[akoro]

[OS: Windows XP Home edition - Hardware: Acer Aspire 5672WLmi laptop, ATI Mobility Radeon X1600]

Hello. I have had this error for a very long time, and through goolge i found only a few cases of other people with a similar issue.
It's not something vital, but it's disturbing:

When I turn on my computer, after booting I get the login screen, then I type my password, it says "loading user settings" and it seems to be logging in, but then it suddenly goes back to the login screen again. When I login for a second time, it works.
This does not happen every time, it seems to be random; sometimes I get a spree of 10 logins without problem, but sometimes it happens every time for a few days.

The first thing I thought of was a trojan, but I did every possible test and nothing showed up, i'm 100% sure this is not a trojan. Googling, I found very few people with a similar problem, in particular I found one that was trying hard to get rid of it. Apparently, this guy did a clean install of windows several times to get rid of it, but it still wasn't gone.
I suspect this may have something to do with the ATI catalyst drivers, since that's the only thing we have in common.
Here's the thread (somewhat long):
http://www.ngohq.com/ati-discussion/...-xp-twice.html

What's surprising is that even if it is some issue with the drivers, it's ridiculous that only a very few people have this problem (and i've been through several driver upgrades; the problem persisted)

By the way, even if you create a new profile, or if you set windows to login automatically, it gives problems. One problem that is probably associated to this, is that if i set my account to no password, when i log in sometimes it *does* ask for a password (and of course nothing works).

I found that every time this issue shows up (double login) I get two consecutive logs in the "application" tab of the event viewer, with the following:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: EventSystem
Event Category: (50)
Event ID: 4614
Date: 2/16/2007
Time: 2:32:38 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ACER-C72A56FA8B
Description:
The COM+ Event System detected an inconsistency in its internal state. The assertion "GetLastError() == 122L" failed at line 201 of d:\qxp_slp\com\com1x\src\events\shared\sectools.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The error message is pretty weird, since i don't have anything at all in the d: drive (note the reference to a c++ source in the d:\blahblah path).

I'm pretty clueless right now, especially after all the different stuff that we tried in that other forum (ngohq).

I appreciate in advance any ideas.
Regards,

Koro

[diewindowsdie]

I noticed you have an ATI display adaptor which means you should check for the following on your system:

AtiExtEvent registry key located at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows T\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\AtiExtEvent\

Ati Hotkey Poller Service running. To check, 'Start > Run > services.msc'
If it's there do not stop the service, I'll get to that.

Check the task manager to see if you have the following process running:
ati2evxx.exe

If the above three conditions are true do the following:

Disable the Ati Hotkey Poller service
From a command prompt run the following command (exactly how you see it):
sc config "Ati Hotkey Poller" start= disabled

Kill the ati2evxx.exe process
From a command prompt run the following:
taskkill /f /im ati2evxx.exe

Delete the entire AtiExtEvent registry from the registry (it's useless!):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\AtiExtEvent

Or you could just run the following batch file and avoid manually performing the previous steps:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Echo Off
cls
ECHO.
ECHO.
Echo Detecting registry for existance of AtiExtEvent regkey
ECHO.
ECHO.
REM The following line returns a 0 if the key is found and a 1 if it is not found
REG QUERY "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\AtiExtEvent\"
ECHO %ERRORLEVEL%
IF %ERRORLEVEL%==0 (
ECHO The AtiExtEvent registry key EXISTS!
ECHO.
ECHO.
REM delay for 10 seconds
ping -n 10 127.0.0.1 >NUL
echo Disabling the Ati Hotkey Poller service
sc config "Ati Hotkey Poller" start= disabled
ECHO.
ECHO.
REM delay for 10 seconds
ping -n 10 127.0.0.1 >NUL
echo Killing the ati2evxx.exe process
taskkill /f /im ati2evxx.exe
ECHO.
ECHO.
REM delay for 10 seconds
ping -n 10 127.0.0.1 >NUL
echo Deleting the AtiExtEvent registry key entry
REG DELETE "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\AtiExtEvent" /f
ECHO This window will close by itself in 10 seconds
ping -n 8 127.0.0.1 >NUL
) ELSE (
REM Display notification if AtiExtEvent regkey does not exist and close cmd window
ECHO The regkey does not exist. This window will close in 10 seconds
ping -n 10 127.0.0.1 >NUL
)
Exit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reboot and your problems should be over. Notice the AtiExtEvent key is under the Winlogon key which, logically, can potentially screw up your logon. If you don't use any hotkey functions to change your display adaptor settings then you don't need this useless PAIN-IN-THE-*** stupid service running.

Cheers

[diewindowsdie]

Keep in mind, the COM+ Hotfix Rollup Package may not fix this issue either, it didn't for me so I resulted to disabling the Ati Hotkey Poller service.

The package is found at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922668

[akoro]

Oh my... this sounds like a winner. I had already disabled the ATI hotkey poller service, but probably the registry keys are the problem. I deleted the whole registry entry; I still don't know if it worked but I'm confident it will...
In any case, when i update my ATI drivers i'll probably have to do all of this again.

How did you figure this out? Did you have the same problem?
Thanks a lot, I'll let you know how it worked.
Regards,
koro

[Rogue Reaper]

Hi

Akoro - I was the guy who started off the long thread about this issue on "NGOHQ - CATALYST PROB - HAVE TO LOGON TO XP TWICE" wow was it really as way back as Nov 06

I never did find an answer that worked & eventually gave up - not sure why but I decided to check out the old posting & came across this site.

Was wondering did the suggestion from "diewindowsdie" work for you?

Cheers

[Raphouille2]

Ok The original poster forgot to give some feedbacks, so here they are:
I had exactly the same problem, and I had removed these ATI hotkeys listeners for a while... Actually I removed the service but I forgot the registry key.
Now the registry key has been deleted, I do not log twice anymore, so thanks for the info.

Note that ATI softwares are not just useless, they are also cursed... Thanks ATI to transform our registry into a mess, and to throw our precious time through the window.

[Rogue Reaper]

Hi

Thanks for the update.

I followed the instructions from "diewindowsdie" but the only one that doesnt seem to work for me is :

Kill the ati2evxx.exe process
From a command prompt run the following:
taskkill /f /im ati2evxx.exe

When I enter the instructions under the "Run" command box I get the following error message:

Windows cannot find "taskkill". Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and the click search.

I have 2 of these "ati2evxx.exe" process running & I although I can stop them running under Task Manager they just start back up after re-boot.

They are not listed under "msconfig" as start up items so not able to stop them from there.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[akoro]

Originally Posted by Rogue Reaper

Hi

Akoro - I was the guy who started off the long thread about this issue on "NGOHQ - CATALYST PROB - HAVE TO LOGON TO XP TWICE" wow was it really as way back as Nov 06

I never did find an answer that worked & eventually gave up - not sure why but I decided to check out the old posting & came across this site.

Was wondering did the suggestion from "diewindowsdie" work for you?

Cheers

Yes man, it worked like a charm!

Thanks again to diewindowsdie!

[diewindowsdie]

Rogue Reaper,

If you still have the ati2evxx.exe processes running view the Windows services (Start > Run > services.msc) and confirm the Ati HotKey Poller service is disabled. You can also confirm the service is not running from the command prompt by running the following command just as you see here.

sc query "Ati HotKey Poller"

The command will return the following output which should show a STATE of STOPPED:

SERVICE_NAME: Ati HotKey Poller
TYPE : 110 WIN32_OWN_PROCESS (interactive)
STATE : 1 STOPPED
(NOT_STOPPABLE,NOT_PAUSABLE,IGNORES_SHUTDOWN)
WIN32_EXIT_CODE : 1077 (0x435)
SERVICE_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
CHECKPOINT : 0x0
WAIT_HINT : 0x0

I'm glad this worked for everyone. I reported this bug to Microsoft and ATI support would not believe or even consider the fact that the Ati HotKey Poller service would be causing such a serious error. In an Active Directory domain the COM+ 4614 event causes a user's roaming profile not to load, thus loading the local default user profile instead. I've noticed the COM+ 4614 error occurs during a logon directly after a system reboot when the service restarts.