data to a printer, to pipe data to a service.
pipes can have "security" of various sorts so to secure things.

debugging will "pipe" too, so an error trying to do debugging or to provide event data or watson error info could toss a pipe problem when it cant "pipe" the data out.
COM is a lot of piping in and out junk going on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Named_pipe
see the lower part of this

Pipe is also known as HOSED like they said . chances are good that some DLLS or service things arent running correctally, possible corrupt files of the OS. repair install or install over??

chances are good that many normal things can work ok still, but without fixing what ever is used to set up the communications, none of that stuff is going to start working.
do you have a backup that you can compare OS files to? do a SFC scan, so the OS compares files? no because the system has begun to RELY on that stuff to much, so you probably cant get diagnosis stuff done even some AVs wont work.
.

 

[vijay_pahuja]

In last downtime... i attempted to restart my server on safe mode with networking, everything was fine.... i was hell tired seeing that bloody red cross on my network then i restarted on normal mode and things just ran fine. when i attempted to started com+ system event it said service started and stopped some services stop automatically when nothing uses them.....but the sweet dream ended as I had to restart my windows server again for some reason.

When i restarted things went same again.... then another restart in safe mode with networking and things are fine... just i cant start services in that mode which says service cannot be started in safe mode.

That was weird only once in normal mode, did i get my things OK... i restarted several times alternatively in safe mode with n/w and normal but things didnt work in normal mode.

Anyways the only common thing practically that i can do which u guys are saying is check with sfc or repair but before i attempt any of those i want please throw some light on my doubts.

My server is AD DC... if is do sfc with scannow switch or in command prompt offline from windows DVD use switches like offlinebootdir etc.... wud it wipe of my NTDS i mean my AD?? I dont want to loose my AD or GPO at any cost. I want to know my exact loss if I attempt sfc.

Another thing, how do i repair my server? Windows 2008 has no repair thing like earlier versions 2003 server or XP which detects an installation and tells to press r to repair. Does upgrade option does that while i insert the DVD in windows mode?

 

[I.M.O.G.]

So this is a domain controller... Alright, good to know. Turns out there is no repair option in server 2008 btw, go figure - we're just moving to 2K8 in the office so thats a new change which is good to know about.

In theory, SFC should do the same thing. You can safely run "sfc /scannow" against your DC, but anytime data is involved and you are troubleshooting, ensure you have a working backup in case things go "poof". In this case, that means you'd want to ensure you have a good backup of the directory. Instructions for that are here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771290(WS.10).aspx

The SFC options repair windows system files, they do not destroy AD. The backup is a best practice however for anytime you are doing work, and you should have your DCs backed up anyways to be safe - there's always the possibility you could come into work tomorrow and the DC is nothing but a puddle and you have to rebuild (if you are the IT guy, not being able to recover domain services is only an option if you are ok with looking for a new job).

After you perform your AD DS backup and run the SFC, seeing as how you mentioned things are fine in safe mode with networking, what you are dealing with could quite possibly be a driver problem. In safe mode with networking, fewer drivers are loaded - so if things work fine in safe mode but not in a normal OS load, you likely have some drivers not playing nicely together. You can check in device management to see if anything clearly shows errors. Also check the event viewer, under application and system to see what sort of events are first recorded when the services show errors and things start going to crap.

If nothing is found there, start rolling back any drivers which may have received a driver update recently. Or go the other way and just start updating all the drivers - either one to try to go back to a point where your drivers were compatible, or find a new point where your drivers are compatible. Is this a machine bought from a vendor like an HP DL 380, or is this a desktop machine just running a server OS? If its a server from a major vendor, they have update utilities which can be used to find all available driver and firmware updates, download, and install them for you. I would do that.

You could safely try the upgrade option also, to see if that will re-extract and replace system files. Might do the trick, and I'd give it a shot since you are already backed up and can always just delete it all and start fresh.

 

[Steve_HP]

Sorry for the grave-dig, but Google brought me here...

Was this ever marked as resolved?
I've just had a call out for a server that's become unavailable after a reboot. I'm unaware as to whether it's been patched, but it's been operating fine for the last two and a half years without issue. All of a sudden after a reboot, it's now showing up with this error message and absolutely everything is unavailable. The only thing I can access is command prompt.
I've done some remote hardware checks, and the hardware all appears to be responding ok.
Boot up responds fine (and in a timely manner).

Everything points towards the O.S suddenly breaking... anyone any ideas about why this happened?