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ALSVC.exe (Sophos AutoUpdate Service) creating too many handles

Saad_SSS

Hi there,

Has anyone come across this issue and is there a fix for it? Handles utilised is visible in windows task manager, and there is an upper limit on the number of handles Windows can manage at a time.

Regards,

Saad

QUOTING:

We are experiencing some resource issues with some of our servers and have noticed that the ALSVC.EXE process is taking a large number of handles over time and not releasing them without restarting the Sophos Autoupdate service.
 
On initial startup the process is quite moderate in its usage of handles, using a few hundred at most. We have seen this climb to between 13000 and 40000 on some of our servers. These are quite heavily loaded x86 Windows 2003 servers and are the most likely to show resource usage trouble where it exists. The version used is 7.6.18.

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    Hi,

    I've not seen this on my machine but it possibly isn't as loaded.  What roles do these servers perform?  SQL, IIS, AD?

    You say it starts at a normal level (what is that? 150?) and then increases.  How long does it take to increase to a significant number, e.g 1000?  1 day, 2 hours, etc...

    Does it increase in a large increment during an update check, or an actual update?  If so, by how many?

    The following article is interesting for tracking down handle leaks if you fancy giving !htrace a go.

    http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/jeff_dailey/Understanding-handle-leaks-and-how-to-use-htrace-to-find-them/

    but it is a little bit fiddly.

    Thanks,

    JAK

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      Hi Jak. thanks for your reply. I'll get back to you shortly with the answers.

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        Hi there. Some more information for you which should also answer your questions.

        - The version of Sophos in use is 7.6.18.  The version of ALSVC.EXE is 3.8.25.190.

        - One of the servers is our backup server running Veritas Netbackup. The other is a File server also running IIS.


        - 170 or so handles is the initial level at start-up. We will monitor this to see how quickly it grows but my guess at this stage it is a period of a week or more to grow.


        - During an update check it does not grow significantly (only by a few) and seems to release the handles shortly afterward. We will have to check it after an actual update and after the servers have been running for a while.

        - The usage on the File server is up to 1600 and it has been running 2 days since a reboot.

        Regards,

        Saad

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          I am having exactly the same issue with handle counts for ALSVC.exe process. We are running a Windows 2000 SP4 - DIP system  + Veritas NetBackup and have a handle count of 34,114 where the majority of our servers have handle counts of around 157. It only seems to be this one server causing issues.

          It's funny, I have been looking all over the internet to find anyone having the same issues and nothing is report in any Google search I do. It’’’’s great that Sophos have provided this forum; I am already finding it useful and great for a knowledgebase (Big Clap for Sophos!) :smileywink:

          I have logged a call with Sophos Technical Support UK and they have asked me to run Sophos Diagnose utility  (SDU) and send the .sdu file(s) its produces to them.

          Article ID:33533
          Title: Sophos Diagnostic Utility (SDU): how to download and install
          URL: http://www.sophos.com/support/knowledgebase/article/33533.html

          The Sophos Diagnostic Utility (SDU) collects vital system information as well as log files for all Sophos products that are installed on the computer. The utility also collects suspicious file samples if there are any present.

          I am now waiting to see what they find; I will update this thread when I have more information. I hope this helps.

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            Sorry I did forget to mention the version of Sophos I use is version 7.6.19.  and the version of ALSVC.EXE is 3.8.25.190.

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              Sophos support have emailed me today saying the follwing "A defect has been raised for this issue, so development are looking into it".

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                Thanks for the update. Please keep me posted on further developments.

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                  Hi,

                  Did you ever get a resolution to this? I appear to be having the sime issue ALsvc.exe?

                  Many Thanks

                  Paul

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