Event ID 4226, Delayed Write Failures and uTorrent?

Posted on July 30th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of WTF, Software.

If you are like me you probably use uTorrent or Azereus alot to download the latest creative commons works and linux distros.

Recently I have been experiencing an error on the machine I use for uTorrent.  I dedicate one of my machines for this, because I just don’t like it running on a production machine.  The storage in that machine is minimal, so all of  the actual data is stored off on our NAS box.

Occasionally i’ve had this problem, but in the last 2 days, it simply will not stop.   The uTorrent machine loses its connection with the NAS, as a result we get this error that i’m sure many people have seen before.

At the same time uTorrent decides, well, I cannot write, puts all the torrents into an “ERROR” state and just sits there forever.   If you simply re-start the torrent file, it will run again, for awhile, until we get another delayed write failure.

Having seen this error occasionally, but now more frequently, I decided it was time to look into this BS.    Having visited the event log I found a bunch of errors…

I did find the delayed write error like this….

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    MRxSmb
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    50
Date:        7/29/2008
Time:        6:10:07 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    torrentbox
Description:
{Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\LanmanRedirector. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 04 00 04 00 02 00 56 00   ……V.
0008: 00 00 00 00 32 00 04 80   ….2..?
0010: 00 00 00 00 0c 02 00 c0   …….À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0028: 0c 02 00 c0               …À

But I also found this error IMMEDIATELY before the delayed write failure messages.

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    Tcpip
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    4226
Date:        7/29/2008
Time:        6:01:48 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    torrentbox

Description:
TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 54 00   ……T.
0008: 00 00 00 00 82 10 00 80   ….?..?
0010: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..


I’m sorry, did I read this right?  Microsoft is imposing a connection limit?   So upon doing some research here’s what I found.  Microsoft limits the number of concurrent TCP Connection attempts to 10 as of Windows XP SP2, this is a “security” feature to stop worms from spreading like wildfire.  Personally, I think it’s a good idea, we need software to help all the stupid helpeless users out there who don’t know better, but we need to KNOW These things!

Luckily as I searched I was also able to find this website LVLLord’s Event 4226 Patcher  this guy wrote a tool that can patch the TCPIP.SYS file to change the limit.  The old limit was 65535, but I changed mine to 250.  This had immediate performance effects, my Torrent’s started up faster, connections were quicker, it allowed the entire machine to work cleaner.

While I understand the requirement to limit, 10 limits power users who run applications that open A LOT of TCP/IP connections, like network scan tools, network administration tools, all sorts of software would be limited by this.  Just a warning for you, once you patch it, keep your eye on it, Microsoft likes to update the TCPIP.SYS file fairly often, so obviously when there’s an update, your change will go away.

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Software pick of the week – MWSnap

Posted on September 25th, 2007 by grinthock.
Categories: Software.

I had this article ready to go, but then all hell broke loose, so I put it on the back burner…

Anyway came across this nice little app, if you are doing Windows (yuck) screen captures, no doubt you have tried the old print screen method, and various other offerings, HyperSnap DX was ok.

PrintScreen just doesn’t do it for me, too much extra work, import, edit, modify, resize. I needed something that could capture partial screen bits for some training I was doing, and quite simply, I didn’t want to go through the purchasing hasstle. I came across this little app.

MWSnap – http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html Not bad, basically just gets the job done, it’s thin, small and works quite well, even in a multi monitor environment. So send this guy some money, because he did a good job on this…

That’s all — oh and see the banners, yeah they have cool stuff….

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VMWare Fusion kills Parallels

Posted on September 14th, 2007 by grinthock.
Categories: PC Hardware, Software.

Recently I sold my beloved PowerMAC Dual G5 box, and picked up one of the new iMAC 20″ machines. So far i’ve been fairly happy with it, i’ve been looking to make the jump to Intel MAC for some time, simply because I do run into situations where the occasional Windows app is required, and the idea of Parallels and their Coherance feature is amazing.

Before I jump right into this, I’d like to say — as I had always expected my brand new 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo CPU powered iMac STILL is not as snappy as my old PowerMAC G5, I could do 100 things at once on the G5, and the User Interface would not slow down, not bog down, it felt like I was operating a supercomputer (and the G5 was at one time considered the only available desktop supercomputer) to that end I am disappointed at Apple. I always thought the switch from PPC to Intel was a mistake.  In the coming months when Leopard is released and true 64 Bit Operating System support is enabled, let’s see what happens, as my PowerMAC was native 64 Bit and there is a chance that was the difference.

Now on to this actual article. 2nd day I had the mac I ran out and purchased Parallels, a VM application that will let you run Windows simultaneously with OS X and have seamless windows, where Windows apps and OS X Apps can share the OS X dock, they move around on the same screen, it all feels like one OS.. Sounds perfect right?

In Theory yes, in practice? Not so much. Parallels trashed my BootCamp partition once, that took some screwing with to fix, (luckily I’m still in the testing phase, I haven’t started trusting this stuff yet) and the Coherence feature looks pretty good, works not too bad but the entire thing seems kind of sluggish – Parallels was $79 and yes I did actually purchase it.

VMWare Fusion is much of the same, however in recent weeks i’ve been hearing about the great performance of VMWare Fusion, and why not! This is VMWare, the company i’ve been using products from for a very long time, plus if I use Fusion, all of my existing VM’s will operate.

So far VMWare Fusion is defiantly 200% faster, ok no fancy graphs, or some stopwatch or controlled conditions, but that isn’t what it’s about, it’s about user experience and how we perceive speed, and clearly it feels faster and that’s what matters.

I’m still getting used to VMWare’s seamless windows support that they call “Unity” and learning exactly how it works, I do have 2 quams thou. Parallels allowed me to have the windows taskbar on the screen, I had it on the side, so I had 2 taskbars, Unity doesn’t let me have one at all, I have to launch windows apps from the VMWare Fusion menu bar in OS X. Unity also seems to grab focus alot whenever there is a pop up, and that’s kind of annoying.

All in all, VMWare Fusion seems like a much better product from a company who’s lifeblood is VM’s. So if you have a MAC and want to be running Windows applications side by side — VMWare Fusion is the way to go.

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