Increase timeout of WSUS console

Question

Increase timeout of WSUS console

Rob Nicholson 51

Cross-referencing to this archived topic from last year:

Somebody did a lot of digging and discovered that it was the spSearchUpdates sproc that was taking longer to execute than the WSUS MMC timeout. It was asked whether it was possible to a) make the sproc run faster or make the console more tolerant of timeouts.

The thread was archived before any meaningful answers were forthcoming.

Please don't point me towards the tweaks for WSUS such as queue lengths, HTTP runtime timeout, private memory limits etc. as I've tried them all ;-) I made the silly mistake of adding driver classifications into WSUS system to try and fix a completely separate KB update issue and now WSUS is unstable. I've got >100,000 unapproved updates that I can't get rid of. This WSUS instance is running on Azure so I've resized with with silly vCPU & RAM and still times out. It hardly eats in to the 16 vCPU and 64GB RAM...

Rita Hu -MSFT 9,426 Reputation points

2020-12-18T09:03:16.303+00:00

It seems there is no update for a couple of days. May we know the current status of the problem? Is there any other assistance we can provide?

If you have any questions, please keep us in touch.
Rob Nicholson 51 Reputation points

2020-12-18T12:23:49.447+00:00
As my original question has not been answered, I would say this question is still open:

a) make the sproc run faster
b) make the console more tolerant of timeouts.

However, I suspect the answer is "No" to both of them. It's a design flaw in the sproc that causes it to timeout and that requires the developers to change their algorithm. And no, there isn't a magic way to increase the timeout in the console.

This is a well documented and reported flaw in WSUS - there are probably 50+ topics on the same problem:

Add a new classification/products, often Drivers is the (bad) choice

One then ends up with many unapproved updates

It is impossible to view all unapproved updates because all tools (WSUS console, SQL stored procedures and PowerShell) all time out
Adam J. Marshall 5,831 Reputation points MVP

2020-12-18T20:43:28.917+00:00

I can tell you from experience, that when using WSUS Automated Maintenance (WAM)©, along with a properly configured WSUS Server, you don't get any timeouts using the Windows Internal Database (which is what I am using, and recommend to use). I have all classifications checked including Drivers, and my database currently has 108,369 updates in the database. WSUS is fast, responsive, doesn't time out, and I can list all unapproved drivers in the database (~98,000) in less than 40 seconds in the WSUS console in my Drivers update view, scoped to Unapproved with the status of Any. Opening Computer reports or update reports are usually open and usable in under 6 seconds. No timeouts, no reset server node.

Full disclosure, WAM is my product.
Rita Hu -MSFT 9,426 Reputation points

2020-12-21T09:59:00.883+00:00

Have you tried to index the database as the below link? If not, we could try to index the database and then decline superseded updates to see whether this issue will be resolved or not.
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/6f8cde49-5c52-4abd-9820-f1d270ddea61

It is a better way to reinstall the WSUS role if the above step is useless.

Rita Hu -MSFT 9,426 Reputation points

2020-12-18T09:03:16.303+00:00

It seems there is no update for a couple of days. May we know the current status of the problem? Is there any other assistance we can provide?

If you have any questions, please keep us in touch.
Rob Nicholson 51 Reputation points

2020-12-18T12:23:49.447+00:00

As my original question has not been answered, I would say this question is still open:

a) make the sproc run faster
b) make the console more tolerant of timeouts.

However, I suspect the answer is "No" to both of them. It's a design flaw in the sproc that causes it to timeout and that requires the developers to change their algorithm. And no, there isn't a magic way to increase the timeout in the console.

This is a well documented and reported flaw in WSUS - there are probably 50+ topics on the same problem:

Add a new classification/products, often Drivers is the (bad) choice

One then ends up with many unapproved updates

It is impossible to view all unapproved updates because all tools (WSUS console, SQL stored procedures and PowerShell) all time out
Adam J. Marshall 5,831 Reputation points MVP

2020-12-18T20:43:28.917+00:00

I can tell you from experience, that when using WSUS Automated Maintenance (WAM)©, along with a properly configured WSUS Server, you don't get any timeouts using the Windows Internal Database (which is what I am using, and recommend to use). I have all classifications checked including Drivers, and my database currently has 108,369 updates in the database. WSUS is fast, responsive, doesn't time out, and I can list all unapproved drivers in the database (~98,000) in less than 40 seconds in the WSUS console in my Drivers update view, scoped to Unapproved with the status of Any. Opening Computer reports or update reports are usually open and usable in under 6 seconds. No timeouts, no reset server node.

Full disclosure, WAM is my product.
Rita Hu -MSFT 9,426 Reputation points

2020-12-21T09:59:00.883+00:00

Have you tried to index the database as the below link? If not, we could try to index the database and then decline superseded updates to see whether this issue will be resolved or not.
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/6f8cde49-5c52-4abd-9820-f1d270ddea61

It is a better way to reinstall the WSUS role if the above step is useless.

Answer 1

I don't know what you're talking about. If you're performing the proper maintenance for WSUS and have optimized it properly, the console does not time out, reports are quick to generate, and checking for updates from client systems are also quick.

Not only this, but I RECOMMEND enabling the Drivers category. Most people hate it because enabling the Drivers category brings in a lot of updates but they also don't know the power of WSUS Automated Maintenance (WAM): WAM can remove all drivers from your system without requiring a reinstall of WSUS allowing only NEW drivers to enter your system. Over time, the list piles up again (as it's routine for 500-1000 updates a day to come in from Drivers) as you can see on my instance with a snippet of the next version's output below:

Decline Multiple Types of Updates:
There are 107329 updates in this server's database.
There are 41 types of updates listed in the configuration, however only 22 are enabled to be declined.

Of course most of the time you shouldn't be seeing pages and pages and pages of updates because you're using the proper techniques to scope your views for the approvals process.

Answer 2

Hi RobNicholson-1457,

Thanks for your posting on this forum.

To avoid misunderstanding, here are all my opinions of the issue. Please help to confirm:
You have synced drivers updates on the WSUS console but it destroyed your database. Is it right? What is the phenomenon of the issue? What is the type of the WSUS database? WID or SQL Server database?

I know it's very terrible to occurs such an issue and it is not recommended to deploy the driver updates by WSUS. There are so many case indicate that it will increases many issues when we deploy the drivers by WSUS. In addition, I found a one for your reference.

If you want to deploy the drivers by WSUS, it is recommended to test it on the clients and then import the updates on the WSUS console. I think it is the better method to solve this issue.

Please refer to the below picture to import updates manually:

Thanks for your time and hope the above will be helpful. If there are any updates, please feel free to inform me in time.

Regards,
Rita

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Answer 3

I don't know what you're talking about. If you're performing the proper maintenance for WSUS and have optimized it properly

Err... all I did was check "Drivers" and now WSUS times out trying to do any kind of maintenance. So suggesting that one needs to do proper maintenance is hardly useful because that's exactly what I'm trying to...

I find in hindsight that adding Drivers is always problematic due to the fundamental problems with SQL timeouts mentioned in the linked document. Therefore the general wisdom appears to be to not to enable that category.

The core problem is that I have lots of unapproved updates which I'm unable to decline so they then naturally expire/maintenance can be carried out. WSUS console times out, using T-SQL to run SPROCs times out and using the PowerShell cmdlets timeout.

Adam J. Marshall 5,831 Reputation points MVP

2020-12-14T13:25:33.963+00:00

If you had WAM, you could just run
.\Clean-WSUS.ps1 -RemoveDriversSQL
And it would remove them all for you :) and you wouldn't have problems :)

As shown with my output, I have over 107,000 updates in my database. Most of them are Drivers (98,082 at present) and I have only 98 of them approved for installation.

Answer 4

I don't know what you're talking about. If you're performing the proper maintenance for WSUS and have optimized it properly

Err... all I did was check "Drivers" and now WSUS times out trying to do any kind of maintenance. So suggesting that one needs to do proper maintenance is hardly useful because that's exactly what I'm trying to...

I find in hindsight that adding Drivers is always problematic due to the fundamental problems with SQL timeouts mentioned in the linked document. Therefore the general wisdom appears to be to not to enable that category.

The core problem is that I have lots of unapproved updates which I'm unable to decline so they then naturally expire/maintenance can be carried out. WSUS console times out, using T-SQL to run SPROCs times out and using the PowerShell cmdlets timeout.

It's moot anyway as it was quicker for me to totally re-install WSUS and start again. It's only a small installation of four servers and 20 workstations.

Answer 5

@Rob Nicholson ,

Thanks for your response.

If your environment is simple, it is recommended to uninstall the WSUS role. Please refer to the below steps:
To remove WSUS completely, we could try to:

Remove the following server roles and features through Server Manager:

Roles: Windows Server Update Server

features: Windows Server Update Services Tools(at Remote Server Administration Tools -> Role Administration Tools)

Follow the wizard prompts to complete the deletion. Then restart the server.

After the server is restarted, manually delete the folder or file of the following path:

C:\WSUS (this depends on where you choose to install WSUS)

C:\Program Files\Update Services

Delete database files

If you use SQL Server Management Studio to delete a database, you could try as follow.

In Object Explorer, connect to an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine, and then expand that instance. Expand Databases, right-click the database to delete, and then click Delete. Confirm the correct database is selected, and then click OK.

If you use a WID database, it is recommended to delete the following path folders:

C:\Windows\WID

In the IIS Information Services (IIS) Manager, manually remove the WSUS Administration site. Then restart the server.

Last, we could try to reinstall the WSUS Role.

Thanks for your time and wish you have a nice day.

Regards,
Rita

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Increase timeout of WSUS console

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