- Some of VPS services MS SQL, MySQL, SmarterMail, WebsitePanel stop automatically.
- Random service crash occurs and it reappears after some hours/days.
- Your applications failed to connect to MS SQL database, you go ahead and check MS SQL service, you found MS SQL service in stopped status. After restarting the MS SQL service manually, application - database connection becomes normal.
- You cannot connect to SmarterMail web interface due to SmarterMail service crash.
- Your web pages with MySQL database backend throw database connectivity errors.
- After loading for long time, WebsitePanel URL ends in error.
You may face above errors if any of your VPS services has been crashed. Default Windows VPS services like MySQL, MS SQL, SmarterMail, DNS, IIS are relatively heavy and demand a significant amount of resources like CPU, RAM and Disk space.
When your VPS failed to feed these services with a minimum required RAM, CPU and Disk space they will get crashed. Usually, service crash occurs when VPS is heavily utilizing allotted CPU and RAM resource. In case you face such problem, go through following checkpoints:
Check CPU and RAM Usage of VPS through Windows Task Manager- Right click on Task Bar, Select Start Task Manager.
- Click on Performance Tab.
You will see current RAM and CPU usage of your VPS. Some of your VPS services wont function expectedly if RAM and CPU usage of your VPS is above 90%.
Check Diskspace Usage of VPS
- Go to Start → Click Computer.
You will see current VPS diskspace usage here. If your diskspace usage is more than 95%, some of your VPS services wont function expectedly. Remove unwanted data from VPS and release some diskspace. As an alternate, you can also purchase additional diskspace for VPS.
Configure Service Recovery Properties Services can also be configured to recover automatically after crash. Follow below mentioned steps:
- Go to Start → Run → Type services.msc Click OK.
- In Services Window, locate the service you want to configure, Right click on the service name, Click on Properties.
- In Service Properties Window, Click on Recovery tab.
- Select the option Restart the Service in First failure Drop down.
- Select the option Restart the Service in Second failure Drop down.
- Select the option Restart the Service in Third failure Drop down.
- Click on Apply and then OK.
You can also set several other properties like, Reset Failure Counter after x days and Restart the service after 1 minute since crash. Repeat above steps for each service you want to configure for the automatic recovery.
Determine the Root Cause of Service Crash Through Event Viewer
Event Viewer is most powerful tool to check logs of various warnings, errors registered on VPS. Each application/program or service crash is logged in the Event viewer with sufficient information to get hold of the crash or problem location most of the times. The event viewer is generally located at C:\Windows\system32\eventvwr.exe and once launched the Application event logs can easily be viewed.
- Go to Start → Run → Type eventvwr, Click OK.
- In Event Viewer Window, Under Windows Logs, Check Application and System logs.
- Locate the Error logs recently registered for the service in question.
- Click on Log entry.
Under General tab, you will see full description of the logged error. The important details which the application event log gives us is Source, Event ID, User, Exception Code etc. Exception code explains what exactly this error means. You can also google the exception code for more information on a registered log.
