Task scheduler ran a task twice

Question

Update: This has now happened two days in a row.

Update: XML of scheduled tasks and images now included.

Two servers located in London, both Windows 2012, have a scheduled task set to run at 3pm Monday to Friday. This has been set up for the last 5 months without a problem.

However, on Monday the 28th of August they both ran the scheduled task at 3pm and then again at 4pm. When it was first reported, I thought it was too much of a coincidence to be the day after the clocks had gone back an hour. However, I’m failing in being able to explain why it has happened and if it is related to the clock change at all.

The relevant logs from one server (the logs for the other follow this pattern as well):

Event 129 15:00:20 Task Scheduler launch task "\3pm", instance "C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\v5.4\php.exe" with process ID 2388.

Event 100 15:00:20 Task Scheduler started "{75a3590f-dec1-4dee-bd27-73d63a50a9d7}" instance of the "\3pm" task for user "x\y".

Event 200 15:00:20 Task Scheduler launched action "C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\v5.4\php.exe" in instance "{75a3590f-dec1-4dee-bd27-73d63a50a9d7}" of task "\3pm".

Event 201 15:00:23 Task Scheduler successfully completed task "\3pm" , instance "{75a3590f-dec1-4dee-bd27-73d63a50a9d7}" , action "C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\v5.4\php.exe" with return code 0.

Event 129 16:00:20 Task Scheduler launch task "\3pm", instance "C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\v5.4\php.exe" with process ID 1224.

Event 100 16:00:20 Task Scheduler started "{3dd46ca9-c525-4796-86b5-5e513fd45f26}" instance of the "\3pm" task for user "x\y".

Event 200 16:00:20 Task Scheduler launched action "C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\v5.4\php.exe" in instance "{3dd46ca9-c525-4796-86b5-5e513fd45f26}" of task "\3pm".

Event 201 16:00:23 Task Scheduler successfully completed task "\3pm" , instance "{3dd46ca9-c525-4796-86b5-5e513fd45f26}" , action "C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\v5.4\php.exe" with return code 0.

I've seen this question Scheduled task running twice from time to time which points to a bug at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2461249 being the cause. However, this doesn't include Server 2012 in it's list of problem operating systems.

I’m struggling to explain this, can anyone else?

The XML export for the scheduled task is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Task version="1.2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
  <RegistrationInfo>
    <Date>2013-04-16T14:04:17.4897806</Date>
    <Author>x\y</Author>
  </RegistrationInfo>
  <Triggers>
    <CalendarTrigger>
      <StartBoundary>2013-04-17T15:00:20</StartBoundary>
      <Enabled>true</Enabled>
      <ScheduleByWeek>
        <DaysOfWeek>
          <Monday />
          <Tuesday />
          <Wednesday />
          <Thursday />
          <Friday />
        </DaysOfWeek>
        <WeeksInterval>1</WeeksInterval>
      </ScheduleByWeek>
    </CalendarTrigger>
  </Triggers>
  <Principals>
    <Principal id="Author">
      <UserId>x\y</UserId>
      <LogonType>Password</LogonType>
      <RunLevel>LeastPrivilege</RunLevel>
    </Principal>
  </Principals>
  <Settings>
    <MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
    <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>true</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
    <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>true</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
    <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
    <StartWhenAvailable>false</StartWhenAvailable>
    <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
    <IdleSettings>
      <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
      <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
    </IdleSettings>
    <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
    <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    <Hidden>false</Hidden>
    <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
    <WakeToRun>false</WakeToRun>
    <ExecutionTimeLimit>P3D</ExecutionTimeLimit>
    <Priority>7</Priority>
  </Settings>
  <Actions Context="Author">
    <Exec>
      <Command>"C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\v5.4\php.exe"</Command>
      <Arguments>-f "c:\a.php"</Arguments>
    </Exec>
  </Actions>
</Task>

Trigger Configuration for the scheduled task History for the scheduled task

29 October 17:00 - Update - Both servers have again run the scheduled task at 15:00 and 16:00. I've now updated the php file that is run by the scheduler to not actually do anything whilst I'm going through trying to solve this. I'm planning on restarting one server to see if this changes anything tomorrow.

30 October 08:25 - Update - When exporting the task XML I remembered that I hadn't included the fact that the scheduled task on second server was created by importing the XML of the task created on the first. The only difference between the two tasks is the path of the php file they are executing and the user account that they are running as.

30 October 16:30 - Update - The server that has been restarted is not showing this behaviour any more, the scheduled task ran once on it. I'll wait a few days before restarting the second server in case anyone has any ideas on diagnosing why / how it happened

06 November 18:00 - Update - We applied all of the updates to the second server and restarted. We assumed that this would solve the problem, however the 3pm ran twice again - once at 3pm and again at 4pm. I looked at other scheduled jobs and they ran only once.

It's unlikely due to the time change if it is the day after, and the times in the logs reflect accurate time (meaning if it were a time issue you'd see it run twice but both at 3pm not one at each time). Honestly though, if it's only happened once back in August I'd be inclined to say "bug/anomaly/ghosts" and move on. But maybe someone else can shed some light for you here... — TheCleaner, Oct 29 '13 at 13:08
29 October 17:00 - Update - Both servers have again run the scheduled task at 15:00 and 16:00. I've now updated the php file that is run by the scheduler to not actually do anything whilst I'm going through trying to solve this. I'm planning on restarting one server to see if this changes anything tomorrow. — Ross Buggins, Oct 29 '13 at 17:03
Could you do us a favor please and post the XML export of the scheduled task so we can see what its parameters actually are? — Ryan Ries, Oct 29 '13 at 19:34
XML is added in. The server that has now been restarted is not showing this behaviour any more, the scheduled task ran once on it. I'll wait a few days before restarting the second server in case anyone has any ideas on diagnosing why / how it happened. — Ross Buggins, Oct 31 '13 at 08:47
just to be shure: you did check the Trigger-option "Synchronize across time zones" ? After that the Task Scheduler is using UTC. — Manfred Schmidt, Oct 30 '13 at 08:36
No, that is not ticked. However, with that ticked I don't think it is the behaviour that I require. I want the task to run at 3pm local time, with that ticked I believe it would be running an hour out during BST? — Ross Buggins, Oct 30 '13 at 09:52
In our organisation we have the same issue after switching to winter hours on 28th of october. we only have this issue with tasks imported with an xml file has anyone else the same issue? — Stijn, Nov 07 '13 at 09:58
Now that is a really interesting point - I'm pretty sure the task that is playing up for me was imported from an XML file and the other ones that run were not. — Ross Buggins, Nov 07 '13 at 10:06
Just had this happen on Server 2019 the day after DST. Was there a fix for this? — asp316, Nov 04 '19 at 15:52
Having the same issue on 2016 server. Odd thing is that I also have my tasks set to run at 3pm and they also ran again at 4pm. — Squashman, Nov 23 '20 at 17:11

Warren Stevens · Answer 1 · 2013-11-12T14:31:32.300

6

We just noticed the same issue on our production servers (also Windows Server 2012), which occurred this week. It also started after our clocks went back one hour (which was November 3, 2013, here in Toronto).

Update as at Nov 12, 2013:

Rebooting did not work (tasks continued to run twice)
Exporting and re-importing the tasks did not work (tasks continued to run twice)
Manually re-creating the task in the GUI does fix the issue

Also, after further discusssions with Microsoft (by our sys admin), Microsoft said: "...the issue was identified in Windows Server 2012 and has been fixed only in the next release of Windows which is Windows 8.1 / Windows Server 2012 R2".

edited Nov 12 '13 at 14:31

answered Nov 06 '13 at 22:01

Warren Stevens

181
3

Were these imported by XML files too? See my comment to Stijn answer – Ross Buggins Nov 07 '13 at 10:07
We have about 10 tasks. Those that were typed in manually (I'm certain of that origin, because I recently created the tasks) do **NOT** have the running twice problem. Some of the other tasks were imported from XML and do have the problem. We are going to try a reboot tomorrow, and are following up with Microsoft – Warren Stevens Nov 07 '13 at 14:48
One more note: We do **not** have "Synchronize across time zones" checked for any of the tasks (in case that matters) – Warren Stevens Nov 07 '13 at 14:50
From our sys admin: "...Had a session with Microsoft, they have seen this before but can’t say exactly what causes it. For now they ask we try reboot the server and also try recreating the tasks. There is no hotfix installable to resolve this as they have said other customers affected were able to resolve by either rebooting or recreating the tasks..." – Warren Stevens Nov 07 '13 at 16:31
We are also experiencing this issue at my company. We also had to recreate the task to fix it. It would be nice if MS would update the Knowledge Base article linked in the OP to include Windows 2012. I mean if it's fixed in 2012 R2 then it should have an official KBase article, defect number, or something... – Jordan Rieger Mar 05 '15 at 23:58
1

We are running Windows 2016 and are having the same issue (job imported from Windows 2012) – Greg Jul 01 '18 at 23:24
We imported a job from 2012 into 2016 and hit the same problem. We've tried recreating it manually and will see what happens (the job runs monthly, so we'll have to wait for August) – Greg Jul 01 '18 at 23:32
We are having the same issue on 2016 Server and the task was not imported. It was created from scratch and only started running twice after the time switch on 11/3 a few weeks ago. – Sum None Nov 25 '20 at 19:32

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 15 '19 at 19:16

2

We could reproduce the error when the job was scheduled to UTC+0 (Windows 2012 R2 server).
E.g. We had a job running at wrong dates which was scheduled at 2 am.
As our timezone is UTC+2, the job ran at UTC+0.
It seems that Windows has some rounding issues. Perhaps it uses UTC internally and if the job runs exactly at UTC+0, some rounding errors or race conditions cause the job to run on the wrong dates.
We also saw jobs, which run as planned but after reboot, reported:

The operator or administrator has refused the request (0x800710E0)

After changing the scheduled time to e.g. 2:02 am, the errors disappeared.

edited Oct 15 '19 at 19:16

kenlukas

3,101
2
16
26

answered Oct 14 '19 at 21:28

T_H

21
1

+1 for the solution of 2:02 setting. it works for me too. – Developer Nov 03 '21 at 22:44
I can confirm this as well (Windows Server 2012 R2): We had a job scheduled to run each Saturday at 2:00 am. It sporadically misfired on Fridays (5 times in 18 month) -- but only during month with daylight-saving-time, i.e. when our time-zone happens to be UTC+2! – Blue Jul 22 '22 at 09:15

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 08 '13 at 13:58

I've had this problem crop up this week since the DST changeover. I know this isn't a great answer, but deleting and recreating the job appears to solve the problem. I tested on a couple of jobs that have been duplicating over night and the recreated jobs did not duplicate.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 02 '20 at 05:00

I had this issue on a Windows Server 2016 server and it was not an imported task like others have mentioned. It was a new Basic Task created during daylight savings time and did not become an issue until the time switched back this last November 3rd, at which point it started running twice exactly an hour apart from the scheduled time.

Furthermore, none of my other tasks have this issue. The only difference with this task (that I can think of) compared to others is that it's using a monthly trigger with a couple days specified during the month.

The work around for me was to simply check the box next to the Start time trigger option to "Synchronize Across Time Zones."

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 02 '21 at 14:29

I had the same issue on Windows server 2016.

Just a bit of history. Task was running fine for serveral years on Windows server 2008 R2. In May 2020, we migrated task (XML import) to Windows server 2016.

In my case, task is triggered 1st day of every month at 10 CET. Issue started after winter time change on 25th October at 3AM, 2020. First task was triggered at 10 CET and after that at 11 CET again on 1st of Nov, 2020. Again the same 10 CET and 11 CET on Dec, 2020.

Only manual recereating task from scratch (no XML import) helped.

AlmightyGlitch · Answer 6 · 2022-08-05T22:05:10.007

Funny, I just ran into that in a new windows server ( version 2019 on official aws image) For no apparent reason it runs my PowerShell Script Twice, I've managed to get a little workaround by adding to my script a Test-Path,

The Script will run and if $FILE not exists it will continue and create it, if it does exists, it will quit ( hence the double execution, whoever will run first will go, it wont allow parallels execution for the time its running ) at the end of the execution it will delete the file. I hope this workaround helped someone ! Attaching a sample. EDIT - Added random sleep before checking if the file exists

POWERSHELL

$num = Get-Random -Maximum 100
start-sleep $num
$file = './running.info'

if (Test-Path -Path $file) {
    echo "File Exists, Quitting"
    return
} else {
    echo "File Does not exists, Resuming"
    echo hey > ./running.info

    Start-sleep 12
    Remove-Item ./running.info
}

Task scheduler ran a task twice

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