What does NTSTATUS 0xC0000496 (STATUS_DEVICE_HINT_NAME_BUFFER_TOO_SMALL) mean?

 
Previous Next
STATUS_PNP_DEVICE_CONFIGURATION_PENDING STATUS_PACKAGE_NOT_AVAILABLE

STATUS_DEVICE_HINT_NAME_BUFFER_TOO_SMALL

The supplied name buffer cannot hold the remaining device hint

STATUS_DEVICE_HINT_NAME_BUFFER_TOO_SMALL is a size-reporting failure. The operation has more device-hint name data available than fits in the caller-provided buffer. It usually points to incorrect capacity calculation, a stale required-length value, or confusion between bytes and characters.

Correct handling

  • Use the returned required size when the API provides one, then allocate a new buffer and retry.
  • Confirm whether the length includes a terminating null character.
  • For Unicode names, distinguish a byte count from a WCHAR count.
  • Preserve any enumeration cursor only if the API states that retrying continues from the same position.

Why fixed buffers fail

Device identifiers and hint names can grow when namespace prefixes, instance identifiers, or bus-specific components are included. A fixed stack buffer that works on one machine may truncate on another. Prefer a query-size-then-fetch pattern and impose a separate sanity limit for malformed or hostile data.

References


Looking for a different code? Search another status or error code.