Power Monitoring Expert 8.x/9.0 - Some of the ION services will not start - 'Error 1053 - The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion'

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Issue
In some environments, some ION services will fail to start after rebooting or restarting manually. The affected services by software version are:

Product Line
Power Monitoring Expert 8.x
Power Monitoring Expert 9.0

Environment
At this time, it is not entirely clear why this only happens in some systems. It seems to correlate to some Windows Updates.

Power Monitoring Expert 9.0

ION Application Modules Core Services Host
ION Cloud Agent Service
ION Managed Circuit Service
ION Diagnostic and Usage Service
ION Log Subsystem Router Service
ION Software Data Processing Service
ION Software Modbus Gateway Service

Power Monitoring Expert 8.x

Application Modules CoreServicesHost
ION Diagnostic and Usage Service
ION Managed Circuit Service
ION Software Alarm Service
ION Software Modbus Gateway Service

You will see a popup error that states:
'Windows could not start the ION <service name> service on the Local Computer.
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion

Cause
When signed .Net service executables start, an attempt is made to verify the digital signature. If this attempt takes longer than 30 seconds, the Windows Service Control Manager (SCM) does not allow the service to start, and you will see the error described above. It was recommended by Microsoft that this check be disabled prior to .Net Framework 4 and later via a setting in the service's config file, which is what was done in the older ION services. Microsoft stated that this was unnecessary when using the .Net framework 4.0 and later, so newer ION services did not include this element in the config files.

See this link for more information:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/configure-apps/file-schema/runtime/generatepublisherevidence-element

In spite of what is said in the link above, it now seems that in some environments this config element is still necessary.

Resolution

*Warning: Take backups of any files prior to modifying them. Ensure the backups are in a location that will not be overwritten (i.e. the Desktop).

This problem can be easily resolved by adding the element below to the affected ION service config file. Updated files are attached. There is a package for PME 8.2, and also for PME 9.0.

<configuration>
<runtime>
<generatePublisherEvidence enabled="false"/>
</runtime>
</configuration>

Note that the ION Diagnostic and Usage Service and ION Software Modbus Gateway Service do not have .config files, so they need to be added.
The required files are attached. There is a package for PME 8.2, and also for PME 9.0.

Deployment Instructions
Be sure to stop all ION services before deploying!
Extract the zip file corresponding to your PME version and copy these files and their folders into the Power Monitoring Expert directory, replacing the existing files.

Note: This issue was fixed in PME 2020.