Network Management

"Error 1920: SolarWinds Certificate Management Service failed to start" during installation of the SolarWinds Platform

This article addresses installation or configuration failures where the installer reports Error 1920 for the SolarWinds Certificate Management Service and indicates that the service could not be started.

First published date

7/10/2026 8:58 PM

Last published date

7/10/2026 9:41 PM

Overview

During installation or while running the Configuration Wizard, the installer may report that the SolarWinds Certificate Management Service failed to start and display a message to verify that the user has sufficient privileges to start system services.

Figure 1 below shows the Error 1920 installer dialog.

Figure 1: Error 1920 dialog showing that the SolarWinds Certificate Management Service failed to start during installation.

Figure 2 below shows the related installation failure banner for the same service.

Figure 2: Installation failure message indicating that the SolarWinds Certificate Management Service could not be started.

Product section

Orion Platform

Cause

Although the installer message references privileges, this issue is commonly caused by a missing or mismatched .NET 8 runtime required by the SolarWinds Certificate Management Service rather than a true Windows permissions problem.

The SolarWinds Certificate Management Service runs as a Windows service under the LocalSystem account and depends on .NET 8.

A version mismatch between Microsoft ASP.NET Core Runtime and Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime can prevent the service from starting.

In some environments, the same failure can also occur if the service cannot connect to the SolarWinds database during startup.

Resolution

  1. Log on to the SolarWinds server using an account with local administrator rights and run the installer or Configuration Wizard using Run as administrator.

  2. Open Command Prompt or PowerShell and run the following command to review the installed runtimes.

dotnet --list-runtimes

  1. Verify that both of the following runtimes are installed and that they show the same 8.x version number.

  • Microsoft.AspNetCore.App

  • Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App

  1. If the versions do not match, install or update the missing or mismatched runtime so that both runtimes are on the same version, and then restart the SolarWinds services.

  2. Run the installer or Configuration Wizard again after the runtime versions have been aligned.

Additional troubleshooting

If the issue persists, review the Certificate Management Service logs under the following path.

%ProgramData%\SolarWinds\Logs\CertificateManagement

Also review the Windows Application Event Log for .NET runtime or service startup errors related to SolarWinds.CertificateManagement.Service.exe.

If the logs show SQL connectivity errors or an access denied error for Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.SNI.dll, verify connectivity between the SolarWinds server and the SQL Server, then restart SolarWinds services and test again.

 

The SolarWinds Certificate Management Service listens on local TCP port 17732 for secure internal communication.

To help prevent future runtime mismatch issues, SolarWinds recommends keeping the Microsoft ASP.NET Core Runtime and Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime updated together on the same version.