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Kester's avatar
Kester
Collaborator | Level 8
10 years ago
Solved

Windows 7 Event Viewer Error "Failed to connect to the driver: (-2147024894)"

Onthe last few startups of my Windows 7 desktop, the EventViewer has shown the following error  and subsequent information logs as the error is corrected by Windows:

 

Record Number: X 95916
Log Type: Application
Event Type: Error
Source: DbxSvc
Category: 3
Event ID: 320

Failed to connect to the driver: (-2147024894) The system cannot find the file specified.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Record Number: 95931
Log Type: Application
Event Type: Information
Source: ESENT
Category: 3
Event ID: 300

Windows (2500) Windows: The database engine is initiating recovery steps.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Record Number: 95932
Log Type: Application
Event Type: Information
Source: ESENT
Category: 3
Event ID: 301

Windows (2500) Windows: The database engine has begun replaying logfile C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\MSS.log.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Record Number: 95933
Log Type: Application
Event Type: Information
Source: ESENT
Category: 3
Event ID: 302

Windows (2500) Windows: The database engine has successfully completed recovery steps.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Record Number: i 95915
Log Type: Application
Event Type: Information
Source: DbxSvc
Category: 2
Event ID: 258

Pipe server thread started.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems as if the Dropbox service may be trying to start too soon as, after the initial error, Windows seems to be able to correct the problem and everything works correctly.  This is a very recent happening and I cannot relate the change to any system changes.  Is there anything I can do to stop the error - if I didn't regularly check the Event Viewer I would be none the wiser so perhaps I'm being too sensitive.

 

Thanks.

Error Messages
  • bn's avatar
    bn
    9 years ago

    Hi everyone!

     

    Sorry for the delay here -- I usually hang out on the client builds forum and missed this.

     

    This error is expected and harmless. We are optimistically checking for features currently in development and logging an error when we don't find them enabled. We shouldn't be logging it as an error, however, perhaps as an Informational-level event and I'll make sure we clean this up in a future release.

     

    If you're suspicious that this has been causing instability -- this hasn't really changed since last summer so it's probably not the droids you are looking for (combined with the fact that the error is indicative of things not happening, rather than things happening that are potentially destabilizing).

     

    -Ben

  • Ross_S's avatar
    Ross_S
    9 years ago
    Hi all,
     
    First: Many apologies for the delay in jumping in here, I wanted to make sure I had a concrete update for you all.
     
    So, for context: What is Dbxsvc? :
     
    I've added a section to the help center article: https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/smart-sync (I say section, it's more of a note at the bottom under the driver FAQ).
     
    The file dbxsvc.exe is a file that we use to install the Smart Sync driver. Should you not be a business user, or not have Smart Sync, then this file will never start operating. It is, however, created at install for all users so if you are not a Smart Sync this file will still appear there.
     
    I see we have a number of pretty interesting, creative suggestions on how to disable, coupled with queries if it's safe to disable it. I'm of course not going to endorse a process that disables part of our software, should a feature or functionality cause user pain then we would want to know. Fixability and timeframes can vary depending on the in-depth technical nature of the problem.
    Should you decide to disable it with one of the solutions here, it will prevent the smart sync feature from working in some cases. We need the service to update the driver, as well as to establish new driver<->client connections. This is the services current functionality. Additional functionality could be added over time. My main concern around anyone disabling it is that in the future you may need this process, Smart Sync won't work correctly, you can reach out to support but this custom change you've made will be hard for us to diagnose as the root cause of whatever issue you experience.
     
     
    Why is it failing to connect / what's going wrong?:
     
    It should be failing to connect. This is by design, the actual issue you’re facing is due to the frequency we're writing to the logs. To address any concerns around error with the application, these errors are in no way indicative of a software issue and do not point to any issues with backing up you data. Because it fails to connect, Windows treats this as a trigger to write to the log. Your data is safe, this process is just used to install a driver. As covered in the above section we expect it to do what you are seeing.
     
    With that in mind, we understand that some of you do wish to see this behaviour.
     
     
    Why aren't we fixing this?:
     
    We are, we take our user feedback very seriously and we have spent many hours working on this. As fixes have many dependencies, and are just one components of a version release, I'm always reluctant to jump onto a thread and give a firm release date for a fix as these are regularly subject to change.
    You may have noticed that we took the original connection attempt frequency down from every 1 second to every minute. This was an improvement we took onboard based on the feedback you've supplied here and also via other channels. Our new release, 31.3.15, has further improved this, the process will run 3 times daily. This should reduce the errors written to the logs and not clutter the report.
     
    The new beta version is the first to include a fix:
     

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  • ChinoSteve's avatar
    ChinoSteve
    Explorer | Level 4
    9 years ago

    I am getting this error / event every second

    dropbox is not set to start with windows

    Dropbox is disabled in services

    Dropbox is not in task manager

    This makes it hard to see any other events

  • Kester's avatar
    Kester
    Collaborator | Level 8
    9 years ago

    Hi ChinoSteve,

     

    Just to be sure I've not misunderstood you and apologies if I have,  have you disabled the dbxsvc service because this is the service causing the Event Viewer problem.  Other Dropbox items in services should be left alone.  If you have not disabled the dbxsvc but disabled the other Dropbox items, this could account for the Event Viewer problem continuing, Dropbox not starting with Windows and Dropbox not appearing in the Task Manager.

  • joex's avatar
    joex
    Helpful | Level 5
    9 years ago

    I've been seeing the same event "Failed to connect to the driver: -2147024894, retrying in 1000 milliseconds" being recorded in the Application Windows Log every second.  I've enabled the early release feature and DropBox has been updated to a later release 30.3.15. Now I see "Failed to connect to the driver: -2147024894, retrying in 60000 milliseconds" which is a little more sensible but still filling up the log with so many messages that it makes it hard to see any others - and more importantly I will miss any message from another application since the log will eventually fill up and start deleting the oldest messages.  The weird part though is I don't have the service running and I have exited the application. I still get these messages so where are they coming from? Also when I do have the app running I see three copies of Dropbox.exe *32 running in Windows Task Manager. Is that normal?

     

    UPDATE: Just found out there was another DropBox.exe running as SYSTEM. I was logged on a normal account so when I switched WIndows Task Manager to show all processes I saw the extra one. Killing that should stop the messages.

     

     

  • Tom W.40's avatar
    Tom W.40
    Helpful | Level 5
    9 years ago

    I'm having the same problem as others, this event repeating in the Application event log every second.   Stopping the service stops the messages, but what is causing the failure to connect to the driver?

     

     

    Log Name: Application
    Source: DbxSvc
    Date: 7/5/2017 9:18:54 PM
    Event ID: 320
    Task Category: (3)
    Level: Information
    Keywords: Classic
    User: N/A
    Computer: home
    Description:
    Failed to connect to the driver: -2147024894, retrying in 1000 milliseconds

  • Kester's avatar
    Kester
    Collaborator | Level 8
    9 years ago

    Hi Tom W.40,

     

    I guess the cause of the problem is sloppy coding somewhere along the line but the problem is made more frustrating by the indifference shown by the developers who rarely post in this thread even though they must be very much aware of the feelings of users.  Users might be happier if Dropbox were more open and shared a bit more information about what is really going on - the lack of respect that Dropbox is showing for their users is probably worse than the technical problem itself.  They should remember that this is a Dropbox specific forum and its users would expect Dropbox to be more actively involved.

  • NickG_UK's avatar
    NickG_UK
    Helpful | Level 5
    9 years ago

    Why is this marked as "solved"?   I'm still getting this problem in the current version.

  • joex's avatar
    joex
    Helpful | Level 5
    9 years ago

    Good point. It's not solved so can it be flagged accordingly?

     

  • Kester's avatar
    Kester
    Collaborator | Level 8
    9 years ago

    Hi NickG_UK,

     

    This issue was marked 'Solved' because, when originally the problem was posted at the start of this thread, the issue appeared as an error in the Event Viewer (i.e. with a red marker against the record number in the first column).   The problem was downgraded to 'Information', so no longer showing the red error marker, and as the information log only appeared once when the system booted without any noticeable issues during the Windows session, the thread was marked 'Solved'.  However, relatively recently, the problem has intensified so that it is necessary to disable DbxSvc to stop the Event Viewer information logs (re: the inability to connect to the driver) occurring every second.

     

    The word 'Solved' should be removed and perhaps replaced with 'Ongoing' but I, as the initiator of the thread, have not found a way to do this.

  • ebonato's avatar
    ebonato
    New member | Level 2
    9 years ago

    Hi bn,

    Seems tha NO ONE sees my post about HOW TO solve connect Driver issue.

    As a Senior Developer, I can state this is a common bug about merging code from dev channel to stable channel, as DbxSvc logs which successfully connected to FS Driver.

  • joex's avatar
    joex
    Helpful | Level 5
    9 years ago

    Are you referring to your earlier post about changing to the dbx-dev.sys driver? While that might be a viable workaround we need the standard package to be fixed so anyone who installs the app doesn't get the event logger flooded with thousands of messages.

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