VBScript Error – MSXML3.dll error ‘800C0005’

This is a popular re-post from my old Blogger blog.

I’m working on  a website up-time monitoring script.

After I had my initial prototype working, I received more requirements for logging output to CSV in addition to storing output in Access DB and decided to add CPU usage percentages to the logging.

Once I had all that done, I started getting odd errors when solution should be detecting a down-time event.

Testing the script with older version of Microsoft.XmlHttp had issues where certain but not all websites the script would call were incorrectly displaying HTTP status code 404 but a 200 OK was really sent back verified by using Fiddler.  Very odd behavior.

The error is related to VBScript’s use of the older version of the Microsoft.XmlHttp object.

The Code

Function isPortalOffline(strURL)
 'Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
 Set http = CreateObject("Microsoft.XmlHttp")

 http.open "GET", strURL, False
 http.send 
 
 'Only check for error of the http Get request
 if err.Number <> 0 Then
  isPortalOffline = True
 Else
  'Wscript.Echo "error" & Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description
  isPortalOffline = False
 End If

 'Clear the error after setting isPortalOffline
 err.clear
 'set WshShell = Nothing
 Set http = Nothing 

 ReportError("isPortalOffline")
End Function

Error: MSXML3.dll error ‘800C0005’ The System cannot locate the resource

Changed MSXML Objects.

The Fixed Code

Replaced Microsoft.XmlHttp with MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP.

Function isPortalOffline(strURL)
 'Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
 Set http = CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP")

 http.open "GET", strURL, False
 http.send
 
 'Only check for error of the http Get request
 if err.Number <> 0 Then
  isPortalOffline = True
 Else
  'Wscript.Echo "error" & Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description
  isPortalOffline = False
 End If

 'Clear the error after setting isPortalOffline
 err.clear
 'set WshShell = Nothing
 Set http = Nothing 

 ReportError("isPortalOffline")
End Function

This resolved my issues!

I hope this helps someone. 🙂

Author: Rick Cable / AKA Cyber Abyss

A 16 year US Navy Veteran with 25+ years experience in various IT Roles in the US Navy, Startups and Healthcare. Founder of FinditClassifieds.com in 1997 to present and co-founder of Sports Card Collector Software startup, LK2 Software 1999-2002. For last 7 years working as a full-stack developer supporting multiple agile teams and products in a large healthcare organization. Part-time Cyber Researcher, Aspiring Hacker, Lock Picker and OSINT enthusiast.