Pure Terminal Server 2003 system hangs

System Profile: IBM Server hardware Windows Ent Server 2003 running terminal services. No Citrix. Max user load: 30

Symptoms:

While in the course of normal operation our terminal server will hang up. As far as I can tell there isn't any trigger that's plainly visible yet. The way in witch it hangs may give a clue though. The hang presents its self by users not being able to initiate any new processes. All processes currently loaded into memory work just fine. Example: outlook 2007. You may continue to read email, operate the client and such. Some people don't even realize the hang has occurred for a bit of time.

My attempts to troubleshoot have been futile. Reacting to the hang does no good because I can't start any new processes to investigate. After I reboot the server my next instinct would be to begin logging to catch the hang occurring but I'm not sure what to log.

Right now I'm attempting to keep process explorer running in case the issue occurs again. Sometimes it happens twice a day, other times, once a week.

Anyone have any ideas on how I could set myself up for better success in tracking this problem down?

Thanks, Donovan

From serverfault Donovan

• Look at Desktop Heap exhaustion. Let this baby run and see what you find.

  From mfinni

• Any idea if each terminal server user has their own heap or if its common to all? Since the issue presents server wide if it were the Desktop heap it would have to be common to all users right?

  Donovan

  Greg Askew : Desktop heap is per-session, and there is a system heap associated with session zero. That is usually the problem in a scenario where a service(s) run under the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM context, and the solution is typically to run under a specific user account. The real problem with desktop heap is there is no good way to measure it, aside from the special tool. There are no performance counters or WMI queries that can sample the usage. Last time I checked, even the Windows debugger plug-in for it crashed.

  Donovan : Would you then think its feasible for a single user to bring down the system by exhausting their Desktop heap?
  From Donovan