Error 0x8050800c again (not fixed)

[ObiWan]

I already posted a message about this error and
got the answer that "next update" would fix the issue
and was asked to repost if the error was still present
well..

* ERROR MESSAGE:

Windows Defender scan has encountered an error and terminated.
Scan ID: {78620068-7384-4834-8134-84C8EC95277E}
Scan Type: AntiSpyware
Scan Parameters: Quick Scan
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Error Code: 0x8050800c
Error description: An unexpected problem occurred. Install any available
updates, and then try to start the program again. (To check for updates,
click Start, click All Programs, and then click Windows Update.)

* WINDOWS DEFENDER INFOS:

Windows Defender Version: 1.1.1051.0
Engine Version: 1.1.1186.0
Signature Version: 1.13.1286.1

the machine is running Windows 2000 pro (full patched); I suspect
(not sure though and had no time to try it) that the issue MAY be
caused by the AV which may in some way interfere with the
defender scanning; as a reference, I'm running TrendMicro
OfficeScan and the scanner reports the following informations

* TRENDMICRO OFFICESCAN:

Program version 5.58
VSApiNT version 8.000-1001
TmFilter versio 8.000.0.1001
Virus Pattern 3.239.00

hope the above will help solving the issue, and btw I'm available
in case someone needs more details about the config


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* ObiWan

Microsoft MVP: Windows Server - Networking
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/MVP/MVP.mspx
http://italy.mvps.org

 

[Guest]

You are not alone - it happens here religiously as well on all machines where
WD - very same version, engine and signature as yours - is installed. All
machines are fully patched, either Windows XP Pro or Windows Server 2003!

 

[Guest]

Hi ObiWan,

The previous answer was inadvertently incomplete. The next ENGINE update
should fix the issue per Mike Treit of Microsoft:

"Yes, we have only released new signatures and not a new engine at this
point, so the fix is not available yet. -Mike"

Detailed answer:

"Last week we updated the scanning engine used in Windows Defender to version
1.1.1186.0. One of the changes in this new build was a fix for customers who
were reporting the error code 0x8050800c, which our investigation showed was
the result of corrupt registry hives failing to be loaded from disk.

With build 1.1.1186.0 the original problem is fixed, so if you have
downloaded the latest engine and signature updates you should no longer see
that error code due to failure to load a corrupted registry hive.

However, as part of the investigation for the previous issue we found some
cases where errors during scanning were not being reported. We made a change
to correct that, which has had the side-effect that numerous other users who
had not seen the original error are now reporting that they are hitting it
when performing a scan. This is because those users were actually
encountering the unexpected error condition all along, but it was being
ignored and no error message was being presented in the previous build.

Thanks to help from several beta testers active on these newsgroups, we have
confirmed the cause of these errors and will have a fix available the next
time we update the engine build. The issue is something we had already found
internally, but the fix did not make it into the previous update.

To summarize the new cause of the problem: if your system drive (the drive
on which you have installed Windows) is configured as a dynamic disk,
rather than as a basic disk, we will fail to load one of the registry hives
during a scan, and the error code 0x8050800c will be reported.

If you see this error, please verify whether or not your system drive
is configured as a basic or dynamic disk. You can do so by executing
"start | run | diskmgmt.msc" and then inspecting the value of the "Type"
column for your system drive in the list view.

If you see the error code 0x8050800c and your system drive is NOT configured
as a dynamic disk, please post a message in the newsgroups or send me an
email so we can investigate further.

Thanks

-Mike"

I am, regretfully, in the latter group, along with you I suspect, and
therefore still patiently awaiting 'the fix'. :0|

 

[ObiWan]

To summarize the new cause of the problem: if your system drive
(the drive on which you have installed Windows) is configured as
a dynamic disk, rather than as a basic disk, we will fail to load one
of the registry hives during a scan, and the error code 0x8050800c
will be reported.

No dynamic disks here but I still get the error, the scan starts and goes
on for a while, then it seems to "hang" for some seconds and at last I
get that error, at first I was wondering if it may be caused by some bad
interaction with the AV "realtime" check (I'm using Trend Officescan) so
I tried disabling it, but well... it didn't work either (same error)

It's interesting to notice that the "err.exe" tool from Microsoft decodes
the
error this way

err 0x8050800c

# as an HRESULT: Severity: FAILURE (1), Facility: 0x50, Code 0x800c
# NOT FOUND: 0x8050800c

that "not found" made me think that defender may crash on "temporary" or
in any case "volatile" files due to some "timing issues".. I mean, let's say
defender selects a file for scanning, it "prepares" the scan and probably
gathers some infos about the file, but the file at the same time gets
deleted
and when defender is ready to scan it.. the file isn't there anymore

does it ring some bells ???

 

[Bill Sanderson]

One other user noted that he is geting some "missing hive" errors in the
event logs. These seem very likely to be at the root of this kind of
error--are you seeing anything along those lines? I'm fuzzy about what
log--System? and what the source would be.

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[ObiWan]

One other user noted that he is geting some "missing hive" errors

in the event logs. These seem very likely to be at the root of this kind
of error--are you seeing anything along those lines? I'm fuzzy about
what log--System? and what the source would be.

I checked the eventlogs and .. no error there aside the ones logged
by the defender and related to the error code, nothing else...

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I'm stumped. The Microsoft posts about this error indicate that they
believe it is related to difficulties reading registry hives off the disk.
One user on a basic partition posted that a chkdsk fixed it for him, which
seems consistent.

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