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Why does the WMI service hang?


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I also see same issue in my environment frequently where backups on multiple servers hang randomly. And then we see commands like ‘tasklist” timing out on the client which confirms WMI is not responding.

We have to reboot every week or so to fix.

Does anyone know why WMI hangs? Unfortunately we don’t have Microsoft support so have not been able to take up this issue with them.

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Best answer by MichaelCapon 7 May 2021, 10:21

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Userlevel 7
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@Sandy11 , I split this one out so we can focus and track better.  I’ll get the right eyes on this one and see if we can advise.

Userlevel 7
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I also see same issue in my environment frequently where backups on multiple servers hang randomly. And then we see commands like ‘tasklist” timing out on the client which confirms WMI is not responding.

We have to reboot every week or so to fix.

Does anyone know why WMI hangs? Unfortunately, we don’t have Microsoft support so have not been able to take up this issue with them.

Not sure on the source of the hang, the windows event log should provide some clues, however, as a workaround solution, you could try using a pre-script to recycle the windows management services to ensure a smooth backup run each night:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/wmisdk/starting-and-stopping-the-wmi-service

Userlevel 6
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Could you clarify the OS Version/Build of these clients and the type of backup/operation that is happening on those too? - FileSystem backup / VM Backup etc.

Do you see WMI related query failures in the logs of the failing backups? 

As Damian said above, you could add a pre/post script to cycle wmi srvcs as a temporary workaround.

Userlevel 1
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OS is Windows 2016 standard. These are filesystem backups.

WMI timeouts are seen in the event logs. Backup hangs after this point in clbackup.log

Cpipelayer::Initiate pipeline SDT using socket

 

Wintel sysadmin tried to restart wmi manually but it does not work either. So they end up rebooting the servers.

Badge +4

Hey @Sandy11 ,

 

Can you provide us the Microsofterror from the OS Events in regards to the WMI Timeouts?

.

 

Userlevel 6
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Are these backups performing System State backups too?

It may be worth enabling WMI Tracing on the hosts to see what’s happening. - Tracing WMI Activity - Win32 apps | Microsoft Docs

 

 

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