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WinRM error 0x800704D6 ERROR_CONNECTION_COUNT_LIMIT

Copper Contributor

Hello!

 

I'm having a difficult time locating a fix or better ways to troubleshoot this error.  I manage a few hundred servers, and four of them are generating error 0x800704D6 when running any command which uses WinRM (the service and/or the winrm command) to perform a query.   

 

The error code (0x8007) is a user-mode error and (..04D6) is 1238 in decimal and represents ERROR_CONNECTION_COUNT_LIMIT.  NET HELPMSG 1238 reports "A connection to the server could not be made because the limit on the number of concurrent connections for this account has been reached."  This agrees with the actual screen output when running "winrm get winrm/config" - "2020-09-28T20:18:48.709Z Comms Error Unable to open async communications port - error 0x800704D6" - This error is generated when logged in locally as an administrative user and running the command in PowerShell or from a monitoring agent on the affected system running as Local System.

 

There is no helpful information in the Applications, System, or Microsoft/Windows/Windows Remote Management/Operational Event Logs.  No errors/warning/critical.

 

This is currently occurring on Windows Server 2016 & 2019 in VMWare ESXi & Azure.  

 

I'm trying to determine

  1. What exactly is the connection limit referring to?  The account or the WinRM service?  Other processes run as Local System aren't generating this error.
  2. How would I determine how many connections either WinRM or Local System has in use and what those connections point to?
  3. Is there a way to log better data about WinRM to aid in troubleshooting?

Ultimately, I want to be able to identify this as a problem with my RMM tool and automate a fix for it.  

 

Thanks for any help here.

 

1 Reply

It could simply be that multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more than one user name, are not allowed