Solved Suspicion That Disc Cleanup Has 'Broken' Windows Update.

[Mooly]

I first noticed a problem with Windows Update (WU) a few days ago. The timeline and 'evidence' is this.
(my WU settings are to 'notify only')

1/ All had been running smoothly until a single optional update appeared (Synaptic finger print driver).
2/ Driver installed and Windows restarted. All good.
3/ Disk clean-up including system file clean-up was carried out. (I always do this following updates).
4/ From this point on WU failed to do a daily check.

I didn't troubleshoot this issue at the time, I rolled back to a June 6th disk image).

5/ All well following the rollback. WU checks as normal and picks up all the June updates. (no Synaptic driver in this list)
6/ Disk clean-up performed again. Remember this is now on an earlier image that we know is good because all worked normally for days past this point before.
7/ Again, WU now appeared broken. Two days have elapsed with no auto check.

The only common factor in this is the running of the disk clean utility.

Today I changed the WU settings to 'never check for updates' and applied them. I then reset them back to 'notify only' and immediately WU launched into an update check and picked up the list of optionals that I believe appeared yesterday.

So all very odd. I will have to wait until tomorrow to see whether it works as normal from this point on.

 

[Mooly]

Looks like this is still broken. No update check has run this morning.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Have you tried the classic maintenance (Windows updates tend to break things lately):

fsutil resource setautoreset true c:\
fsutil usn deletejournal /d /n c:
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
sfc /scannow
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
pause

 

[Mooly]

Have you tried the classic maintenance (Windows updates tend to break things lately):

fsutil resource setautoreset true c:\
fsutil usn deletejournal /d /n c:
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
sfc /scannow
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
pause

Well I've been doing a bit of detective work. Earlier today I ran SFC (which found uncorrectable errors) and then I ran DISM restore health and rebooted following that with another SFC. Now DISM reported all was fixed and OK but the second SFC still reports errors. Now I saved the CBS logs before and after DISM and it appeared the same errors were still present.

I didn't try any of the fsutil commands, I didn't know about those tbh.


What I did next was run a Microsoft Elevated Diagnostics file called 'WindowsUpdateDiagnostic' that was kindly suggested by someone on TechNet. That found errors in WIndows Update.


1/ Service registration missing or corrupt... fixed.
2/ Windows Update Error 0x80070490......... fixed.
3/ Problems installing recent updates........... fixed.

and resetting of Windows Update data store.

So I guess its wait and see time again.

Edit... all these problems definitely occur from running the full Disk Clean routine. The base image used to keep investigating this issue works normally until the clean up is run.

 

[Mooly]

Well...... I don't know is the honest answer. The reset tool left WU interface reset to 'Never' for both the last update check and last time updates installed. Update history is intact. I was hoping it would check today but it hasn't and so I forced a manual check which ran OK. Now its another waiting game......

I wish I knew where to look to see if WU is enabled. I searched for WU topics and altering frequency of updates and so on, and there are several references and topics (not on eightforums) , but all seem to need the group policy editor which isn't present in home versions of W8.1. The registry settings applicable to the group policies also aren't where all these articles say they are. Its frustrating to have a problem that can't be verified or checked and that only allows one attempt per 24 hours to resolve with another 24 hour wait to see if its been fixed.

 

[TairikuOkami]

There are various registry locations, I use this one:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update]
"AUOptions"=dword:00000002
"AutoInstallMinorUpdates"=dword:00000001
"IncludeRecommendedUpdates"=dword:00000001
"NoAutoUpdate"=dword:00000000

You could also check policies in registry, I delete them to prevent problems.

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ActiveDesktop]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\Run]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ActiveDesktop]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\Run]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]

There are also Windows Update tasks in Task Scheduler, I have deleted mine, so check yours.

Windows cleanup tool is just odd, I prefer CCleaner + WiseCare Free, they are more reliable.

 

[Mooly]

Thanks Tairiku, I've just looked in regedit and none of those items are present. The policies 'folder' is empty, nothing there at all and the AUupdates path has none of those options either... but it has others. There was one showing

I'm just going to have to wait and see what happens.

 

[Mooly]

Apologies... I had another look and clicked the 'Auto Update' folder. I don't know why I didn't view the contents of that, think I was expecting to see the items you listed without having to do anything.

Anyhow, I see this and in particular notice the time of next detection (which is well under the 22 hours minimum since forcing an update check). So all being well (fingers crossed) it should check tomorrow morning when I power up.

 

[Mooly]

Good news. All seems to have worked this morning. Update check was performed as normal. I will be very interested to see if further use of the disk clean utility breaks this again... or was it a one off weird issue. I'm going to let things settle and run for a while before trying again.

I wish I had known about the reg key before applying the Microsoft file to fix this this as I would have liked to have seen what it was set at regarding next update detection time.

 

[Cliff S]

Hi Mooly here is a Event Viewer custom view for Windows Update attached that you can import to your viewer. Just download and unzip it, then open properties to unlock it. Open Event Viewer under actions click Import Custom View.



Maybe it'll be easier for you to keep an eye on WU then.

View attachment Windows Update Custom View.zip

 

[Mooly]

Thanks Cliff, that looks great. I had no idea you could do that.

 

[Cliff S]

Thanks Cliff, that looks great. I had no idea you could do that.

Do you mean import/export views? I found that one day when I bored and digging deeper into Windows 7. You can do that with a few of the Administrative Tools programs.

 

[Cliff S]

On the right side of Event Viewer you can attach a task to that custom view like maybe a warning toast or email when a specific event happens. Event Viewer is really a very powerful tool, just a little complicated when using in conjunction with other tools. It's really there to find specific events and not, as most people do, to browse all critical(usually meaningless) events.

 

[Mooly]

I've never really had much need to use event viewer in the past tbh, however this last issue has been a real exception where I needed to do a bit of detective work. Its usually simple things like check disk logs I look at, such as where I have left chkdsk running and its rebooted and then I want to see what the final outcome was.