What does HRESULT 0x8001013F (CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED) mean?

CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED

COM IAccessControl object has not been initialized

CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED is HRESULT 2147549503 (0x8001013F) from winerror.h. AllStat describes it as “The COM IAccessControl object is not initialized.” 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 CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED intact through logging, exception translation, and RPC or language projection boundaries.

Decisive interpretation boundary

Before choosing recovery, verify that construction and initialization order, required initial state, and interface instance identity are known. If this condition cannot be proven for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED, stop before consuming outputs or repeating side effects.

For CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED, 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

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

The immediate focus for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED is an IAccessControl method invoked before the implementation receives its required owner, property, ACL, or initialization data. Keep CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED attached to that operation; the same numeric severity outside the owning API does not supply enough context.

Diagnostic sequence

• Capture the raw unsigned value 0x8001013F and symbolic name CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED before a language projection, exception wrapper, or generic COM helper replaces it.
• Identify the exact interface, method, callback, activation request, metadata query, access-control operation, or marshaling boundary that returned CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Reconstruct the operation timeline for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED, including object creation, thread or apartment initialization, security setup, callbacks, mutations, shutdown, and cleanup.
• Prove the decisive condition: construction and initialization order, required initial state, and interface instance identity are known.
• Inspect every output parameter, handle, interface pointer, token, SID, ACL, stream, buffer, server-side object, or asynchronous result produced before CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Reproduce CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED with the smallest safe input, change only the suspected precondition, and verify that both the HRESULT and postcondition change as predicted.

Evidence and telemetry

• Preserve IAccessControl implementation and instance ID for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Preserve construction and initialization calls for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Preserve policy or owner supplied for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Preserve first method invoked too early for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Preserve factory publication point for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.

For CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED, also record UTC time, process and thread IDs, apartment type, component version, security or package identity where relevant, and a correlation ID. For CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED, use hashes, lengths, GUIDs, and SID strings rather than logging confidential payloads or credentials.

Correct handling and recovery

Call the documented initialization method before access checks or persistence, propagate initialization failure, and prevent publication of half-initialized objects.

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

Difference from nearby HRESULTs

CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED is object lifecycle; descriptor and trustee HRESULTs assume initialization proceeded far enough to process access data.

Tests for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED should force both results and verify that object lifetime, output use, and user messaging differ.

Lifetime, retry, and cleanup rules

After CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED, determine whether the current object, interface pointer, call context, token, stream, metadata reader, asynchronous operation, or access-control instance remains valid. For CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED, 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 CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED should state the trigger, maximum attempts, cancellation owner, and reconciliation step for effects that may have completed elsewhere.

Developer and administrator guidance

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

Document the owner of the CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED boundary so future occurrences can be correlated across client, proxy, server, package, and security logs. Define who owns retry, cancellation, cleanup, policy changes, package repair, and user-facing messaging for CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.

Practical scenario

A factory returns an IAccessControl instance before loading its policy stream. The factory completes initialization atomically before exposing the interface.

A regression test should reproduce CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED, 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 — official Microsoft documentation relevant to CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Microsoft: IAccessControl::IsAccessAllowed — official Microsoft documentation relevant to CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Microsoft: AccessCheck — official Microsoft documentation relevant to CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Microsoft: LookupAccountSidW — official Microsoft documentation relevant to CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Microsoft: LookupAccountNameW — official Microsoft documentation relevant to CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Microsoft: access control lists — official Microsoft documentation relevant to CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Microsoft: canonical ACE order — official Microsoft documentation relevant to CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.
• Microsoft: HRESULT values — official Microsoft documentation relevant to CO_E_ACNOTINITIALIZED.

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