named-checkzone.exe failing on Windows with INSIST(0) error

My regular readers will have no idea what I’m talking about. This is for the Googlers out there that come across this.

Trying to run named-checkzone.exe in BIND 9.4.1-P1 fails with:

..\named-checkzone.c:127: INSIST(0) failed.

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application’s support team for more information.

Plus you get one of those Windows ‘Send Error Report’ / ‘Don’t Send’ message boxes.

I only started to notice this in BIND 9.4.1-P1, but it might happen in earlier versions… I haven’t tested. Looking at the source code named-checkzone.c, around line 127:

if (strcmp(prog_name, “named-checkzone”) == 0)
progmode = progmode_check;
else if (strcmp(prog_name, “named-compilezone”) == 0)
progmode = progmode_compile;
else
INSIST(0);

My named-checkzone.exe command line doesn’t match named-checkzone, so it bails… poorly.

Try running named-checkzone, leaving off the .exe. That fixed me up.

Hope this helps.