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SharePoint 2013. Excel Services. w3wp.exe fails with "Exception code: 0x80131623"

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I came across an issue the other day where the Excel Services failed to start in SharePoint 2013.
When a user clicked an *.xlsx file the following message was displayed in the browser

"We're sorry. We ran into a problem completing your request. Please try that again in a few minutes"

and the corresponding w3wp.exe process went down. I managed to reproduce this here and found the solution.
Basically this was down to a permission issue in the registry. Steps to see the issue and the solution below.

:: Removed "READ" permissions on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\15.0 (in this case for the WSS_WPG group).
:: Did an IISReset to make sure all was properly reset and then tried to open a *.xlsx file. This produced the following:

# In the browser:

"We're sorry. We ran into a problem completing your request. Please try that again in a few minutes"

# In the ULS logs:

<date><time> w3wp.exe (0x2D30) 0x1958 Excel Services Application Web Front End acbd Critical   
Unable to reach Excel Calculation Services https://<servername>/e1413656e1ac4e948a91e26d5913011c/ExcelService*.asmx. [Session: User: <account>]       

<date><time> w3wp.exe (0x2D30) 0x1958 Excel Services Application Web Front End accf Medium     
ServerSession.ProcessWebException: A Web exception during ExecuteWebMethod has occurred for server: https://<servername>/e1413656e1ac4e948a91e26d5913011c/ExcelService*.asmx, method:
GetHealthScore, ex: System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (503) Server Unavailable.    
 at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()    
 at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory`1.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout), response: 'System.Net.HttpWebResponse', status ProtocolError, user name: <account>.           

<date><time> w3wp.exe (0x2D30) 0x1958 Excel Services Application Web Front End acco Critical   
There was an error in communicating with Excel Calculation Services https://<servername>/e1413656e1ac4e948a91e26d5913011c/ExcelService*.asmx exception: The remote server returned an error: (503) Server Unavailable. [Session: User: <account>].

# In Process Monitor (https://technet.microsoft.com/sv-se/sysinternals/bb896645):

# In Event Viewer:

Faulting application name: w3wp.exe, version: 8.5.9600.16384, time stamp: 0x5215df96
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0x80131623
Fault offset: 0x00007ffada0caf23
Faulting process id: 0x11e8
Faulting application start time: 0x01d03a1b81cbbc8c
Faulting application path: c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\w3wp.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: d0141935-a60e-11e4-80d1-00155d3a280a
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
...

An internal error occurred.
   at Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.OpenSubKey(String name, Boolean writable)
   at Microsoft.Win32.Registry.GetValue(String keyName, String valueName, Object defaultValue)
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.MossHost.MossHost.get_HostBinaryPath()
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServerApp.Initialize()
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Diagnostics.FirstChanceHandler.ExceptionFilter(Boolean fRethrowException, TryBlock tryBlock, FilterBlock filter, CatchBlock catchBlock, FinallyBlock finallyBlock)
...

Application: w3wp.exe
Framework Version: v4.0.30319
Description: The application requested process termination through System.Environment.FailFast(string message).
Message:
Stack:
   at System.Environment.FailFast(System.String)
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.HelperMethods.HandleShutdown(System.Exception, Boolean)
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Diagnostics.FirstChanceHandler.ExceptionFilter(Boolean, TryBlock, FilterBlock, CatchBlock, FinallyBlock)
   at Microsoft.Office.Web.Common.ExceptionReporting.ReportOnExceptionTag(UInt32, Category, System.String, Boolean, Microsoft.Office.Web.Common.TryBlock, Microsoft.Office.Web.Common.CatchBlock, Microsoft.Office.Web.Common.FinallyBlock)
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServerApp..ctor()
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServerApp..cctor()
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceBase.SafeSetContext()
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceBase.BeginProcessOperation(Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.CommandParameter, Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.WebMethodBehaviorAttribute, Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.WebMethodType, System.AsyncCallback, System.Object, Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.Operations.UserOperation)
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceBase.BeginProcessOperation(Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.CommandParameter, Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.WebMethodType, System.AsyncCallback, System.Object, Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.Operations.UserOperation)
   at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap.BeginGetHealthScore(System.AsyncCallback, System.Object)
...

 

:: Adding back the READ permission on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\15.0 (in this case for the WSS_WPG group) allows the *.xlsx to open again.

So if you come across the issue/errors shown above then make sure that the process account have the correct permissions in the registry.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2015
    This is exactly what I needed when Excel Services failed after a SharePoint/Windows update.  Thank you.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2015
    Great post, I was getting the same issue and now its solved! Thanks Michael.

  • Anonymous
    August 17, 2015
    Fantastic, fixed the issue for me.  IIS was also killing the entire SharePoint Web Services App Pool due to this. The following events were also logged in my System event log:

  • Application pool '<guid>' is being automatically disabled due to a series of failures in the process(es) serving that application pool
  • Application popup: w3wp.exe - System Warning : Unknown Hard Error
  • A process serving application pool '<guid>' suffered a fatal communication erro with the Windows Process Activation Service.  The process id was '<id>'.
  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2015
    Thanks a lot. This article was really helpful.