why windows 7 task scheduler task fails with error 2147942667

146
votes

I am facing a strange problem. I have scheduled a task to lauch a batch file. When I run the task with option Run only when user is logged on everything works fine. but I want to run this task in background and hence i am running it using the option Run whether user is logged on or not. Now when i run the task it is not working. I get following 2 errors. I don't understand this error. Please help me resolve this issue.

 Task Scheduler failed to launch action "C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\cmd.exe" in instance "{2a7cc950-fad9-4633-9701-af75a0fd220d}" of task "\stmm\Daemon". Additional Data: Error Value: 2147942667.
 Task Scheduler failed to start instance "{2a7cc950-fad9-4633-9701-af75a0fd220d}" of "\stmm\Daemon"  task for user "GBLADHEDANI\N011940" . Additional Data: Error Value: 2147942667.
7
windows-7scheduled-tasks
Convert the error code to hex to get 0x8007010B. The 7 makes it a Windows error. Which makes 010B error code 267. "The directory name is invalid". Sure, that happens. - Hans Passant
@HansPassant, that's brilliant. Convert to hex, use last four bytes to search for error code. Hope I can remember that one! - Mark Berry
FWIW I found the main Task Scheduler UI had the task with a 'Last Run Result' or similar column, showing a readable 'The directory name is invalid' error message. The fix in our situation was the answer from jp2code below about removing quotes from Start In folder, because I'd copied it from the quoted Command to run. - Neek
@Mark Berry docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/com/… - R.J. Dunnill
@R.J.Dunnill, thanks for tagging me on that. Very helpful! - Mark Berry

7 Answers

277
votes

I had this same issue.

The solution for me was found in the Microsoft KB Article 2452723:

Windows Vista onwards scheduled tasks fail to run if the path in "Start in (Optional)" field has quotes

Basically, edit your scheduled task and take the Quotes out of the Start In field:

  1. Open your Scheduled Task
  2. Switch to "Actions" tab
  3. Open your Action
  4. Remove Quotes (") from the field "Start in (optional)"
  5. Save and close all open dialogs

Edit Action Dialog Box

To get the relevant error message:

1) Convert 2147942667 to hex: 8007010B
2) Take last 4 digits (010B) and convert to decimal: 267
3) Run: net helpmsg 267
4) Result: "The directory name is invalid."

Command Prompt Window

9
votes

For me it was the "Start In" - I copied the values from an older server, and updated the path to the new .exe location, but I forgot to update the "start in" location - if it doesn't exist, you get this error too

Quoting @hans-passant 's comment from above, because it is valuable to debugging this issue:

Convert the error code to hex to get 0x8007010B. The 7 makes it a Windows error. Which makes 010B error code 267. "The directory name is invalid". Sure, that happens.

7
votes

This can happen for more than one reason. In my case this happened due to a permissions issue. The user that the task was running as didn't have permission to write to the logs directory so it failed with this error.

3
votes

I had the same problem, on Windows7.

I was getting error 2147942667 and a report of being unable to run c:\windows\system32\CMD.EXE. I tried with and without double quotes in the Script and Start-in and it made no difference. Then I tried replacing all path references to mapped network drives and with UNC references (\Server1\Sharexx\my_scripts\run_this.cmd) and that fixed it for me. Pat.

2
votes

For a more generic answer, convert the error value to hex, then lookup the hex value at Windows Task Scheduler Error and Success Constants

1
votes

For me it was the "Start In" - I accidentally left in the '.py' at the end of the name of my program. And I forgot to capitalize the name of the folder it was in ('Apps').

0
votes

For me, this was due to the user PATH environment variable, which didn't seem to work even though the user was correct, so I needed to put the entire executable path into the program field.