Why do ArcMap.exe processes stay open after I close ArcMap?

Question

I realized that this is happening months ago when I was not able to alter table structure in an instance of ArcMap after another instance was closed. When, for example, I remove or add some fields to a feature class in ArcMap, save and close the document and open ArcCatalog and attempt to delete that particular Feature Class I get the Delete Failed: Failed to delete selected object(s) error. This usually happens when an instance of ArcMap that contains layers which I am trying to delete is opened so the workaround is to fire up the Windows Task Manager and kill the ArcMap.exe processes that are for some reason still opened.

Anybody else having this issue?

Now running SP3 and the issue has not been solved.

EDIT: Just to add to the above information, I am running a very similar setup on a comparable machine and I do not have this issue there.

Answer 1

Not your fault and not much you can do about it. However, if you are curious about the reason, what happens is that there is a COM circular reference (most likely to something listening to some event source - like the Editor) and when the applications attempts to exit it cannot, because some objects are keeping each other alive. This can be from an extension that you have installed, or even from within ESRI code itself. This used to happen all the time and it may only manifest itself under certain conditions, like certain commands being visible in the toolbar.

From an old ArcObjects tutorial on COM concepts:

When the application exits, it releases the reference it holds to the command. If the command also serves as an event sink, the application holds another reference to the command, which cannot be released until the command disconnects from the source. As the command does not know of a point at which it can disconnect other than its own destructor, this causes a circular reference whereby the application cannot exit without the command destroying and the command's destructor never gets called because the application holds a reference to the command. This causes the application to hang on exit.

If you are even more curious, delete (or backup) your Normal.mxt, which will wipe out all customizations and see if this problem persists.

Answer 2

PsKill from the SysInternals Suite (a darn near mandatory toolkit in my opinion) can be linked to a shortcut and fired at will to clean up hung processes. Doing so is ugly in that it does nothing to solve the original problem, but it does allow one to carry on quickly and efficiently.

pskill -t arcmap.exe

I have been getting invisible arcmap.exe processes several times a week lately, not so often before, but it has been happening for some time. I'm usually using concurrent licensing. It seems to happen more often when I have more than one Arcmap session active. We use Sophos antivirus, on 64bit Win7.

Answer 3

Thank You @Kirk and @Ragi for solving this problem! Here is what I have done while monitoring the Task Manager Processes:

1. Backed up and deleted Normal.mxt
2. Started new ArcMap Document (ArcMap opened in default configuration)
3. Closed ArcMap (Process closed as expected)
4. Added Toobars: 3D Analyst, Advanced Editing, Data Frame Tools, Draw, Edit Vertices, Editor, Georeferenceing, Labeling, Layout, Snapping
5. Arranged toolbars
6. Closed ArcMap (Process closed as expected)
7. Started new ArcMap Document
8. Added my own custom toolbar with add-ins
9. Closed ArcMap (Process closed as expected)
10. Started an existing ArcMap Document
11. Used custom start and stop editing on my toolbar as well as several custom tools
12. Closed ArcMap (Process closed as expected)

I also removed and deleted ArcBruTile

ArcMap Processes now close as expected