OWSTimer unhandled exception popup – System.Security.Cryptographic.CryptographicException

Here’s the resulting event log error:

An unhandled exception occurred and the process was terminated.

Application ID: DefaultDomain
Process ID: 6148
Exception: System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException
Message: Keyset does not exist
StackTrace: at System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException.ThrowCryptogaphicException(Int32 hr)
at System.Security.Cryptography.SafeProvHandle._FreeCSP(IntPtr pProvCtx)
at System.Security.Cryptography.SafeProvHandle.ReleaseHandle()
at System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle.InternalFinalize()
at System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle.Dispose(Boolean disposing)
at System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle.Finalize()

Cause of the error is when SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 are both installed on the same machine you may see this error every 24 hours. This occurs when the OWSTimer service has a regular process recycle and in the shutdown of the old process an exception is raised. The exception doesn’t interfere with the normal process shutdown and recycle and is only ever seen if you have a JIT debugger installed on the machine.

You can ignore these exceptions and close the window.

You can stop the popup exception message by disabling JIT debugging on your machine. THIS WILL DISABLE JIT DEBUGGING FOR ALL APPLICATION ON THE MACHINE.

Follow the steps to configure the server  which will not show a dialog when an unhandled exception occurs, use the registry editor to delete the following registry keys:

· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug\Debugger
· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\DbgManagedDebugger

On a 64-bit operating system also delete the following registry keys:

· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug\Debugger

· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\DbgManagedDebugger

More details on JIT Debugging are at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5hs4b7a6(VS.80).aspx