Windows Service won't start when referenced assemblies are in the GAC

[loretta.stokes]

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem. On certain
machines we get the standard error when starting the service manually
(or on reboot):

"Error 1503: The service did not respond to the start or control
request in a timely fashion"
and
"Timeout(3000 milliseconds) waiting for the <MyServiceName> to connect"

I added code to the constructor of the service to write a message to
the event log and it was not getting called. So no hidden message boxes
or errors. I changed the service to log on as the admin account instead
of local system and that did not work. The only thing that would work
was to rebuild the service and the referenced assemblies without strong
naming them. The service references 3 assemblies, all of which are
installed to the GAC. I re-versioned the assebles and removed the
strong naming. It works, but why? We have tested this on several
machines without any issues.The machine in which the error occurs is
fast enough. I has more that 1 GB of ram and 3Ghz processor.Also, I am
not sure what actually causes this scenario.I would appreciate any help
or suggestions.

 

[Vadym Stetsyak]

Hello, (e-mail address removed)!

You can use fuslogvw tool for further investigation of
binding issue with strong named assemblies.

Generally windows services based on ServiceBase write exceptions
to the event log, or if you're on .NET 2.0 - CLR will add exception desc to
event log.

--
Regards, Vadym Stetsyak
www: http://vadmyst.blogspot.com

 

[loretta.stokes]

It was written in VS 2003 so .NET 1.1. The only error that I get in the
event log is the timeout error that I mentioned. "Timeout (3000
milliseconds) waiting for the <ServiceName> to connect. I will try the
tool that you mentioned. Thanks for the recommendation. What doesn't
make sense is that we have regular windows apps that reference the same
assemblies and they start without any errors.