Windows Push Notifications User Service (wpnuserservice) Constantly Crashing

Question

Since 9/1/2018 (17 days ago) the wpnuserservice has been constantly crashing, causing all notifications not to come in.

(notable symptoms include the focus assist button not working in the action center and visiting the focus assist page in the settings app causing the app to immediately crash.) The service crash seems to correlate with incoming notifications, such as receiving a new message in Skype.

Strangely the attempted service recovery actions (restart the service) fails all 3 times stating that and instance of the service is already running, despite clearly not running. However, manually starting the service via net start <servicename> works every time, and restores all functionality, until the next crash. I wonder if the restart fails because it is one of those annoying "user services" where the name changes each time (the ones with the random numbers after the name). This is very annoying, as I can't even modify the recovery actions because it is a "user service" and services.msc returns "The parameter is incorrect".

I wrote my own script to manually find the new service name from sc query start the service via net start <servicename>, but it's hardly elegant, and the service still crashes.

I know the Microsoft bot will come by and tell me to run sfc /scannow and dism, so rest assured I have already tried that. And yes my system is fully up to date (Windows 10 Pro, Version 1803, OS build 17134.285). And subsequently, no, using the refresh/reinstall is not an option as it will likely have no effect other than me having to reinstall and reconfigure all my programs/drivers again only to find the issue persists. 

Event 1000, Application Error

Faulting application name: svchost.exe_WpnUserService, version: 10.0.17134.1, time stamp: 0xa38b9ab2

Faulting module name: NotificationController.dll, version: 10.0.17134.165, time stamp: 0xe0385185

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x000000000007c686

Faulting process id: 0x46c

Faulting application start time: 0x01d44e4bd223d85c

Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\NotificationController.dll

Report Id: 293fd13e-fb95-4408-a9ae-ec680215c0b1

Faulting package full name: 

Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Event 7032, Service Control Manager

The Service Control Manager tried to take a corrective action (Restart the service) after the unexpected termination of the Windows Push Notifications User Service_67bb9 service, but this action failed with the following error: 

An instance of the service is already running.

Other System Info

OS: Windows 10 Pro, Version 1803, OS build 17134.285

Processor: AMD FX 8320 3.50GHz

Chipset: AMD 970

Ram: 12GB

System Type: 64-bit

GPU: Nvidia GTX 970 (Driver Version 398.82)

Any help / ideas would be appreciated. (and Microsoft techs if you're reading, please fix soon).

Answer 1

Hello Saberpeep,

Thank you for the detailed post. An installed software must be causing the service to crash if the issue persists even after running both the DISM command-line tool and the SFC tool. I advise perform a clean boot to determine this possibility. A clean boot starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. This isolation procedure can help us identify which background program is possibly causing the issue. Refer to steps outlined in the section: How to perform a clean boot. You can also watch this video for more information.

IMPORTANT: Go to the section: Reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting to boot the PC in normal startup after identifying the cause of the issue.

Should the issue continue on a clean boot state, you can performing an In-place upgrade using the Media Creation Tool. This procedure will overwrite your current Windows 10 installation using the latest ISO file while preserving your personal files, settings, and apps. Refer to PaulSey's forum article for the steps on how to perform an In-place upgrade in Windows 10.

To notify us and have us get back to you, simply reply to this post.

Answer 2

Strangely, the clean boot initially seemed to help, as the notifications were working fine, however after another boot it went right back to crashing on every notification arrival. Very strange behavior, possibly a coincidence? I'm not going to perform an in-place upgrade unless I get really desperate, as I've seen the results of that on other pcs and it breaks everything and often returns you to an older version of windows 10, which will simply repeat the issue once up to date.

I'm going to play around with (uninstall/reinstall) the services/programs I have on startup, such as antivirus to see if I can get any results.

If you have any other ideas, I'd be happy to try them, but I'd rather not refresh/in-place upgrade/reinstall/etc. as that usually leads to even more issues.

Answer 3

Dear all

I have a similar problem with wpnuserservice dll : when some (not all) notification arrive, I can clearly see a memory leak leading to an enormous amount of RAM to be used. In 1 or 2 minutes it reaches 10 GB and then Windows start swaping and the system becomes completely uncontrollable. The only way is to kill the process...

After some investigation it appears that the following notification are in cause : Mail and Calendar ; skype ; to-do-prime and certainly some others...

Even after un-installating and installating again, the problem seems to continue.

Any help would be nice.

Answer 4

This is a separate problem. I've seen this one around a lot while looking for mine on google. There is already a solution/workaround. I suggest you look at this thread: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/1a779558-f595-4a38-89e3-e67b459225c6/wpnuserservice-occupies-all-available-memory?forum=win10itprogeneral

Answer 5

Hi

Thank you for your answer.

I have seen this thread also but the solution does not work. I had the same thing as another reply of this thread :

" Yes. I tried changing the registry setting but it still starts the service.  It is only a matter of time before the memory leak start.

I also noticed that I would also have problems when I go to the notifications menu.  Windows does not show the list of apps that notifications.  It just shows the spinning clock.  Again, another windows service starts eating up resources until it is killed in task manager.I beginning to wonder if I shouldn't try a reinstall of Windows. "

Indeed going to the notification menu starts the memory leak and the list of apps with notification never appears…

I was a little desperate, however you solution did work : i used the SFC tool and Windows corrected several errors/problems. Since the corrections have been applied all notifications that were leading to a memory leak are now fully functional with no more memory leak.

I guess some system files were corrupted and are now repaired. I also means that probably my hard drive may have some problems (several other non system files corrupted).

Thanks for your help and solution !

Jean-Sébastien