Service collector - failed to query all services / The data is invalid

[Outek]

Current Behavior

The collector for the services fails. In the eventlog, i can see message like these:

time=2025-02-11T08:50:56.421Z level=WARN source=collect.go:212 msg="collector service failed after 5.3143ms, resulting in 0 metrics" err="failed to query all services: The data is invalid."

We have configured a config.yml file and exclude most of the services.

This is the config file

scrape:
  timeout-margin: 0.5
telemetry:
  max-requests: 5
  path: /metrics
log:
  level: warn
collector:
  scheduled_task:
    exclude: /Microsoft/.+
  service:
    include: sshd|Certificate Enrollment System|WdNisSvc|WinDefend|Splunkd|osqueryd
collectors:
  enabled: cpu,cpu_info,diskdrive,license,logical_disk,logon,memory,net,os,pagefile,scheduled_task,service,system,terminal_services,update,textfile
web:
  listen-address: :9182

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\windows_exporter ImagePath:

"C:\Program Files\windows_exporter\windows_exporter.exe" --config.file="C:\Program Files\windows_exporter\config.yml"

Expected Behavior

The collector should not crash.

Steps To Reproduce

Environment

• windows_exporter Version: 0.30.2
• Windows Server Version: Several versions.. Windows Server 2019/2022/2025 Windows 10 and 11

windows_exporter logs

time=2025-02-11T08:50:56.421Z level=WARN source=collect.go:212 msg="collector service failed after 5.3143ms, resulting in 0 metrics" err="failed to query all services: The data is invalid."

Anything else?

No response

[jkroepke]

Excluding services does not have any effect here. Because the Windows API does not support filter on query, the filter is more or less a client sided solution.

Based on the Microsoft documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/win32/api/winsvc/nf-winsvc-enumservicesstatusw

The error may occurs from an underlying registry function. I also found https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/diagnostic-policy-service-not-running-error-13-the/4650d362-e4f9-4262-b495-8058ac8fe616 which indicates that there is invalid data in your windows registry.

[Outek]

Well, it was working with version 0.28.1. We didn't have any issues with it.
Since v0.30.2 most of the time the configuration is working fine, after some time, the service crashes and the error appears. Restart the service fix the issue for about 1-2h then the error appears again. Sound like an overflow to me.. 500 servers are affected. We have to downgrade back to 0.28.1

[jkroepke]

It would help to know, if the problem appears with 0.30.1 as well.

v0.30.2 contains a change that re-uses the memory buffer instead creating a buffer of each scrape.

[Outek]

Sure, thank you for the support. I try to test it as soon as possible.