What does HRESULT 0x80010137 (CO_E_FAILEDTOCREATEFILE) mean?

 
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CO_E_FAILEDTOCREATEFILE

COM could not create its access-control serialization file

CO_E_FAILEDTOCREATEFILE is HRESULT 2147549495 (0x80010137) from winerror.h. AllStat describes it as “Unable to create file.” In the COM IAccessControl, DCOM client identity, trustee translation, token inspection, security descriptor, ACL, or serialization workflow, the code identifies a specific failure boundary and should not be replaced by a generic COM exception.

The caller should keep this result intact through logging, exception translation, and RPC or language projection boundaries.

Decisive interpretation boundary

Before choosing recovery, verify that path, desired access, sharing, disposition, filesystem, service identity, and native error are known. That boundary prevents this result from being misclassified as corruption, network failure, or a reason for an unsafe automatic retry.

Also confirm that all observed objects, tokens, buffers, proxies, metadata files, or ACLs belong to the current operation generation and were not retained from an earlier attempt.

Where it is encountered

  • This result can be returned during IAccessControl initialization, access checks, owner/trustee processing, and serialized ACL persistence. Record the interface, method, component version, thread, apartment, process, and correlation ID.
  • This result can be returned during server-side DCOM impersonation, client blanket inspection, token and SID lookup.
  • It can be returned during security descriptor construction, DACL canonicalization, file-backed policy storage, or legacy NetAccess migration.

The immediate focus for it is file creation for serialized ACL or IAccessControl state after path and identifier construction. Keep it attached to that operation; the same numeric severity outside the owning API does not supply enough context.

Correct handling and recovery

Correct directory existence and ACLs, available space, sharing conflicts, or path construction. Remove partial files and keep the prior valid serialization intact.

An unchanged retry loop for it can duplicate effects, deepen reentrancy, or hide an invalid lifetime transition.

Difference from nearby HRESULTs

It is storage creation failure; CO_E_PATHTOOLONG identifies the path-length cause before or during creation.

A support tool discussing it should name the neighboring result only after the originating API and decisive state are known.

Lifetime, retry, and cleanup rules

After it, determine whether the current object, interface pointer, call context, token, stream, metadata reader, asynchronous operation, or access-control instance remains valid. Release only resources owned by the failing attempt, cancel callbacks through their documented mechanism, and avoid double close, double commit, repeated activation, or replay of a non-idempotent remote method.

The retry policy for it should state the trigger, maximum attempts, cancellation owner, and reconciliation step for effects that may have completed elsewhere.

Developer and administrator guidance

When it crosses native, managed, scripting, RPC, or WinRT projection boundaries, preserve the unsigned 32-bit HRESULT. Unit tests for it should assert the code-specific postcondition and resource ownership, not merely that an exception was thrown.

After it, avoid broad permission grants or system-wide resets unless code-specific evidence proves a global configuration problem. Define who owns retry, cancellation, cleanup, policy changes, package repair, and user-facing messaging for it.

Practical scenario

A service upgrade changes the account and loses write access to its ACL store. Installation grants the application directory the minimal required rights.

A regression test should reproduce it, assert the raw HRESULT and all relevant outputs, then correct only the decisive condition and verify the intended success or neighboring failure result.

References

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