Vista Ultimate Frequent Reboots

[Ivan W. Halperin]

Last week I installed Windows Vista Ultimate on my HP xW6400 (Workstation).
The installation appeared to go smoothly. The problem is that I had frequent
reboots occurring every hour to two hours.. After consulting with Windows
Vista Support, I replaced the video card with a beefier model and most of
the reboots abated--with unexplained reboots happening every four to six
hours.

I examined the Event Viewer and determined that the most frequent event
before a reboot give the following error message:

----------START MESSAGE----------

Log Name: Application
Source: ESENT
Date: 5/24/2009 11:00:39 AM
Event ID: 623
Task Category: Transaction Manager
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: IWH01-Study
Description:
wuaueng.dll (1196) SUS20ClientDataStore: The version store for this instance
(0) has reached its maximum size of 8Mb. It is likely that a long-running
transaction is preventing cleanup of the version store and causing it to
build up in size. Updates will be rejected until the long-running
transaction has been completely committed or rolled back.
Possible long-running transaction:
SessionId: 0x01F10320
Session-context: 0x00000000
Session-context ThreadId: 0x00000C58
Cleanup: 1
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="ESENT" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">623</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>14</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-05-24T18:00:39.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>11218</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>IWH01-Study</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>wuaueng.dll</Data>
<Data>1196</Data>
<Data>SUS20ClientDataStore: </Data>
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>8</Data>
<Data>0x01F10320</Data>
<Data>0x00000000</Data>
<Data>0x00000C58</Data>
<Data>1</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

----------END OF COPIED ITEM----------

I also note that updates I select are not loaded; it seems like that area of
my computer is now constipated. I am clueless as how to deal with this
problem and would appreciate any advice.

Thank you!

Ivan

 

[Andrew McLaren]

Hi Ivan

The short answer is, "I dunno" But, let me expand on that ....

As you discerned, it looks like Windows Update has become stuck. There are
two log files which you can examine, to get extra diagnostic clues about
what is wrong:

C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log
and
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\ReportingEvents.log

These are plain text files, you can examine them with Notepad or any other
text editor. They are sequential so the most recent events are written at
the bottom of each file. The goal here will be to look for more specific
error messages about what is wrong, for example a 0x00000005 "Access Denied"
error, or a 0x00000002 "File not found" error. If you identify a clear
error, your further troubleshooting would proceed from that point (report
back here if necessary).

If you look through those files and still can't see what's wrong (very
possible), you might decide to pull the pin and re-initialise the whole
Windows Update cache. The procedure would be:

- Open a Command Prompt "as Administrator"
- cd %windir%
- net stop wuauserv (stops Windows Update Service)
- move C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution.OLD
(rename the Update cache)
- net start wuauserv
- now try to run Windows Update normally.
- if everything works okay, you can delete the SoftwareDistribution.OLD
directry. If everything goes bad, rename it back to SoftwareDistribution to
get back to the previous configuration.

In addition, you'll want to make sure you have the latest drivers and
firmware updates for your xW6400, from the HP website. HP released a BIOS
update in December 2008 which will prevent some spurious reboots, version
02.35 Rev. a. Likewise, there are several updated drivers for both 32 bit
and 64 bit Vista. See here:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=1844975

Other folks may have additional ideas for you. Hope this helps,

Andrew

 

[Planters]

I also note that updates I select are not loaded; it seems like that
area of my computer is now constipated. I am clueless as how to deal
with this problem and would appreciate any advice.

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/dlllibrary/wuaueng/

You need to contact MS Vista support again and find out what you need to
do to clear out the data and clear the error.