Windows Defender won’t complete scan in Windows 8.1

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I just updated Windows Defender definitions to 1.325.1205.0 and find that neither quick nor full scans will complete. They stall out after 5 seconds for the quick scan and 22 seconds for the full scan. Also, the definition update to 1205 took about 10 minutes; usually an update is finished in less than a minute. And, 1209 is out as I write this but the update attempt stalls at searching. The same machine updated and scanned just fine about 12 hours ago.

Anyone else seeing something like this? As I recall a very similar thing happened with Windows 7 , maybe a year ago (not too sure about the time frame

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I’m on 1.325.1209 and quick scan is fine – not tried full.

Is it stalling on the notification pop up? Mine won’t report completion until you dismiss the pop up.

Have you run SFC and DISM recently?

cheers, Paul

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DrBonzo

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Haven’t run either SFC or DISM.

Not sure what you mean by “notification pop up”. It stalls with a green progress bar partially completed and elapsed time stuck at 5 seconds (or 22 for Full scan) I’m not doing anything differently than I always do.

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I’d make sure Windows is clean and tidy with SFC/DISM, then troubleshoot Defender.

Also run CHKDSK.

cheers, Paul

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DrBonzo

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Well, everything seems to now be working as normal. I was able to update from 1.325.1205.0 to 1.325.1215.0 and the scans ran fine after that. I’ll run SFC, DISM, and CHKDSK later

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Paul T

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