A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated error

Question

Today I got this error in event viewer and I don't know what this is for: 'packageChanges-1' failed for S-1-5-18. Error: 'A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated.' (0.0158355 seconds)

Is there a way to fix this if it keeps popping up again or what is the best way to fix this?

Answer 1

Is your system connected to work or school account?

Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL) may sometime contribute to this issue.

Answer 2

The message “A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated” is a generic Windows security/logon error that appears when Windows or an application tries to use credentials or a logon context that is no longer valid or cannot be stored/used in the current context.

In similar cases:

• System Center Operations Manager agent deployment fails with this same error when credentials cannot be stored under the LocalSystem account or are blocked by policy.
• SSL certificate operations can fail with the same text when authentication data passed through RPC is invalid or truncated.

For a home Windows 11 system where this appears occasionally in Event Viewer and there are no visible problems (no app crashes, no login failures, no features broken), this typically indicates a transient internal failure rather than a critical issue.

Practical steps if it keeps appearing and there are symptoms (apps failing to install/update, services not starting, etc.):

1. Ensure Windows is fully updated (Settings → Windows Update → Check for updates), as some logon-session–related issues are fixed by updates.
2. Identify the source:
   • In Event Viewer, open the event and check the Source, Event ID, and General/Details tabs to see which component is logging packageChanges-1 for S-1-5-18 (the LocalSystem account).
   • If it is tied to a specific app or service, repair or reinstall that app.
3. If the error is tied to certificate or HTTP/SSL configuration (for example, when binding certificates), review and reapply the configuration, as similar errors occur when authentication data is mishandled.
4. If there are no functional problems and only an occasional log entry, it is safe to monitor and ignore. Event Viewer logs many low-level issues that do not require action.

If the error starts to correlate with real symptoms (failed logons, services not starting, or repeated failures during a specific operation), capture the full event details (source, event ID, and any related error codes) and troubleshoot that specific component.

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References:

• Deploying Operations Manager agents using the Install-SCOMAgent cmdlet fails with error 80070520
• "SSL Certificate add failed, Error: 1312" error message when you try to add a CTL in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7
• LSA_DELETE_LOGON_SESSION callback function (ntsecpkg.h)