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Event ID 1556 — Cluster Service Startup

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

The Cluster service is the essential software component that controls all aspects of failover cluster operation and manages the cluster configuration database. If the Cluster service fails to start on a failover cluster node, the node cannot function as part of the cluster.

Event Details

Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 1556
Source: Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering
Version: 6.0
Symbolic Name: SERVICE_UNHANDLED_EXCEPTION_IN_WORKER_THREAD
Message: The cluster service encountered an unexpected problem and will be shut down. The error code was '%2'.

Resolve

Check for conditions that interfere with the running of the Cluster service

There are various software or hardware related causes that can interfere with the running of the Cluster service on a node. Sometimes the Cluster service can restart successfully after it has been interrupted by one of those causes.

Review the event logs for indications of the problem. If you need assistance with your failover cluster, you can contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support. For more information, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=102491.

A recommended order for troubleshooting is as follows:

  1. Hardware
  2. Operating system
  3. Networking
  4. Security
  5. Cluster service
  6. Clustered applications or services

Although a problem might appear to be related to an application, most often, the problem is related to items 1, 2, 3, or 4 in the preceding list. A useful step is to review the system event log and the cluster diagnostic log file for events that happened around the time of the failure.

If you do not currently have Event Viewer open, see "Opening Event Viewer and viewing events related to failover clustering." If the event contains an error code that you have not yet looked up, see "Finding more information about error codes that some event messages contain."

To perform the following procedures, you must be a member of the local Administrators group on each clustered server, and the account you use must be a domain account, or you must have been delegated the equivalent authority.

To open Event Viewer and view events related to failover clustering:

  1. If Server Manager is not already open, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Server Manager. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.
  2. In the console tree, expand Diagnostics, expand Event Viewer, expand Windows Logs, and then click System.
  3. To filter the events so that only events with a Source of FailoverClustering are shown, in the Actions pane, click Filter Current Log. On the Filter tab, in the Event sources box, select FailoverClustering. Select other options as appropriate, and then click OK.
  4. To sort the displayed events by date and time, in the center pane, click the Date and Time column heading.

Finding more information about the error codes that some event messages contain

To find more information about the error codes that some event messages contain:

  1. View the event, and note the error code.
  2. Look up more information about the error code in one of two ways:

Verify

To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the local Administrators group on each clustered server, and the account you use must be a domain account, or you must have been delegated the equivalent authority.

Verifying that the Cluster service is started on all the nodes in a failover cluster

To verify that the Cluster service is started on all the nodes in a failover cluster:

  1. To open the failover cluster snap-in, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Failover Cluster Management. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.
  2. In the Failover Cluster Management snap-in, if the cluster you want to manage is not displayed, in the console tree, right-click Failover Cluster Management, click Manage a Cluster, and then select or specify the cluster that you want.
  3. If the console tree is collapsed, expand the tree under the cluster you want to manage, and then click Nodes.
  4. View the status for each node. If a node is Up, the Cluster service is started on that node.

Another way to check whether the Cluster service is started is to run a command on a node in the cluster.

Using a command to check whether the Cluster service is started on a node

To use a command to check whether the Cluster service is started on a node:

  1. On the node that you are checking, click Start, point to All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.

  2. Type:

    CLUSTER NODE /STATUS

    If the node status is Up, the Cluster service is started on that node.

Cluster Service Startup

Failover Clustering