FIX: msfeedssync.exe crashes (RSS synchronization - IE7 and IE8)

sandi — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:02:46 GMT

I have over 400 RSS Feed subscriptions that I keep an eye on, and which need to be checked regularly, sometimes every 15 minutes. A couple of days ago, msfeedssync started crashing every time a synchronization was due. The errors were:

Faulting application msfeedssync.exe, version 8.0.6001.17184, time stamp 0x47ccc712, faulting module msfeeds.dll, version 8.0.6001.17184, time stamp 0x47ccc720, exception code 0xc00000fd, fault offset 0x00002046, process id 0x1c98, application start time 0x01c8f1484814c945.

Faulting application msfeedssync.exe, version 8.0.6001.17184, time stamp 0x47ccc712, faulting module msvcrt.dll, version 7.0.6000.16386, time stamp 0x4549bd61, exception code 0xc00000fd, fault offset 0x00009bb2, process id 0x1ec0, application start time 0x01c8f1471a9905e9.

Faulting application msfeedssync.exe, version 8.0.6001.17184, time stamp 0x47ccc712, faulting module WININET.dll, version 8.0.6001.17509, time stamp 0x481c0708, exception code 0xc00000fd, fault offset 0x00004062, process id 0x2604, application start time 0x01c8f146dc893df3.

Faulting application msfeedssync.exe, version 8.0.6001.17184, time stamp 0x47ccc7a5, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 6.0.6000.16386, time stamp 0x4549d328, exception code 0xc00000fd, fault offset 0x0000000000037b93, process id 0xe94, application start time 0x01c8efbadb2c6b9a.

Faulting application msfeedssync.exe, version 8.0.6001.17184, time stamp 0x47ccc7a5, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 6.0.6000.16386, time stamp 0x4549d372, exception code 0xc00000fd, fault offset 0x00000000000529c5, process id 0x10f4, application start time 0x01c8ef973bc855f2.

As you can see, things were a real mess. These are the troubleshooting and diagnostic steps that I used to solve the problem:

Check if the Feed Task is corrupt by running the following command:

schtasks /query | findstr /i "user_feed"

Results:
User_Feed_Synchronization-{C73963F9-62BB-4 27/07/2008 10:15:00 Could not start

Ok, that is not good.
Stop and restart the Feeds Task:

C:\Windows\system32>msfeedssync disable
C:\Windows\system32>msfeedssync enable
Check Feed Task status again:

schtasks /query | findstr /i "user_feed"

Results:
User_Feed_Synchronization-{B70B1824-595E-4 27/07/2008 10:14:00 Ready
User_Feed_Synchronization-{C73963F9-62BB-4 27/07/2008 10:15:00 Could not start

Ok, not good - now I have two tasks - there is definitely an issue with the original task which is unable to start.
Disable the Feeds Task:

msfeedssync disable
Check to make sure that both Feed Tasks are gone:

schtasks /query | findstr /i "user_feed"

Results:
No tasks running - that is good
Restart the Feeds Task and check to see what we have got:

msfeedssync enable

schtasks /query | findstr /i "user_feed"

Results:
User_Feed_Synchronization-{B70B1824-595E-4 27/07/2008 10:23:00 Ready

Ok, this is good.. the bad Feed Task is gone, but msfeedssync is still crashing - something else is wrong.

Tried disabling Antivirus - that didn't fix the problem.
Tried running IE in "no add-ons" mode - msfeedssync is still crashing.
I fired up Fiddler, which records RSS activity. It turns out msfeedssync was crashing on the same feed every time - I deleted that feed but the subscription was cached somewhere that wasn't updating properly because IE8 continued to check the same feed despite it being deleted (and IE shut down and restarted, and the computer being restarted as well).
Ok, the fact that IE continues to check a feed that I have deleted from my Feeds subscriptions indicates that we are most likely dealing with a corrupt file, but which one?

I exported my list of feeds to an OPML file, then deleted the file "FeedsStore.feedsdb-ms" that is located in \Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Feeds. Next, I ran "msfeedssync forcesync".

Results:
msfeedssync continued to crash, but now it was crashing immediately instead of when it hit a particular feed :o( Ok, I just made things worse.
Using Process Monitor, I could see that msfeedssync was crashing immediately after it (apparently successfully) closed this file:

\USERS\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft \Feeds Cache\index.dat

I deleted the entire contents of that folder, including index.dat.

Results:
msfeedssync stopped crashing - YAY!!

Process Monitor is a free Sysinternals program available from Microsoft. You can download it here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx?PHPSESSID=d926

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FIX: msfeedssync.exe crashes (RSS synchronization - IE7 and IE8)