Solved Stuck forever on Checking for updates...

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Good to hear this has been a pretty common problem

 

[redrick]

How can I tell?

Yeah, only I'm really frustrated with this Stuck Forever. I'm fixing up an old Windows 7 sp1 computer of my mother's that hasn't been used since the middle of 2012. It has some of the symptoms talked about here- BITS often becoming Manual and not starting, mixed results running the FixIt, etc. But basically I don't know if update's not working or if it's just taking almost forever to give up 4 years of updates. And when I try one of the fixes I have no way of testing whether it's helped.

I've got it set to let me decide which updates to download & install so it just has to get and display the info re available updates. Is there any way I can tell if it's working or not?

BTW you'd think as MS very much wants people to move from 7 to 10 they'd make fixing the update ability of the former as that seems to be the easiest way to do it.

 

[SteveKt]

I've found this problem on 3 HP Compaq Presario CQ57 laptops running Winows 7 Home Premium 64, where the svchost process associated with wuauserv would hog one core after TrustedInstaller had been running for a while, either on auto or when checking manually. Fresh install helped for a while if I omitted certain updates by hiding them, but problem returned, (I can list them if anyone wants them).

This seems to have now been resolved by KB 3161608 published 21st June 2016, download and run the standalone installer from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3161608 . It is marked as an optional update so will not be installed automatically even when Windows Update is working ok.

The "Checking for Updates" process still takes a while, upto 10 minutes at times, but if you look in Task Manager and TrustedInstaller is still using greater than zero percent processor time then wait, if it goes down to zero and an svchost process shoots up to 50% (on a dual core) and stays there then it hasn't worked. In my experience, it is not worth waiting any longer once this happens.

This is my first post here, hope it's ok and helps some people.

 

[averagePCuser]

I've found this problem on 3 HP Compaq Presario CQ57 laptops running Winows 7 Home Premium 64, where the svchost process associated with wuauserv would hog one core after TrustedInstaller had been running for a while, either on auto or when checking manually. Fresh install helped for a while if I omitted certain updates by hiding them, but problem returned, (I can list them if anyone wants them).

This seems to have now been resolved by KB 3161608 published 21st June 2016, download and run the standalone installer from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3161608 . It is marked as an optional update so will not be installed automatically even when Windows Update is working ok.

The "Checking for Updates" process still takes a while, upto 10 minutes at times, but if you look in Task Manager and TrustedInstaller is still using greater than zero percent processor time then wait, if it goes down to zero and an svchost process shoots up to 50% (on a dual core) and stays there then it hasn't worked. In my experience, it is not worth waiting any longer once this happens.

This is my first post here, hope it's ok and helps some people.

Hi everyone!

My check for update was working successfully until today. I needed to use restore point today but I dont know if that is what triggered Check Updates to hang.

Thanks Steve for your post! I would like to ask a few questions about installing KB3161608. If Steve or anyone else can help, I would greatly appreciate it.

1) Can I install this from my computer Windows Update panel (KB3161608 is an optional update that I had not installed) or do I have to use the standalone? If I do have to use the standalone, can you please point me to a link that describes how to install updates as a standalone?

2) On the KB3161608 download page link you posted, it says that there are prerequisites that need to be downloaded before installing KB3161608. Can you please list the updates that need to be installed beforehand? When I clicked on the prerequisite link, it led to a generic page.

Also, here is a screenshot of my current optional updates.


The reason for so many uninstalled optional updates, is that my computer is not compatible with the new windows 10 (too old, sony does not support) and I had been following Ask Woody
(to the best of my ability) to avoid the imposed win 10 updates.

However, I have the GWX control panel that (I think) will help rid me of win 10 afterwards, if any of the optional updates are prerequisites for KB3161608.

I have windows 7 professional x64

Thanks in advance, any advice is appreciated

EDIT: I also found a more simplified KB3161608 download page
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52974
From this thread Flydaddy post

 

[DavidE]

@averagePCuser

You can install KB3161608 from Windows Update.
The Prerequisites are
1) Windows SP1
2) KB3020369 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3020369

If it's offered to you i assume you already have these Prerequisites installed.

 

[averagePCuser]

@averagePCuser

You can install KB3161608 from Windows Update.
The Prerequisites are
1) Windows SP1
2) KB3020369 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3020369

If it's offered to you i assume you already have these Prerequisites installed.

Thanks for replying! I will download it now from my windows update panel and report back with results ....

 

[averagePCuser]

Yayy!
It worked The check for updates only took 10 minutes!
Thanks DavidE

 

[DavidE]

You're welcome and glad to hear that worked for you

 

[kimcheee]

I support more than 20 Windows 7 PCs running Pro and Home and am having the "stuck forever" issue popping up frequently on different systems.
I'm finding that it really isn't "stuck forever", just that checking for updates can take MORE THAN 24 HOURS on many systems.
Also believe that this process, which may involve rebuilding the database this god-forsaken update process uses, might be triggered by, for example, a shutdown of the machine while it is in the middle of an otherwise normal (10-minute) checking for updates. Or, triggered by canceling a update, or by shutting down while an update is being installed in the background, etc.

I have had it happen on my new super fast (I7 desktop with SSDs and tons of memory) where it takes HOURS to check for updates; then when it finds the updates, it seemingly is stuck on downloading updates which stays at 0% for HOURS - but, if wait long enough - it does finish. The problem is on the slower machines where this takes DAYS to complete. This is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable.

(My conclusion is it's time to seriously plan to move off of the Windows platform. I think I'm going to have to make the move to Linux....)

I'd also say that some of the advice earlier in this thread has been superceded - the "speed up" KB3161608 patch has been replaced - but, there is no real fix yet. (See this Infoworld article )

Also appears that this keeps changing and as of mid-Sep '16, This article reveals manual install of KB3185911 "fixes" the stuck checking for updates...

 

[tlhuffman]

This is the most difficult problem I have ever dealt with in Windows. It took me many tries and a couple of weeks before I finally fixed this. Here is the solution that finally worked for me. It is the same solution posted above, except it includes additional manual updates.
1. Turn off Windows Update.
2. Reboot the PC.
3. Go to this site

2 easy steps to speed up Windows 7 Update scans | InfoWorld

and follow the two-step process. You must download the updates to your download folder and then run them from there.
4. Once the two-step process has completed--it involves downloading and manually installing several updates--you can then go to Control Panel, Windows Update, and then Check for updates.

It took about 10 minutes for my system to acknowledge that 246 updates were needed.
5. Install the identified updates.

That's it.

 

[MoxieMomma]

Hi:

Yes, this for sure a hot mess, thanks to our friends in Redmond.

For the record, 3161608 has been replaced by 3172605.
I'm not sure if those other two patches (KB 3138612 and KB 3145739) will or will not resolve it for everyone (they did not for me).

But the combination of 3020369 and 3172605 worked like a charm for me.
The trick is to fully disable the WU service temporarily in order to get them to install.
(Otherwise, the system will perpetually "check this computer for updates".)

I followed the excellent, step-by-step instructions HERE for my Win7 laptop yesterday.
Including installing the 2 "fix" patches, a few reboots and then a FAST manual update check, I was back in business with all September patches in just a few minutes, not hours.
(Thank you, @Brds7t7!!)

(I finally got the September patches on my Win7 desktop 2 days ago, after waiting nearly 3 hours for them to download. So I intend to implement the "3020369 + 3172605 fix" on that box, as well.)

I hope this helps,
MM

 

[Clr1216]

I joined this forum just to tell you thank you! I kept getting stuck on checking for updates and when I would try to download the updates it would get hung on searching for updates on this computer so I couldn't install anything. After days of frustration I came across this thread. I turned off updates and restarted and all my my updates will install now. Who would have thought something so simple was the answer. Thank you so much!!!!!!!

 

[scally]

Like the poster before me, I signed up to give you my heartfelt thanks! I was going mad with this. Yesterday, whilst trying to study for an exam, I discovered that the last time my computer had completed an update was in August!! So I started searching for a fix, none of the ones I tried worked (the one from Microsoft's official website was especially useless), until I found this thread and tried what tlhuffman suggested on the previous page. It did take some trial and error and about 20 restarts to find out which patch was missing (hint - if you try to install the wrong one manually the window gets stuck just like the Windows Updater, so make sure you install them in order) but eventually I got them all installed and Windows Updater started working again! And as a bonus - my computer is working much better (faster). So thank you!!