FAQ: Restart a hung RPM without restarting the computer

Problem: How do I restart the RPM service without restarting the computer when the process is hung or I receive a cannot connect to service message?

Note: the following material applies to RPM 4.5 and prior; in RPM 5.0 this problem is fixed.

Answer: There are two common reason RPM hangs or freezes and the service cannot be resarted.

  1. RPM is attempting to print to a printer shared from another computer and that printer is not responding or the computer is currently turned off.
  2. RPM executed a filter program that has not yet finished running.

If the former is the case, you can stop the Windows Print Spooler service. With that service stopped, try restarting RPM. If RPM still will not stop, or the cause is a hung filter program, you can kill the RPMSrvc.exe process. The task manager for Windows, however, cannot kill the process. We know of two applications that can kill the RPMSrvc.exe process:

  1. The kill.exe command. This program is included in the Resource Kit for different Windows server operating systems. This is a program you use from the Windows Command Prompt (CMD.EXE).
  2. Process Explorer (procexp.exe) distributed freely by Microsoft Windows Sysinternals can also kill the RPMSrvc.exe process. This is a GUI application similar to the Windows Task Manager, but provides more detailed information about your processes.
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