Service failed to start error 1920

Question

On some machine we have the following error at service install: "Service ... failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services."

Service is installed fine tho, just that it can't be started as Network Service from Services.msc. Service starts and runs good if started from console it's executable...

Same thing happens with another service started as Local System.

On other machines everything is fine. Service starts as network service with no problems.

We think is a problem with windows rights, like error says, but how to check? And what to do?

Thanks, Adrya

Ringtail

Debugging service startup is hard. I would recommend putting in logging statements in your service's startup code, then read the generated log file to see how far it got before it failed. – Storebought

Try putting the start up code in a try catch and log the error. Stacktrace can help. – Slopwork

Answer 1

After more investigation we discovered that adding this in service configuration file fixed the problem:

<runtime>
    <generatePublisherEvidence enabled="false"/>
</runtime>

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb629393.aspx

We recommend that services use the <generatePublisherEvidence> element to improve startup performance. Using this element can also help avoid delays that can cause a time-out and the cancellation of the service startup.

Ringtail

Answer 2

Just got this from installing a really old app on server 2016. We had two hurdles- ensuring that the account we were starting the service with had 'log on as a service' rights in local group policy.

The other- we were already running another app on the default port that this new app had in it's config.xml, so we just changed to a different port and saved the config file while the installer still had an error displayed, then clicked retry and success.

Derzon

Answer 3

Just wanted to add my solution in case someone runs across this like I did...

I had a .msi file that once I generated a log for it:

msiexec -i package.msi /L*V package.log

had this in the logfile:

Error 1920. Service 'Controller 01' (Controller01) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services.
MSI (s) (04:5C) [12:23:11:831]: I/O on thread 2052 could not be cancelled. Error: 1168
MSI (s) (04:5C) [12:23:11:831]: I/O on thread 5396 could not be cancelled. Error: 1168
MSI (s) (04:5C) [12:23:11:831]: I/O on thread 5404 could not be cancelled. Error: 1168
MSI (s) (04:5C) [12:23:11:831]: I/O on thread 1448 could not be cancelled. Error: 1168
MSI (s) (04:5C) [12:23:11:831]: I/O on thread 1904 could not be cancelled. Error: 1168
MSI (s) (04:5C) [12:23:11:831]: I/O on thread 1088 could not be cancelled. Error: 1168
MSI (s) (04:5C) [12:23:11:831]: I/O on thread 6952 could not be cancelled. Error: 1168
MSI (s) (04:5C) [12:23:11:831]: I/O on thread 6956 could not be cancelled. Error: 1168

Looking in the Event Viewer was no help, so before I hit cancel on the installer, I went to the location of the service on the hard drive and tried to run it as an administrator. At which point, I got a clue that led me to ultimately fix this:

MSVCR120.dll was not found

At which point, I went to c:\windows\system32 and looked for the DLL... and it was there. So, I copied it directly into the directory with the .exe and tried to run it again. This time I got a different error message:

The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b)

Searching for the meaning of "0xc000007b", I found here what it signifies: "The error 0xc000007b means STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_FORMAT. This means an application tries to load DLLs with the wrong CPU architecture. So a 32Bit application tries to load 64Bit Dlls or the opposite (64Bit app tries to load 32Bit DLLs)."

So in my case, the publisher of the installer failed to include the x86 Visual C++ Redistributable Package for Visual Studio 2013. After installing that and rebooting, I reran the installer and it worked.

Misdemeanant