Cluster service suffered an unexpected fatal error

There are various software or hardware related causes that can prevent the Cluster service from starting 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. 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.

Opening Event Viewer and viewing events related to failover clustering

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:
   • Search System Error Codes ( http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83027).
   • Click Start, point to All Programs, click Accessories, click Command Prompt, and then type:

     NET HELPMSG errorcode

<Rule ID="Microsoft.Windows.2008.Cluster.Management.Monitoring.Cluster.service.suffered.an.unexpected.fatal.error" Enabled="true" Target="Clus2008Library!Microsoft.Windows.2008.Cluster.Monitoring.Service" ConfirmDelivery="true" Remotable="true" Priority="Normal" DiscardLevel="100">

  <Category>Alert</Category>

  <DataSources>

    <DataSource ID="DS" TypeID="Microsoft.Windows.2008.Cluster.EventProvider">

      <Criteria>

        <SimpleExpression>

          <ValueExpression>

            <XPathQuery>EventDisplayNumber</XPathQuery>

          </ValueExpression>

          <Operator>Equal</Operator>

          <ValueExpression>

            <Value>1000</Value>

          </ValueExpression>

        </SimpleExpression>

      </Criteria>

      <LogName>System</LogName>

      <PublisherName>Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering</PublisherName>

    </DataSource>

  </DataSources>

  <WriteActions>

    <WriteAction ID="WA" TypeID="ClusLibrary!Microsoft.Windows.Cluster.GenerateAlertAction.SuppressedByDescription">

      <Priority>1</Priority>

      <Severity>2</Severity>

      <AlertMessageId>$MPElement[Name="Microsoft.Windows.2008.Cluster.Management.Monitoring.Cluster.service.suffered.an.unexpected.fatal.error.AlertMessage"]$</AlertMessageId>

    </WriteAction>

  </WriteActions>

</Rule>