Patch Lady – SFC Scannow issue

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Spotted this over on the Bleeping computer forums: Starting today, Windows 10 users are finding that the /sfc scannow feature is no longer working and
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – SFC Scannow issue]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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WildBill, Elly, CADesertRat, woody, Fred, abbodi86

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Welcome to the party

Windows 8.1 is suffering from SFC issue since WMF 5.1 was released two years ago
https://windowsserver.uservoice.com/forums/301869-powershell/suggestions/32515291-bug-wmf-5-1-breaks-sfc-on-windows-8-1-and-sfc-mi
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4470553/configuration-manager-in-place-upgrade-task-sequence-does-not-continue

and they even broke Windows Defender PowerShell cmdlet
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4497578/windows-8-1-windows-powershell-cannot-import-windows-defender-module

BTW, this Windows 10 issue has nothing to do with Definitions, it’s just internal PS cmdlets bug

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woody

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I had this *exact* issue yesterday.
Had file corruption, possibly while fiddling with overclocking.
Several programs would no longer work.
sfc /scannow found Windows Defender / Powershell corruption which it couldn’t fix.

Fortunately I had an image of my boot drive that was only 9 days old. All good now.

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Corporate just announced our ENTIRE enterprise will not be using any Microsoft products after October 31, 2019. Everything is moving to Debian and RedHat Linux.

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woody, doriel

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Let us know how it works. Brave move, I wish we can do this too.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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anonymous wrote:

Corporate just announced our ENTIRE enterprise will not be using any Microsoft products after October 31, 2019. Everything is moving to Debian and RedHat Linux.

How many servers and workstations do you have in your organization?

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Hello. Approx 25 servers total (application, SQL, licensing and print servers) and lets say 150-200 workstations.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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doriel wrote:

Hello. Approx 25 servers total (application, SQL, licensing and print servers) and lets say 150-200 workstations.

Sorry – was trying to find out what size of organization “anonymous” above represents.

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Indeed 🙂 Now you know how big our organisation is.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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From the “Bleeping Computers” article:

 

Some users have reported being able to fix the error by running the following DISM commands:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
For those who do not wish to use these commands, you can wait for Microsoft ro resolve the issue.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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BigBadSteve

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It still works.  Just follow the rules of troubleshooting.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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doriel

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[access-mdb]

Bbearen – your image is unreadable as it’s too small, can you try again please.
Ha, you beat me to it!

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by access-mdb.

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[Alex5723]

access-mdb wrote:

Bbearen – your image is unreadable as it’s too small, can you try again please. Ha, you beat me to it!

If you are using Chrome just install Imagus extension : Enlarge thumbnails, and show images/videos from links with a mouse hover (no need to click on links).

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Alex5723.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by PKCano.

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The image in my previous post isn’t very legible.  I ran sfc /scannow and got the “can’t fix ’em” result.  I then ran dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth and let it complete.  I never use the “/checkhealth” or “/scanhealth” switches.  The “/restorehealth” switch does the whole ball of wax in one fell swoop.

I ran sfc /scannow again, and it completed successfully, “found some corrupted files and fixed ’em”.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

4 users thanked author for this post.

cmptrgy, Fred, Lugh

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FWIW, I have a few commandlets ready to use when needed.

A couple of years ago, in notepad, I typed

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

and then saved it as “Restore Health.cmd” on my Desktop.  I can right-click it and select “Run as administrator” and it opens a Command Prompt, runs to completion, then exits.

In the example in my illegible screen shot up above, I right-clicked, selected “Edit”, copied the text, pasted it into the already-open Command Prompt, and hit Enter.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth followed by sfc /scannow fixed it for me too.

2 users thanked author for this post.

BigBadSteve, Fred

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[carpintero]

b wrote:

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth followed by sfc /scannow fixed it for me too.

Did the “followed by” sfc state that it found corruption?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by carpintero.

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[Berton]

I’m running SFC /SCANNOW at this time and so far at 95%.  I start it from Control Panel, Command Prompt with as Administrator.  Oops, forgot, it’s Windows 10 Version 1903 Build 18362.239.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Berton.

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[CADesertRat]

I’m on 1809 and so far 2 of my computers had the SFC problem but the DISM cmd fixed both of them. I haven’t gotten to the other 2 computers yet.

@Berton, The SFC runs all the way through but finds errors that it cannot repair which turn out to be Windows Defender problems in the CBS log. The DISM cmd fixes the anomaly.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by CADesertRat.

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Fred

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I did run across one particular system where it just didn’t work, though, with no explanation as to why. Was in the family instead of a paying customer…

All other “weird” (as in not traceable to security software or such) cases of failure with that have been traceable to a hardware fault, typically disk. This exact thing has several times been the first clear symptom of failure with early-model Intel self-encrypting SSDs.

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What does sfc use as its source of repair content?

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carpintero wrote:

What does sfc use as its source of repair content?

Read this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929833/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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Lars220

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CADesertRat wrote:

carpintero wrote:

What does sfc use as its source of repair content?

Read this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929833/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system

There is nothing named dllcache anywhere in my 1903.
(Yes, sfc did repair things.)

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carpintero wrote:

(Yes, sfc did repair things.)

If SFC worked ok then I wouldn’t worry about it.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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Four systems, all Windows 10 Pro x 64. One machine is still on 1809, the other three are on 1903. Cannot duplicate on any. It appears I’m one of the lucky ones. lol

Cheers

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Has anyone run the SFC Scannow on a system with the most current Defender definitions?

Perhaps MS fixed the problem?

Windows 10 Pro x64 v22H2 and Windows 7 Pro SP1 x64 (RIP)

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Yesterday, the Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool was failing on the B side of my dual boot. The error code it was throwing was dot Net 3.5 related. I did a repair/reinstall to no avail, and decided to wait it out. After all, nothing else was affected, Windows was operating normally.

This morning I rebooted to the B side and checked for Updates. I got KB4506991 installed (Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10 Version 1903), then tried dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth, and it completed successfully.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Can someone tell me if me having the exact issues from this post but Windows 7 Professional could be related to the Defender definitions. No matter what I do this Security Update for SQL Server 20104 will not go through. I have spent hours and hours on this. I do however get the exact SFC /Scannow error but the log files do not show me what is corrupt and it can’t fix. Other updates seem to be fine, i.e the quarterly roolup is fine

Any help with be so appreciated. I am very new to this.

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newdude72 wrote:

Can someone tell me if me having the exact issues from this post but Windows 7 Professional could be related to the Defender definitions. No matter what I do this Security Update for SQL Server 20104 will not go through. I have spent hours and hours on this. I do however get the exact SFC /Scannow error but the log files do not show me what is corrupt and it can’t fix. Other updates seem to be fine, i.e the quarterly roolup is fine Any help with be so appreciated. I am very new to this.

I assume you are running Defender instead of MSE. Simple way to find out is to run the CMD as an administrator DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth then run SFC again.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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Attached is the error I get when I run DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

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According to this post https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/windows-7-update-failures-new-at-this/#post-1875242 you are also running MSE so this thread probably won’t help you solve whatever problem you are having as it’s probably not related to the Windows Defender problem anyway. You might be better to stick with your other thread. Just a suggestion 🙂

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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/RestoreHealth is not available on Windows 7. See #1874188

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CADesertRat

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Ignore the SFC error message people; that’s what Microsoft just said in newly published support KB article 4513240:

https://support.microsoft.com/help/4513240

this problem will not occur with future Windows releases (like 1909 & later)

3 users thanked author for this post.

BigBadSteve, woody, CADesertRat

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this morning a new version of defender platform came, and just for the h**l of it i did a sfc /scannow and the errors have returned, and multiplied!

have not bothered to check if DISM fixes it again or not as i guess its nothing to really worry about, its the same powershell errors, just a bunch more of them

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I know this is an older thread but I wanted to offer a cautionary tale:

Back in June, after running 1809 Windows Updates, I ran “sfc /verifyonly” which I do as a normal routine. It had never reported corruptions in the past. This time it reported unrepaired corruption (attributable to the Windows Defender definitions issue, I assumed).

So I ran “DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth” which reported it had corrected the issues. I ran sfc again and it reported no issues. All good to go? Nope. I started seeing buggy behaviors , e.g. the setting panel not opening when using the icon near the icon tray and other strange things.

Not wanting to sink lots of time into debugging, I simply restored to the Reflect image I’d made prior to WU and did everything again except the DISM and sfc commands. No more buggy behavior experienced.

Fast forward: Prior to July updates, I created a drive image (my normal routine). I successfully installed the July WUs which brought me to build 17763.615. Being once burned, I immediately made another Reflect image before trying the sfc/dism routine.

Running DISM, it reported finding and correcting issues again. Running sfc reported corruptions but said they were successfully corrected. Off to the races.

Not so fast. I soon discovered my Thunderbird email client would not send from either of my hotmail accounts. Receive hotmails? Yes. Send and receive from gmail or yahoo accounts, fine. All my Thunderbird imap and smtp settings were exactly the same as another machine I have with 1809 build 17763.615 that works fine. Nothing I tried would fix the issue including a complete uninstall/reinstall of Tbird.

So, again I restored from the pre-dism image. All works fine again.

The only conclusion seems to be that the dism/sfc does not do the job for some reason and is choking on my setup. As long as the computer and my software work, I don’t currently have the time to chase this down – especially considering the buggy nature of Microsoft’s recent output. Maybe another time. For now, dism and sfc are unfortunately no longer part of my routine… 🙁

Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.

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Just as a point of interest, all 4 computers here were taken to 1809 17763.615 and every one of them had problems with MS store app. I ran the restorehealth routine and it fixed them all. I haven’t bothered running the sfc since MS said that it’s going to throw errors anyway.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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