Spnsrvnt

General

SPNSRVNT is a program that is part of the SafeNet Sentinel hardware protection key system. This specific program is the server that provides Sentinel keys on the network, to be shared by multiple PC's. The web-interface of the server can be accessed on: http://localhost:6002/ the Keys server is available on: http://localhost:7002/

It is possible that this program is creating a crash during the start of windows. See the following URL ([1]) for a detailed description. Another problem could be that the 'Safenet Protection Server service' is not starting and thus not running.

A copy of that URL is included below:

Problem:

After I install LabVIEW, Lookout, or other National Instruments products and I reboot my machine, spnsrvnt.exe crashes with the following message:

  "Instruction at 0x0012e870 referenced memory at 0x00000000"

How can I stop the crash from occuring?

Solution:

spnsrvnt.exe is related to a Rainbow/Safenet product called Sentinel that uses a USB dongle to verify software products. National Instrument's Logos protocol, installed by LabVIEW and other NI products, occupies port 6001. Some versions of the Sentinel driver crash if this port is in use. There are two potential workarounds:

1. Upgrade the Sentinel Protection Installer, available from Safenet's website.
2. Modify the registry so that Logos uses different ports. (For advanced users only. Editing the registry can render your system inoperable. Always back up your registry before making changes.)
   1. Download the attached LogosPortsFix.reg file to the Desktop.
   2. Locate the file and double-click it to run it.
   3. Click Yes when prompted to add the information to the registry.
   4. Reboot the machine.

This registry file creates the following two keys:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\National Instruments\Logos\Ports\FirstClientPort with a DWORD value of 8000. The default value is 6000.
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\National Instruments\Logos\Ports\FirstServerPort with a DWORD value of 7000 The default value is 5000. These keys configure Logos to occupy ports not used by Safenet's software.

National Instruments services

A very similar problem is triggered when one or more services are also using the same server-ports. We know that the following services are also using the same ports:

• NI Citadel 4 service
• NI Variable Engine

The best solution is to set these services to the startup type: 'Automatic (Delayed start)'. Those services will then be started 2 minutes after the last 'Automatic' started service. This will ensure that first the 'Sentinel Protection Server' is started, and after that the other conflicting services are started.

Links

• Spnsrvnt.exe Crashes After Installing National Instruments Products
• Dongle

Personal Computer

Universal Serial Bus: A modern serially controlled communication system, found on all new PC's