I feel your pain. I have no experience with the module mentioned, so this may all be worthless...

In the services which I have written (in C/C++), I have always observed that the ServiceMangler API needs to be reassured that your service is doing something. I believe your service will startup better if you send lots of SERVICE_START_PENDING messages using the appropriate plumbing. Send them when you first begin to start up. Send them in your startup loop and b etween calls to other subs or functions. Pepper them liberally during the time-consuming parts of your code.

Then the SM feels like you are making progress and actually not dead in the water. Best of luck.

--bibo