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CO_E_FAILEDTOCLOSEHANDLE
COM could not close a serialization or file handle
CO_E_FAILEDTOCLOSEHANDLE is HRESULT 2147549496 (0x80010138) from winerror.h. AllStat describes it as “Unable to close a serialization handle or a file handle.” 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.
Handling this result correctly requires the code-specific postcondition, not merely the fact that FAILED(hr) is true.
Where it is encountered
- IAccessControl initialization, access checks, owner/trustee processing, and serialized ACL persistence. Record the interface, method, component version, thread, apartment, process, and correlation ID.
- Server-side DCOM impersonation, client blanket inspection, token and SID lookup.
- Security descriptor construction, DACL canonicalization, file-backed policy storage, or legacy NetAccess migration.
The immediate focus for it is cleanup of an ACL serialization handle or backing file that fails because of invalid ownership, double close, asynchronous use, or underlying I/O state. Keep it attached to that operation; the same numeric severity outside the owning API does not supply enough context.
Decisive interpretation boundary
Before choosing recovery, verify that the handle creation, transfer, final owner, outstanding I/O, and first close attempt are known. The decisive boundary for it determines whether the same object can continue, a new object is required, or policy must change.
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.
Correct handling and recovery
Stop further use, record the native close error, make ownership single and scoped, and reconcile whether buffered data reached durable storage.
An unchanged retry loop for it can duplicate effects, deepen reentrancy, or hide an invalid lifetime transition.
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.
Difference from nearby HRESULTs
It is cleanup failure; CO_E_SETSERLHNDLFAILED is serializer handle-state setup or reset failure.
Merging it with the neighboring HRESULT would choose the wrong retry, recreation, authorization, or cleanup path.
Practical scenario
An exception path closes a file before a scope guard runs. The code adopts unique ownership and verifies flush and close exactly once.
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
- Microsoft: IAccessControl
- Microsoft: IAccessControl::IsAccessAllowed
- Microsoft: AccessCheck
- Microsoft: LookupAccountSidW
- Microsoft: LookupAccountNameW
- Microsoft: access control lists
- Microsoft: canonical ACE order
- Microsoft: HRESULT values
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