Trouble signing out and restarting

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I’ve been having a lot of trouble over the last month or two trying to sign-out or restart my PC.

It just gets stuck with the spinny dots circle with the message “signing out” or “restarting”. Sometimes it will say Task Host is stopping background tasks, sometimes not. Sometimes it will restart after 5 minutes, but if not I just get tired waiting and force a shutdown by holding in the power button.

I always shut down all visible programs before signing-out/restarting.
Fast Startup is disabled.
SFC found nothing
DISM fount nothing
Full virus scan found nothing
I’ve looked through event viewer and didn’t see anything obvious, although I don’t really know what to look for.

I uninstalled some dell software and that seemed to help a lot. It was working great for a couple days. But today it’s doing it again.

Aside from this problem, the PC works great. How do I track this down and fix this problem?

Windows 11 24H2, Dell XPS-8940

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https://www.intowindows.com/how-to-view-all-startup-programs-in-windows-10/#:~:text=1%20View%20startup%20programs%20via%20Task%20Manager%20in,see%2C%20the%20tab%20displays%20programs%20that%20automatically%20

What programs do you have that load on startup?

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Try a command-line restart:

shutdown -r -t 0

That will initiate an immediate restart (-r = restart; -t 0 [note the space] immediate)

Also try opening Task Manager before restarting and look for unexpected programs or memory hogs.

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I usually loose control so can’t issue this command.  Are you suggesting I always shutdown this way?

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Susan Bradley wrote:

What programs do you have that load on startup?

These are the startup items. There are also numerous disabled items. Is it possible that any of those might be enabled by who-knows-what after boot up?

bdagent is bit definder anti virus
id_* is iDrive cloud backup
LogiTune is used with my webcam
No clue what Mobile devices is. I could kill that probably.
NordVPN is useful sometimes.
PowerPanel and ppuser are my UPS
ReflectUI is Macrium Reflect image backup
RtAudUService is Realtek HD Audio Universal Service ?
SecurityHealthSystray ?
WaveSvc is Waves MaxxAudio Service ?

 

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Tech Hiker wrote:

I usually loose control so can’t issue this command.  Are you suggesting I always shutdown this way?

Instead of initiating the restart from the GUI, open a command prompt instead.

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I just tried issuing this command after closing all visible applications.
shutdown -r -t 0
The restarting message and the spinning dots remained on the screen for 6 minutes before it finally restarted

The only programs I ran this morning after boot-up were
.Chrome to get to this web page
.Snipping tool so I could do the screenshot for the post above
.Thunderbird email
.Also tried a new portable program “File Pilot”, it’s a beta file manager. First time I tried this was yesterday. No obvious issues.
.Ran a dot net program that I wrote that gathers data from another device on my network. I’ve been using this for years with no problem. It runs for 2 minutes then shuts itself down. No background tasks.

I think that’s it.

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Do you have external devices connected to your PC ?
Test by disconnecting before shut-down/restart.

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External devices are
Mouse
Keyboard
Webcam
Scanner
UPS

Could any of those really prevent a quick restart?

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Things to try/check, if you haven’t already done so:

In an elevated Command Prompt, type chkdsk /f /r /x and select Y so that Checkdisk runs at next Startup (yeah, I know, another 6-minute Shutdown…)

Run the Troubleshooter for Windows Update to ensure WU is working correctly; ensure all non-Preview Windows Updates are installed – they are perfectly safe, whatever others may claim.

Ensure all Device Drivers are up to date by checking on the Support pages of the Dell website. Do not use 3rd party sources.

Ensure all Apps are up to date; bit defender anti virus and iDrive cloud backup stand out to me as possible culprits in your list.

Check your list of Apps and Uninstall any that you really do not use at all or that look suspicious.

Hope this helps.

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The drive is an SSD. I was under the impression that chkcsk wasn’t necessary on SSD drives. Crystal Disk Info says that the drive has good health.

There is no Windows Update Troubleshooter anymore. All it is now is an AI bot.

Windows Update says I’m up to date

I’ll have to check the device driver versions and program versions.

I appreciate the suggestions.

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chkdsk is a logical check. That’s the data on the disk, which is exactly the same on an SSD as an HDD.

There isn’t actually anything that you do on an HDD that you don’t also do on an SSD, but some of those things perform differently.

cheers, Paul

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I have been able to eliminate a couple of the start-up items suspects. This is going to take some time since this problem doesn’t always present itself.

I’ve temporarily disabled Windows updates so Patch Tuesday doesn’t cloud the issue.

With reference to drivers, opening Device Manager reveals 100 or more items. Yikes.

Are there any tools that can log the shutdown process to see what might be causing the delay?

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Event Viewer > Windows logs > System – May give some clues.

Win 11 home - 24H2
Attitude is a choice...Choose wisely

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This is what I found in the log for the last 6 minute shutdown.

Removed, see next post

Does any of this offer clues to how to fix this?

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Trying that again

Level Date and Time Source Event ID Task Category
Warning 3/10/2025 10:42:40 PM Microsoft-Windows-WLAN-AutoConfig 10002 None “WLAN Extensibility Module has stopped.

Module Path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\IntelIHVRouter10.dll
”
Error 3/10/2025 10:42:38 PM Microsoft-Windows-DeviceAssociationService 3503 (5000) Device Association Service detected an endpoint discovery failure.
Error 3/10/2025 10:42:38 PM Microsoft-Windows-DeviceAssociationService 3503 (5000) Device Association Service detected an endpoint discovery failure.
Error 3/10/2025 10:42:38 PM Service Control Manager 7034 None The nordsec-threatprotection-service service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s).
Error 3/10/2025 10:42:38 PM Service Control Manager 7043 None The Container Manager Service service did not shut down properly after receiving a preshutdown control.
Error 3/10/2025 10:37:51 PM Service Control Manager 7043 None The Windows Modules Installer service did not shut down properly after receiving a preshutdown control.
Error 3/10/2025 10:37:02 PM Service Control Manager 7043 None The Windows Update service did not shut down properly after receiving a preshutdown control.

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Tech Hiker wrote:

Error 3/10/2025 10:42:38 PM Service Control Manager 7034 None The nordsec-threatprotection-service service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s).

Are you using Norton A/V?

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This is NordVPN.  I have that disabled now for my next test run.

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Does W10/11’s Reliability Monitor show any problems, particularly any marked APPHANG or APPCRASH?  http://www.elevenforum.com/t/view-reliability-history-in-windows-11.5791/

Take a look at W10/11’s built-in Event Viewer (eventvwr.exe) – that may yield some clues, too.

You could also try MS Sysinternals’ Process Explorer: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer although the Shutdown process may prevent it from recording.

Yes, 100+ items in Device Manager is huge and is in itself, I suspect, the source of the trouble – somewhere…  Any that are marked with a yellow triangle/exclamation mark definitely mean trouble.

PS: It is OK to use chkdsk on an SSD; defrag, however, should NOT be run on an SSD.

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There are no yellow triangles in Device Manager.

Also Chkdsk says there are no problems.

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Magnus wrote:

defrag, however, should NOT be run on an SSD

This is not true. Defrag is run by Windows as part of regular maintenance and you can run it manually without issue.
Defrag works differently when you have an SSD.

cheers, Paul

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Magnus wrote:

Does W10/11’s Reliability Monitor show any problems, particularly any marked APPHANG or APPCRASH?

Reliability Monitor has been showing lots of crashes with Dell Core Services and Killer APS.  Both have been eliminated and neither have been causing these delays.  So I’m not seeing anything there helping me track this problem down.  Nothing in Reliability Monitor aligns with the restart delays.

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I *think* I have found the cause of my restart/shutdown delays. Each time the delay occurs, the following error is logged in the event log.

Service Control Manager, 7043, The Container Manager Service service did not shut down properly after receiving a preshutdown control.

This led me to suspect Windows Sandbox as the culprit. I had been using Sandbox occasionally, and was having issues with it. I have removed Windows Sandbox and haven’t had a delayed restart/shutdown since. Also, this error hasn’t been logged since.

Before I claim victory, I want to sit on this a few more days and see if my speedy restarts/shutdowns continue.

2 users thanked author for this post.

satrow, mledman

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