Windows 8.1 in a perpetual loop with Maintenance that never stops.

Question

Windows 8.1 in a perpetual loop with Maintenance that never stops.

Anonymous

I had been running Windows 8 since it first came out, I updated to 8.1 with no issues and the computer was running great. A few weeks back I did a fresh install of Windows 8.1 (which I do every year) and setup the computer with the exact same configuration I had prior. It has been nothing but a fight getting Windows 8.1 to act like it did before and now I am seeing this never ending action center icon in the tray telling me that Maintenance is in progress. Going to the action center and clicking on the maintenance tab the only choice I have is to stop maintenance, which it will start back up again without asking me anything. What I would really like is to know what exactly is being worked on and how do I shut this thing off for good? I want to decide what is maintained and do not like it at all when I am given some vague message that does not tell me anything about what is going on and has no apparent way to control it in the least other than telling it to be quite for a short time.

So please can someone tell me how to permanently stop this perpetual automatic maintenance loop? If Windows has to run a maintenance schedule none stop for two weeks and never completes there is more problems here than a computer that needs maintenance. I assure you that there is nothing wrong with my hardware, or my drivers. Clearly Windows 8.1 is out of control and Microsoft has seen to it, to take just about every ounce of control away from the end user as they can, or has buried it so deep that it cannot be found! I have no need for any of the Microsoft support software and already have the best possible third party software to manage and maintain my computer, far better than Windows ever could. I am not comfortable with the insistent need by this OS dictating to me what should and should not be done and when.

Please give me control back and worry about fixing this **** you call WIndows!!!

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5 answers

Answer 1

Hi,

Are using any program to run or check the system maintenance?

This issue can be caused if you have enabled the System task scheduler for system maintenance.

We do not recommend you to disable Automatic Maintenance. If you wish to disable Automatic Maintenance you may disable it.

Follow the steps to disable Automatic Maintenance:

Press Windows + W keys and type Task Schedule.
Open Task Scheduler.
Browse to Task Scheduler, Microsoft, Windows, Task Scheduler.
Right click Idle Maintenance & Regular Maintenance and select Disable and exit the task scheduler window and check if it is disabled or not.

Reference Link:

Schedule a task.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/schedule-task#1TC=windows-7

However the article is for Windows 7 you can refer it for Windows 8.1

Hope this information helps. Reply to the post with updated status of the issue so that we can assist you further.

Answer 2

Thanks Vinodh, I followed your instructions but there was a few differences on how I got to the troubleshooter. All I had to do was click search, type in troubleshooter and that got me to the same place.

The troubleshooter did not find any issues. I rebooted but there was nothing to see, what status am I supposed to see?

I also booted in the clean boot state and can confirm to a point the issue persists. Kinda hard to do since the problem is that the maintenance is stuck in a perpetual loop and never completes. It would help if it would tell me exactly what maintenance it is doing, but in this case it does not tell me anything at all. I will play around with this and see what I can come up with but it is going to be difficult to let my computer run for a few days to troubleshoot this when I need it to work on at the same time. I think the better course of action is to simply disable the maintenance and setup my own maintenance schedule.

Answer 3

So I opened Task Schedule (named Schedule Task when searching) and I followed your instructions and found the potential problem, although obscure as it is.

In the scheduled tasks in Microsoft>Windows is a task called "Idle Maintenance" and it says on the last run results that the process terminated unexpectedly. I got this even though I did not disable it, so I have no idea what task it is but there is also another task called "Regular Maintenance" that terminated unexpectedly as well. So whats the deal and why are these maintenance tasks not completing? This has to be the problem.

The main problem I see here is I work on my computer so there is no idle time for this "Idle Maintenance" task to ever run and when I am done working I turn it off. So the idea that this "Idle Maintenance" is somehow ever going to complete is not going to happen and I assume that is at least part of the problem?

You say I should not disable this but it appears to me that it is not working anyway, so whats the point of leaving it run when it is just failing? I can possibly see there being an issue if the OS was old, but this is on a brand new install.

Answer 4

Hi Ravi,

I am not running anything that I was not running before I rebuilt the software configuration. That is what has me confused to why it wont ever end now? The thing is, why does this tool not offer a single stitch of information? Why does it always have to be a guessing game with Windows? Of course I know you don't have the answer to that...;)

Thanks for the information, I will see if I can find out why it wont shut down. Was hoping someone here might have an answer as to where to find out what it is doing. One more thing to add to my list as to the mystery of what Windows is really doing I guess..

Answer 5

Hi,

Thank you for the reply.

This issue might occur if some system files are not working properly or this Security program conflict.

Let us follow these methods and check if the issue persists.

Method 1.

Run the System Maintenance troubleshooter and check the status.

Press the ‘Windows + C’ to activate the charms menu or move the mouse pointer to bottom right corner of the screen and you will get the charms menu.
Click on ‘search’ and select ‘settings’ and type ‘Troubleshooting’ and select ‘Troubleshooting’.
On the left pane click "View all" and then click "System Maintenance" and run the troubleshooter.

Once the troubleshooter is run, restart the computer and check the status.

Method 2.

Boot the computer in a clean boot state and check if the issue persists. A clean boot helps to verify if any third party application service or startup item is causing this issue.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7, Windows 8:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Note: After you have finished troubleshooting, follow steps under “How to reset the computer to start as usual after troubleshooting with clean boot” in the article to boot to normal startup.

Hope this information helps, for further assistance please reply.

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Windows 8.1 in a perpetual loop with Maintenance that never stops.

5 answers