Windows 11 24H2 automatic functions via Task scheduler not working correctly

Question

After windows update, which I think was the Defender update, some scheduled tasks stopped working correctly while others are unaffected by the update. The biggest issue caused by this update that was automatically pushed to my system was a Daily reboot task that worked flawlessly for years, and now only works after a manual reboot, and then only works for a while before the error comes back. The error is not showing as an error as far as I know, but after Windows has run on my PC for a while, if I try to manually reboot or use the task to reboot, the Del login screen comes up with the cursor spinning below it. This screen will stay just like that, with the spinning cursor, for days if I allow it to continue. When this happens, only pushing and holding the power button till PC turns off and then pushing the power button to turn it back on works to reboot the PC. Other issues are that some tasks will automatically disable themselves and will stay disabled unless I enable them. and OneDrive doesn't automatically load. I thought it was that the patch corrupted files, so I reloaded Windows using the ISO file, and only 25H was available via the website, so I upgraded to 25H2, and installed 25H2 from the ISO file. You think that would have fixed the issue, but it didn't, and even more error occured with Widgets not working. I uninstalled the latest feature, and that got me back to 24H2, but I still had the same old problem I had before. I remembered that there were SFC and DISM embedded tools that I could try, and I ran all of them in the order recommended, and they found some errors, just not the ones that were causing my errors, and fixed them. So I ran chkdsk with the recommended tags to fix any errors it detected, and then ran SFC and DISM again, which ran without errors but didn't fix my issues either. Whatever is causing the errors is not loaded at first, because after I restart my PC for a while, the tasks are ready, and during that time, I can run the reboot task, and my PC reboots just like it used to. Wait a few hours and try to run it, and I have to turn the power off and on to get my PC to reboot. Now, as far as the task that disables itself after I activate it, they stay activated for the rest of the day. So whatever is causing them to disable in the first place is a one-time thing that after it occurs it doesn't occur again until after a reboot. Windows itself is running fine, and all the tasks run fine as far as I can tell, but the ones that are disabling themselves are not just created by the software I installed, but also some were added automatically by Microsoft, so I am not sure what they do. My OneDrive seems to have a mind of its own and will sometimes load as it is supposed to, and other time will not load and I have to manually open it to get it to load. Any help resolving this issue would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I had to think about my reply. Sorry for the long answer. You should read this carefully.

The only thing I noticed was the increased handle count in the CPU image, but it didn't look excessive. Everything else looks like you have plenty of resources.

The first thing that I would recommend that you do is to ensure that you have a backup of any critical data files on this pc. Copy them off to another PC or an external drive.

Next I think that I would run the hardware vendor's diagnostic tools. Like Dells' SupportAssist and Intels' Driver and Support Assistant. Verify that the firmware, drivers, BIOS, etc, are all up to date.

Then run whatever hardware test tool that they offer. Test cpu/memory/disk. You shouldn't have to hold the power button down to force a boot. Let's check the hardware first and eliminate that as a source of the problem. You may need to boot into the BIOS to run those tests.

Next I would uninstall any 3rd party anti-virus and intrusion detection programs like Norton and McAfee. Reboot afterwards and see if the problem still occurs.

Next, run msconfig.exe and choose a diagnostic boot. The theory being that some piece of software that you have installed is causing the hang (disabling the tasks?). Let's see what happens if you boot up without loading most of the applications.

Some things won't work because the services that they require won't be started. But that's ok. Test what you can. Browse some sites, play a video/mp3. Let it run for a while and see if you can reboot ok.

If you still have the problem, then that would imply that your problem is in the base Windows OS. If you don't have the problem, then that would point to some application (that didn't get started in the diagnostic reboot) as being the cause of your problem.

Run msconfig and boot back in to Normal Startup.

Eventually you will need to apply MS's updates to get the latest security patches. I saw in your initial question where you mentioned about running SFC and DISM. They are commonly offered as suggestions on this site. What I did was to try to consolidate all of the "health tests" that I knew about into a Powershell script that I named IsWindowsHealthy.ps1.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/118183/how-to-fix-error-0x80070543-in-windows-10

Save that as a .ps1 file and run it in a "Run as administrator" Powershell prompt. See if it detect any issue like "The component store is repairable.". You may need to "Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass" in order to run the script.

Finally run Windows Update and get the latest patches installed.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Sorry, I was gathering the rest of the data that you requested and wanted to get a full picture for you on the CPU and the Memory. I did several pulls, and the very first one is after a reboot without the tasks being re-enabled that keep getting disabled. I then enabled everything, and OneDrive was not loading, so I loaded it as well. The last cpu and memory are after a reboot and after the tasks are enabled. OneDrive was reactivated after it was removed again during the reboot. Interestingly, I found a setting that was disabled on the OneDrive, and I thought that would allow it to be loaded again during a reboot. After I pulled the cpu and memory in between, I did a shutdown of the PC, and the PC didn't complete the shutdown, so I had to hold the power button to get it to turn off, and then turned it back on and enabled all the disabled tasks, and had to reload the OneDrive again because it still didn't automatically reload.. I wanted to explain the pictures before I sent them in the order of the time I saved in each picture, along with a brief timeline.

2:23 AM I got up and the curser was spinning as it always does now so I held the power button to turn the Power off the turned the power button back on. I took the first readings of the CPU and the Memory without enabling the disabled tasks and without restarting OneDrive. Then I realized I didn't change any of the settings before I took the screenshots so before I took the next reading, I enabled all the stuff listed above first.

8:21 AM I took the screenshot with everything enabled, just like I would normally run my system if it booted up properly. I didn't restart because this was looking for changes in the initial setup but because I made changes to the initial setting by setting it to enable tasks and adding OneDrive back.

10:02 AM I took another screenshot of the CPU and Memory to see if anything changed. Still no reboot

10:25 AM I did the shutdown that didn't shut down the PC, so I had to hold the power button till the power went off and turn the power back on. (Even using the shutdown from the Windows Key will not complete the shutdown process. Only pushing and holding the power turns the PC off so that I can turn it back on to boot back up.)

So I will post this and post the screenshots, and then follow up with the new tasks for gathering information to assist.

Answer 3

There's a lot to digest in your question.

An online forum like this does not lend itself to troubleshooting multiple strange problems like you describe. Let's start by focusing on one issue and see where that leads us.

Launch Computer Management and in the Task Scheduler verify that you have task history enabled. You should see events in the History tab.

If a task gets disabled, you should then see an event in the History tab. Note that there appears to be a bug on my Win11 25H2 laptop. In the test I did, the user "admin" did not disable it. I did it while logged on with my MS account. We'll just have to see what event you get.

Monitor the Next Run Time, Last Run Time, and Last Run Result columns for the tasks that you consider the most critical.

Wait a few hours and try to run it, and I have to turn the power off and on to get my PC to reboot.

That comment indicates to me that you may have a memory leak of some kind.

Reboot to get a fresh start.

Then launch task manager and on a piece of paper make note of the starting values in the cpu and memory tabs.

Monitor cpu and memory usage over time.

In the Details tab right click on the column headers and add the Working Set (memory), PF Delta, and Command Line column.

Sort by memory usage and see if you have some process that is consuming all of your memory. Here I put a Powershell process in a loop as an example.