Python 64-bit failed to start correctly (0xc00000cc) on Windows HPC

Question

I am trying to connect my application to 64-bit Python. Everything works fine on my 64-bit Windows 7 workstation (with the E8600 Core 2 Duo), but when I try to run the same 64-bit Python 2.7.2 program (which is stored in a network location) on a Windows Server 2008 HPC with Xeon X5680, it immediately crashes (regardless of the transfer of the source file or not) with a dialog box that states:

"The application failed to start correctly (0xc00000cc). Click OK to close the application."

I think both of these processors should support the x86-64 instruction set, so I'm surprised that it "just doesn't work." Having raised the error code from Microsoft , I found that it means: "{Network Name Not Found] The specified share name could not be found on the remote server." What is this talking about? I tried copying a 64-bit Python installation to a local drive, but it gives the same network-related error.

How can i fix this? Is there any inherent incompatibility that I am missing. 32-bit Python works great on both my workstation and HPC hosts. I would prefer not to recompile everything on the HPC hosts.

Thanks.

Answer 1

@partofthething, based on your comment, I'm not sure how extensive your xcopy , but it is possible that you are missing some Python libraries.

For example, if you used the standard Python installer and Python C:\Python27 was installed, you should also have C:\Windows\System32\python27.dll or C:\Windows\SysWOW64\python27.dll . You can copy them to the root directory of your python installation and then run from a network drive without any problems, but otherwise they will be available for discovery in C:\Windows\* .

The above should work no matter what, but I have some theories of what could happen:

• You may have chosen a custom installation directory - . It doesn’t make much sense, but you can somehow imagine it in Python, which you copy to the network (i.e. you installed in C:\Python27-64 , and this does not exist on the HPC server).

• DLLs were completely absent - I doubt they were missing, because then you should get a message that says:

  The program failed to start because python27.dll was missing on your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

• Dlls were the wrong architecture . I failed (lacked patience) to install Python 2.7.2, but I was able to get python 2.7. 8 with a more reasonable error 0xc000007b ( STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_FORMAT ), forcing it to use 32-bit DLLs with 64-bit Python.