Windows Service Written in VB will not stop properly

[!NoItAll]

I have created a small windows service. It starts properly and works as expected. The only problem I am having is when I try to stop it. I get the error: "Service could not be stopped" - but it appears that the service does stop, just not right away. There isn't much code in the OnStop sub:

        CheckTimer.Stop()  'stops a timer that checks for a running app
        EndApps()   'ends specified running applications
        CheckTimer.Dispose() 'disposes of the timer completely
        Logit("Stopping LCHDWatchdog Service")  'writes an exit message to the log
        Threading.Thread.Sleep(1500)
 

I've tried putting the sleep statement in to see if that helps, but the result is the same.

The application simply starts up and checks to see if a certain application is running (it could be multiple apps). If the apps are not running it will start them.
On close it will close the apps, then it should gracefully exit.
Any suggestions?

[!NoItAll]

Ok - found the problem. There was a type issue in the EndApps sub. I was concatenating a string in it (for a message to a log) and instead of using the ampersand I used an asterisk.
This generated only a run-time error (the IDE did not catch it) and thus the call threw an error.
So - word to the wise - double check all of the subs/functions in your services to make sure they are solid. Services don't tell you much when there is an error.