Socket error 10048 when trying to synchronise

Started by Ron McGregor

Ron McGregor

Socket error 10048 when trying to synchronise   13 September 2014, 13:54

I have a home network with 3 PCs (1 with Windows XP and 2 with Windows 7 64-bit), a laptop running Windows 8 over WiFi and an Xbox360. One of these is using up all the monthly download in as little as a week. Nobody is owning up to this. So I installed NetWorx in the hope that it could identify which of these devices (not the Xbox because there's no way to install NetWorx on it) is using up all of the download allowance. NetWorx installed OK on all of the computers, but when I tried to synchronise all of the instances of NetWorx, one of the Windows 7 computers popped up an error message: Initialisation error Socket error: 10048.

The other Windows 7 computer did not throw up this error and neither did the Windows 8 laptop, nor the Windows XP computer.
All of the computers now show up on the real-time usage report screen except for the Windows 7 computer that returned the socket error.
Is there a work around to allow the socket error to be bypassed or fixed?
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: socket error 10048 when trying to synchronise   13 September 2014, 16:50

This error means the requested port number (8703) is in use by other application. It could be another instance of NetWorx running on this computer or another application. You can use the following command in a command prompt to find out the process ID that is using the port:
netstat -ona | find "8703"

Then you can find the Process ID in the last column and use it in this command where X must be replaced with the Process ID.
tasklist /FI "PID eq X"
This should tell you what application is using the port NetWorx needs.
Ron McGregor

Re: socket error 10048 when trying to synchronise   14 September 2014, 14:32

Wow! You're a genius. That worked. Turns out you were spot on because there was actually a previous instance of NetWorx running as you suggested. I wish I understood all about ports and processes and PIDs. Very useful to know.
Ron McGregor

Re: socket error 10048 when trying to synchronise   14 September 2014, 14:47

Now that you've solved my problem (and thanks for that), can you tell me how a Socket error number of 10048 relates to a Process Id of 8703?
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Socket error 10048 when trying to synchronise   15 September 2014, 12:59

Yes, I personally admire curiosity, so here's more info on this issue smile

The 10048 error code is a numeric error code returned by Windows networking subsystem. Basically this code tells us that another application is using the same port. More information about ports can be found here.

Now, as the developer of NetWorx, I know that NetWorx uses port 8703 for usage synchronisation. So you used this command to find out what processes (or applications) are using that port:
netstat -ona | find "8703"
Every application running on the system has a process ID. Unfortunately netstat returns a process ID rather than an application name. So this step gave us the identifiers of processes that are using the port NetWorx needed.

The next step was to find out what application has that process ID and that where you used
tasklist /FI "PID eq X"
Which simply list application names with the specified process ID.

Hope this explains it a bit. Please follow the links to learn what ports and process identifiers are smile
Rob McGregor

Re: Socket error 10048 when trying to synchronise   15 September 2014, 13:07

Thank you very much. That was indeed very helpful. I'm now going to try and learn as much as I can about processes, PIDs, ports and sockets. I've always been aware of them, I just never needed to go into their mysterious depths before and now I'm intrigued.

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