Vista HP BSOD'd this morning...

When I went to check the reliability history ("System Stability Chart") to
see what happened, I found the history ended on 26 Aug 07!

I have checked that the RAC agent is enabled (as per "Enable Data Collection
for Reliability Monitor" in the Management Console Help) and it has been
running all this month... where's the history then?

[System AV is AVG Free... full scan every night, no issues]

Any ideas?

This thread in another forum described the precise problem

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-perfor...-new-data.html

As the referenced author "clayga" reasonably asked - where's the raw data,
what can cause this, and why can't it recover itself???

Following the steps outlined did indeed address the issue for me...

"1) Back up the files in
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData and
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\StateData

[I needed to run WinZip with Admin privileges to get it to work on theses
folders]

2) Empty both directories (i.e. deleted all the files in them). Note after
doing this Reliability Monitor puts up a text message in place of the
Stability Chart that says something to the effect that the data is missing or
corrupt.

[I merely appended ".old" to each filename... being ultra paranoid... but
argh! how many prompts do I have to say "OK" to to give such files a new
extension!]

3) Open a Command Prompt with elevated (Administrator) privileges.

4) execute RACAgent at the prompt. Note that the task will run for a while
(several minutes on my system).

5) Open Reliability Monitor. Note that some or all of the Stability Chart
is back.

6) Check the "Last Updated:" date. If it's earlier than yesterday's date,
repeat step 4 and 5.

I had to run RACAgent 3 times to get it to work it's way through all the
data. It appears to process only a month's worth of data at a time."

RACAgent rebuilt files in PublishedData and StateData but on the first pass
gave me only the month since the date when it seemed to fall over. 2nd pass
gave another month - but it seems the history prior to the failure (26/08/06)
is absolutely gone.

Finally,

"in order to avoid a permissions violation when the RACAgent
that runs as a daily scheduled task attempts to update the files in the
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData and StateData directories , you
need to give Modify privileges (via the Security tab in the Properties
dialog in Windows Explorer) to LOCAL SERVICES for all the files."

but I think that should be "LOCAL SERVICE" (at least, I couldn't find LOCAL
SERVICES)

Julian

-sorry to \"bump\" this but i have some useful information-
__

First off I want to thank you, Julian, for the detailed solution! I
followed the steps exactly and it solved the the performance monitor now
it's collecting data again.

I too wonder what exactly are the cause(s) that make it turn off.
However, I have figured out one of the causes. Yesterday I went into the
Event Log View (Control PanelAdministrative ToolsEvent Viewer) and
cleared everything out in the logs and since then the Reliability and
Performance Monitor hadn't been working.
That's all I have been able to figure out.


-Mike


--
0vermind

i have tried to do all steps but i cannot execute racagent.exe in step 4
- it just does not happen.
Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!


--
rka2008