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The server was unable to allocate a work item 53 times in the last 60 seconds.

NT 4 workstation with a file share. I am recieving a lot "The server was unable to allocate a work item x times in the last 60 seconds." messages in the system event log. When the error occurs and users trying to access the share hang briefly.

I initially thought that this was a workstation vs server limitation but I've been unable to reproduce the error by trying to diliberately overloading another NT workstation.

Any ideas ?

Brian V

mert

The problem may be this:

The default system pages are not enough for the server due to
many pages being locked down during transmission.

For resolution try this:

To work around this problem, increase the number of system pages for the server in the registry

1. Start Registry Editor (REGEDT32.EXE) and locate the following Registry subkey in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree:

\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

2. Select SystemPages. From the Edit menu, select DWORD.

3. For Data, enter 20000 (Decimal).

4. Click OK and quit Registry Editor.

5. Shut down and restart Windows NT.

brianv

ASKER

Tried it at 20,000 Dword as suggested...errors are still occuring. I'll set it higher and update you tomorrow. For what it's worth the errors seem to be generated when a remote user tries to compile c++ code that exists on the workstations share.

When this happens a single user can have over 40 opens.

Brian V

brianv

ASKER

Bumped it to 40,000 DWord and the errors continue.

Any other suggestions

Brian V

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

gantriis

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brianv

ASKER

Thanks, the max workitems appears to have fixed it !!!

And more importantly I wasn't aware of regentry.hlp (great tool)

Thanks again

Brian V

chuckRichards

Thanks a lot, gentriis, for your advice. I will be trying it to see if it solves my problem.

For the reference of others that may have a similar problem, my symptoms have been:

Running NT Workstation 4.0 ServicePack 3 on a Dell...
Creating a filesystem share
(let's say, \\COMPUTER\share at C:\directory)
and redirecting a drive on the same \\COMPUTER
(let's say, X:\)
to access that share.
Most of the time things work fine, but when there is a large build with MS DevStudio of a lot of small source files that are contained within X:, delays happen and sometimes the X:\ stops working for any application (EXPLORER.EXE says that the computer is not accessible).
Subsequent investigation of the EventQueue shows a series of Srv Event 2021 ("The server was unable to allocate a work item (#) times in the last 60 seconds"), with some Rdr Event 3013 ("The redirector has timed out a request to COMPUTER").
The problem can be temporarily solved by running ControlPanel->Server and DisconnectingAll, but will eventually re-occur.