The Service Fails to Start: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion

Hello,

After a server reboot the application service wont start.

If I look in to the event viewer i see the following Event IDs, related to the SQLBackupAndFTP application:

Event ID: 7000
The SQLBackupAndFTP (SQL Server backup) service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

Event ID: 7009
A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the SQLBackupAndFTP (SQL Server backup) service to connect.

Having the latest version (11.6.1.0), I check the following:

  • SQLBackupAndFTP Client Service, running as a local system account
  • Tried to modify DCOM Config but i was not able to find the application ID {9CA88EE3-ACB7-47C8-AFC4-AB702511C276} (It is not listed)
  • Uninstalling/Reinstalling did not work at all

What else should I do?

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

Thank you for the details. Could you please tell us are there any antivirus or profilers installed on your computer? If yes, please add SQLBackupAndFTP to its exception list.

If it doesn’t help please run SQLBackupAndFTP as a process. You can do it in the following way:

  1. Run Command Prompt and go to the directory where SQLBackupAndFTP is installed.
  2. Run sqlbak.service.exe -console (Do not press “Any Key”).

If you get any error messages please send us a screenshot of them.

To run SQLBackupAndFTP and tune a backup job, please execute sbf.application.exe -ignoreStatusService

If it works, please add sqlbak.service.exe -console into windows scheduler, to run it automatically when Windows starts.

Hello, i do not have any antivirus nor profilers on the SQL server machine (Where is installed the SQLBackupAndFTP)

I follow step 1, 2 and running the application with -ignorestatusservice, successfully.

I would like to know what seems to be the issue, i would like to solve this matter from their root cause more than appliying workarounds…

Thanks in advace!

Hi Mariano,

This issue can happen when SQLBackupAndFTP blocked by any other software.

Sometimes the issue can be because of Windows updates.

Also, we can recommend you try to run “SQLBackupAndFTP (SQL Server Backup)” Windows Service as administrator.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I try to debug further and i find the following event viewer error in dcom config;

There was no endpoint listening at net.pipe://localhost/pranasnet/net/sbf/Config/Net.pranasnet.sbf.Config that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details. > The pipe endpoint ‘net.pipe://localhost/pranasnet/net/sbf/Config/Net.pranasnet.sbf.Config’ could not be found on your local machine.

Is there other way to resolve the issue without this workaround???

Hello Alexander,

Through an extensive debugging i found the root cause of this issue;

The service wont start if you dont have internet access!

My server environment is located behind a firewall, so it has restricted internet access…

I was able to determine the following FQDNs and IP addresses;

api.sqlbak.com
update.googleapis.com
etherx.jabber.org
v10.vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
184.24.97.203 (Akamai)
104.17.105.175 (Cloudfare)
178.255.83.1 (Comodoca)

I would like to know what is the purpouse of such requirement??
Are you using local server information for analytics or other not mencioned intentions??

Can you provide all FQDNs that need to be whitelisted in order to SQLBackupAndFTP service works?

Best regards

1 Like

Hi Mariano,

For the correct work, SQLBackupAndFTP requires a stable Internet connection. If the connection is lost then the license cannot be checked and it resets to Free.

To check the license SQLBackupAndFTP need to connect to api.sqlbak.com

My own environment runs in a DMZ, internet access is not allowed…

Nevertheless I opened all ports for api.sqlbak.com and i did not work… it also tries to connect to several other ips and fqdns.

Can you explain why it needs access to several ips and fqdns?

Also i would like an explanaition of what type of “telemetry” info gathering your app is doing

It seems to be a little bit shady what your app is doing…

1 Like

Mariano, I understand the frustration when something doesn’t work, but don’t jump to conclusions that the app is doing something shady just because it is not clear for you what it is doing. We are very careful not to collect anything sensitive. Still, it should be better documented and we have created a task to do that. Once ready (ETA within a week), we will post a link to it here.

Then i would like to know exactly where it goes the application to the internet and the exactly purpose…
I only jump into conclusions when the answers are not clear when the question is very clear.

Also i would like to know where is stated and how you handle customer sensitive information.

1 Like

That is what we will document. The link to our privacy policy (in simple English) is on every page of our product site: http://pranas.net/privacy/

You did not reply exactly where it goes the application to the internet… i would like you to list all internet IPs and FQDNs the application need to access.

The way your privacy statement was written basically says that you are collecting all private information regarding customer software and hardware systems including accounts and passwords.

I mean that does not seems shady?

I think i will disclosure what is happening with your software

1 Like

Please see What data SQLBackAndFTP sends to the server?. At no point any of the passwords or secret keys are being sent to SQLBackupAndFTP servers. We always welcome additional QA testing, so we are looking forward to your research.

You did not answer the question regarding which IP and FQDNs where used to send information to the internet

Did you have a chance to read the article? The app sends data to https://api.sqlbak.com. The IP is whatever api.sqlbak.com resolves to by DNS.

Three years later and there is still no list provided by Pranas on what fqdns/ips need to be accessible by the application for it to work.

What a joke.

Hi Adam_SQL,

Yes, for the correct work of SQLBackupAndFTP, you have to have a stable internet connection. Internet is used for license validation. SQLBackupAndFTP communicates with our server through the API located at https://api.sqlbak.com (port 433).

If you get any error messages, please send us a screenshot of the issue and a full text of the error message you get.

If you use a Proxy Server then you can add all necessary settings to the “Proxy Setting” window (“Tools” > “Proxy Settings”).

If there is anything else we can help you with, please let us know.

Thank you for using SQLBackupAndFTP.

Sorry, this is NOT true!
Just stumbled upon this issue yesterday. Product quietly stoppped doing backups because the service crashed and could no be started again.
Checked our firewall. https-traffic was allowed since the server was build, but http-port has been closed some days ago.
So it seems, allowing https is NOT enough for the product to work properly. Even with a free license!
Re-enabling outbound http-traffic resolves the issue. But WHY is this needed for a software that makes local database dumps???

Regards

Hi Berni,

SQLBackupAndFTP uses an internet connection (even for a Free edition) to do the following:

  1. To check a license and registration in our database
  2. To track a Trial period
  3. In the Free version, to display an advertising banner
  4. Send a request for a new version to update

If there is anything else we can help you with, please let us know.

Thank you!