Why is my EC2 Windows instance down with an instance status check failure?
Last updated: 2019-08-28
My Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Windows instance went down suddenly and is no longer reachable. The instance status check failed. What happened, and how can I fix this?
Short Description
Amazon Web Services (AWS) monitors the health of each EC2 instance with two status checks. An EC2 instance becomes unreachable if a status check fails.
An instance status check failure indicates a problem with the instance, such as:
- Networking or startup configuration issues
- Exhausted memory
- File system issues
- Failure to boot the operating system
- Failure to mount volumes correctly
- Incompatible drivers
If both the instance and system status checks fail, see Why is my EC2 Windows instance down with a system status check failure or status check 0/2?
Resolution
Because instance status checks are likely caused by issues within the guest operating system, focus your troubleshooting on reviewing the following:
- Console output
- System logs
- Operating system or application error messages
For more information, see Troubleshooting Windows instances.
Tip: You can also use EC2Rescue for Windows Server to diagnose and troubleshoot issues.
Related Information
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