Timer service terminated unexpectedly error 7031 7024

Errors in the System log

Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Date:          8/31/2011 11:53:35 AM
Event ID:      7031
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      <servername>
Description:
The SharePoint 2010 Timer service terminated unexpectedly. 
It has done this 479 time(s). The following corrective action
will be taken in 30000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Date:          8/31/2011 11:53:35 AM
Event ID:      7024
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      <servername>
Description:
The SharePoint 2010 Timer service terminated with
service-specific error 2147500037 (0x80004005).

Both errors appeared every 3 minutes.

Cause

Well in our particular case a developer asked me to change the owstimer.exe.config file (and restart the timer service) to configure a specific timer job.

Solution

In this case, obvious, I think. Replacing the owstimer.exe.config file to its originally settings, which are:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>
<configuration>
<runtime>
</runtime>
</configuration>

Other causes/solutions:

When I searched the internet for solutions I also found this post by Yorick here. Problem was a missing GUID named folder and the solution recreating that folder. Check his blogpost if my solution did not solve anything for you.

Tags: error, SP2010, timer service