Server 2012 stuck in a reboot loop - lsass.exe failed

Question

My Server 2012 server boots up fine and the login screen is visible (from a local console). Password entry works but attempting to submit the password - either by clicking the arrow or pressing the Enter key - is futile. Nothing happens. After about 1 minute the computer immediately restarts - no blue screen or error message.

I can boot into Safe Mode and looking at the System event log I can see that a system-initiated restart has taken place. The Information message (Event ID: 1074) is as follows:

The process wininit.exe has initiated the restart of computer <computer name> on behalf of user  for the following reason: No title for this reason could be found
 Reason Code: 0x50006
 Shutdown Type: restart
 Comment: The system process 'C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe' terminated unexpectedly with status code -1073740791.  The system will now shut down and restart.

I have tried to find the meaning of this error code online but it seems that no-one else has experienced this specific error.

What can I do to save my server?

Answer 1

This error is caused by LastPass. The login hooks used by LastPass seem to be incompatible with Server variants of Windows - causing lsass.exe to crash.

Note the following related error message (Event ID: 1000) in the Application event log:

Faulting application name: lsass.exe, version: 6.3.9600.17415, time stamp: 0x545042fe
Faulting module name: lplogin.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x56df0368
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x000000000000775b
Faulting process id: 0x1fc
Faulting application start time: 0x01d1d3659f61a068
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\lplogin.dll
Report Id: 99b7a523-4174-11e6-80c8-3ca82a9ff999
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Because the services required for uninstalling the LastPass application are not available in Safe Mode - the easiest way to resolve this issue is to rename the lplogin.dll to lplogin.dll.bak (thus preventing Windows from loading LastPass at boot-time). Once you have successfully booted into normal Windows - you can simply uninstall the LastPass application.