Active Directory is the cornerstone of many networking environments. Active Directory Domain Controllers offer the means to authenticate, authorize and account for actions by employees, colleagues and guests. The availability of these Windows Servers is crucial for them to log on and gain access to resources.

Therefore, as a best practice, Microsoft recommends monitoring them closely. There are many monitoring solutions out there, but Microsofts own System Center 2012 R2 – Operations Manager (OpsMgr) is the one recommended, of course.

The situation

Alas, when you use System Center 2012 R2 – Operations Manager (OpsMgr) to monitor Windows Server 2012 R2-based Active Directory Domain Controllers, through the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) 2012 R2, you receive a lot of heartbeat failure alerts. Visually, these Domain Controllers are greyed out in the OpsMgr console.

Note:
You do not experience heartbeat failure alerts on Windows Server 2008 R2-based or Windows Server 2012-based Active Directory Domain Controllers, when you monitor them with System Center 2012 R2 – Operations Manager.

Note:
You do not experience heartbeat failure alerts on Windows Server 2012 R2-based machines, prior to Domain Controller configuration.

 

The issue

When you experience this situation the Agent Service will still be running on the Windows Server 2012 R2-based Domain Controllers, but have stopped responding and/or sending heartbeats.

Apparently, the issue is caused by an issue in the Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8,1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Operating Systems. The issue is outlined in Microsoft KnowledgeBase Article 2923126.

A search path is constructed for non-static dependencies of a module on the Windows Server 2012 R2-based Domain Controllers . When the module is loaded, the search path flags are passed to the LoadLibrary function. However, when the LOAD_LIBRARY_SEARCH_DLL_LOAD_DIR flag is set, the module search path is initialized to null. If the original module is loaded by using the LOAD_LIBRARY_SEARCH_DLL_LOAD_DIR flag, this field is dereferenced when the search path is constructed. Therefore, the Monitoring Agent crashes.

The resolution

A hotfix is available for this issue and is currently being redistributed through the Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 update rollup: February 2014.

Guidance

I recommend installing the Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 update rollup: February 2014 on Windows Server 2012 R2-based Domain Controllers.

Note:
The Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 update rollup: February 2014 is an optional update. Make sure to select it from the list of available optional updates to install it.

Further reading

Agents on Windows 2012 R2 Domain Controllers can stop responding or heart-beating    
Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 update rollup: February 2014 
Application crashes when the search path is constructed for non-static dependencies of the module in Windows 8.1