--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, Rik Barker <rik.barker@...>
wrote:

>
> Hi Rob,
>
> >I have been looking at a clients machine via ts to see why they are
> >experiencing crashes. In the event log I found the following ....
> >
> >"
> >The description for Event ID ( 251 ) in Source (
> >FirebirdGuardianDefaultInstance ) cannot be found. The local computer
> >may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to
> >display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the
> >/AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for
> >details. The following information is part of the event: Server

Started:

> >Guardian starting: C:\Program

Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\bin\fbserver.exe‚.

> >"
>
> That's not actually an error, is it? Event ID 251 seems to be a

"Server

> Started" message. I'll bet this is labelled "Information" in your

event log.

>
> Don't be misled by the "The description for Event ID (251) cannot be

found"

> message. This gets put into the event log by Windows if the

executable in

> question does not have a message table resource embedded for your

current

> language environment or doesn't have that message ID at all.
>
> The relevant part of the message is always the bit that appears

after "The

> following information is part of the event". In this case, that's

"Server

> Started: Guardian starting: C:\Program
> Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\bin\fbserver.exe‚.", which isn't the

cause of

> your problem.
>
> Above and beyond that - since I've only been using Firebird for 4 days,
> I'll bow out and let someone else help you fix your problem.

Rik,

I suspected that it was just an information message too, but had not
any references to back it up. IMO, the real issue the original poster
must concern themselves with is why guardian needed to restart the
server in the first place.

All guardian does is restart the Firebird service if it crashes for
whatever reason. On any modern Windows version, you don't actually
need it because all of the recovery options are available in the
services mmc pages.

I have seen 3 causes for database server processes crashing.

* Faulty UDFs

With Superserver, UDFs must be threadsafe. Silly bugs like not using
the right calling convention can also cause troubles.

* Corrupt database

A corrupt database can cause the engine to panic and shutdown when the
record version with the corruption is read.

* Faulty Hardware

If the machine itself is suspect, this can cause the engine to panic
and close.

The first place to check is the Firebird log. Forget the guardian
restarting, we need to get to the bottom of why it needed to be restarted.

Adam