RPC Services Fail: Not Enough Resources Available to Complete This Operation (246784)

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SYMPTOMS

When you start a computer running Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 4), the network services that Remote Procedure Call (RPC) enables may not start, and the following error message may appear:

Not enough resources are available to complete this operation.

The network services that may not start include, but are not limited to, the following:

Domain Name Service (DNS)
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS)
World Wide Web (WWW) Publishing
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Publishing
Network New Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP)

Also, the System log in Event Viewer may record Events 4156, 453, 1006, 1008, and 7023.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur when there is a hyphen in a port range in Dcomcnfg. The system adds a space before and after the hyphen when it writes the port range to the registry, making (for example) the range 4000-4010 appear as 4000 - 4010. RPC does not recognize this string format and responds to the RpcServerUseProtseq call with RPC_S_OUT_OF_RESOURCES.

RESOLUTION

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To work around this behavior, manually remove the extra spaces in the port range data:

Use Registry Editor (Regedt32).
Locate and select the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Rpc\Internet\Ports
In the right pane, double-click the Ports value.
Delete the spaces immediately before and after the hyphen in the port range.
Quit Registry Editor.
Restart the computer.

MORE INFORMATION

Windows NT 4.0 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS)

MSCS or Clussvc may not start as well and you may receive the following:

System Log: Event Viewer

Event ID: 7023Service Control ManagerN/A<Servername>

The Cluster Server service terminated with the following error: %%1721

where <Servername> is the name of the Cluster Node that failed to start cluster service.

If we check the error code for 1721, it states:

"Not enough resources are available to complete this operation."

NOTE: This error mssg is reported by the Service Control Manager.

Resolution: The same workaround applies. The version of Dcomcnfg.exe has also been updated with a hotfix post SP6a to address this issue. This issue does not appear to affect Windows 2000 solutions.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

252589 Dcomcnfg.exe Utility Improvements, Fixes, Registry Entries and Format of Ports Range Value