Web Connection
Involuntary switch from COM to File mode
Gravatar is a globally recognized avatar based on your email address. Involuntary switch from COM to File mode
  Stein Goering
  All
  Feb 9, 2017 @ 12:57am

One of our customers is reporting a recurring problem with their application switching itself out of COM mode. Their site will be running in the evening but sometime overnight it goes down - they'll go to the ISAPI page and it shows them running in File mode. Switch back to COM and all is well - until the next time it happens (3 of the last 4 days now). They claim that the WC.INI setting always shows: MECHANSIM=AUTOMATION

Any idea what could cause this?

--stein

Gravatar is a globally recognized avatar based on your email address. re: Involuntary switch from COM to File mode
  Rick Strahl
  Stein Goering
  Feb 9, 2017 @ 04:42am

They may not have permissions to write to the file. The change is made in memory and when the app recycles the values are re-read (wrongly) from the ini or config file.

Make sure the AppPool account they are using as WRITE access to the INI or web.config file.

+++ Rick ---

Gravatar is a globally recognized avatar based on your email address. re: Involuntary switch from COM to File mode
  Stein Goering
  Rick Strahl
  Feb 21, 2017 @ 08:45am

This just happened again. The customer says they checked WC.INI and it in fact showed MECHANISM=AUTOMATION so it was not a case of it reading an incorrect config entry.

I guess if this persists we can just move them to the .NET managed module.

--stein

Gravatar is a globally recognized avatar based on your email address. re: Involuntary switch from COM to File mode
  Rick Strahl
  Stein Goering
  Feb 21, 2017 @ 12:38pm

Stein,

I'd be worried there's a compromised password or some other hacking.

The value will not just randomly reselect, especially if the value is set inside of the file - the only way the value in the file can change if you manually change it or click on one of the update commands on the admin page. This means somebody is changing it. If it's not your client then somebody is hacking into the app. Change passwords.

Changing a COM app to file mode is a good way to kill an app because most likely the app no longer has servers running. You can mitigate a little with this by setting the AutoStartServers flag.

+++ Rick ---

Gravatar is a globally recognized avatar based on your email address. re: Involuntary switch from COM to File mode
  Stein Goering
  Rick Strahl
  Feb 26, 2017 @ 07:23pm

I've told them to tighten up their security - we'll see if the incidents stop happening...

--stein

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