Slow Worker Process Startup

[Brian Gideon]

I'm having a problem with the amount of time it takes to initialize an
application pool on IIS 6.0. Upon the first request to an ASP.NET
page the worker process (w3wp.exe) starts up. The problem in my case
is that it takes more than 5 minutes to begin servicing requests after
the initial startup. During that agonizingly long period the process
is doing nothing...and I mean absolutely nothing...0% CPU and no
memory movement at all. And then all of sudden the CPU spikes and the
page is rendered in a split second. This happens to any web app no
matter how simple or complex. I'm seeing the problem on a dozen
Windows 2003 boxes all built exactly the same way. Has anyone else
experienced this?

 

[bruce barker]

you are probably getting some network timeout behavior (maybe authenication
of the service account). a network trace ought to tell.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

 

[Brian Gideon]

you are probably getting some network timeout behavior (maybe authenication
of the service account). a network trace ought to tell.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

I took a look at the security event log. What I found was
interesting. Everytime the w3wp.exe process starts up for the first
time (and I did this at least half a dozen times to verify the
behavior) the following event will appear 5min and 20s later just
before the first request is served and delivered to the client.

It appears as if the WinHttpAutoProxySvc service is being sent some
kind of control request. I tried starting the service, stopping it,
disabling it, and setting it to manual and it makes no difference.
Somehow these events keep appearing just seconds before the worker
process is finally able to serve requests. I can't help but think it
is related somehow.

Event Type: Failure Audit
Event Source: Security
Event Category: Object Access
Event ID: 560
Date: 10/19/2005
Time: 3:31:00 PM
User: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
Computer: APPTEST
Description:
Object Open:
Object Server: SC Manager
Object Type: SERVICE OBJECT
Object Name: WinHttpAutoProxySvc
Handle ID: -
Operation ID: {0,1201331}
Process ID: 612
Image File Name: C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
Primary User Name: APPTEST$
Primary Domain: LAB
Primary Logon ID: (0x0,0x3E7)
Client User Name: NETWORK SERVICE
Client Domain: NT AUTHORITY
Client Logon ID: (0x0,0x3E4)
Accesses: Query status of service
Start the service
Query information from service


Privileges: -
Restricted Sid Count: 0
Access Mask: 0x94

 

[Brian Gideon]

I'm having a problem with the amount of time it takes to initialize an
application pool on IIS 6.0.  Upon the first request to an ASP.NET
page the worker process (w3wp.exe) starts up.  The problem in my case
is that it takes more than 5 minutes to begin servicing requests after
the initial startup.  During that agonizingly long period the process
is doing nothing...and I mean absolutely nothing...0% CPU and no
memory movement at all.  And then all of sudden the CPU spikes and the
page is rendered in a split second.  This happens to any web app no
matter how simple or complex.  I'm seeing the problem on a dozen
Windows 2003 boxes all built exactly the same way.  Has anyone else
experienced this?

Well, I came across KB 944157 published on 2/22/08 describing an issue
with similar behavior that was fixed in SP1. I'll do some research to
see if my issue is the same one.

 

[Brian Gideon]

Well, I came across KB 944157 published on 2/22/08 describing an issue
with similar behavior that was fixed in SP1.  I'll do some research to
see if my issue is the same one.

Yep, I believe that will fix my problem. Here's a blog that mentions
adding a local account called ProcessIdentity to work around the bug.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jamesche/arch...first-request-to-asp-net-2-0-application.aspx

 

[dananos]

Clearing Event log

Hi,

I had this problem also, and I managed to shave 3 seconds off the first time load by clearing the Event logs on the server.

Hope this helps

Dan.