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Thank you ascaris,

I looked at your suggestion but wondered why changing the first asterisk would set the time when it did not show the currently used time of 10.00.  So I tried another (easier) approach.

I unchecked daily snapshots and then at 21.00 that evening made a snapshot then checked daily snapshots.  The result is that I am now getting daily snapshots at 21.00 and have done so for the last three days.  The sort of event which makes you think “Why didn’t I think of that before!”

Thanks Rick,

It seems to work and I can get the database into Base but I will have to do some homework to sort out what to do next!

The trooubleshoot suggested that it may be due to an antivirus.  I run Kaspersky and the first suggestion was to update to the latest version.  I had previously updated to the latest version but uninstalled it because it was incompatible with Malwarebytes and disabled it.  I was not having that and re-installed the older version.  The second suggestion was to go in to the settings of Kaspersky and check ‘Do not scan encrypted connections’ and reboot.  Following this I now have been able to sync my Bookmarks and Extensions.

Since the message always stated that Firefox was preventing the connection I do not see how Kaspersky was responsible but then I am ignorant and the problem has been solved so why worry.

Thank you for your reference to the article on Mozilla.

I’d run the Trial version of Hard Disk Sentinel and see what that reports, if it’s errors reported by SMART (self-reporting technology, when it works, it’s a pretty reliable indicator) then the drive affected will need replacing, maybe not in a few weeks or even a couple of months, but it is unreliable and will fail relatively soon.

Back up/image the data on the affected drive regularly, starting now.

Thank you. It reported that the drive was failing and should be replaced immediately. I have backed up everything and will try to find a 500GB drive – don’t see them around these days.

I found that my Kapersky Security was also asking for .net 4 and, checking on my desktop, found that it was running there on.net 4.6.1 so I downloaded it and tried to install the Windows Activation Update but it just never completed but gave no error messages unless I stopped it through Task Manager. Eventually I tried to activate online but found the message ‘Windows Activated’ although I have no idea how or when it occurred.

AS a follow-up. If .net 4 is problematical would installing 4.5 or higher solve the problem?

As far as the icon is concerned the whole file is only 13KB so it is definitely not the help file – just the icon.

No I do not have a specific problem at this stage, I wish to have the complete help file to fall back on should problems arise. The links you provide are for very definite problems and I am not concerned with hardware maintenance,
My main worry is why the help file did not recognise a Win 7 PC and how to get on to the Leoovo forum to post a question.

No, I do not install games and I have installed nothing recently.

I continued to search through various Forums looking for help and found an identical problem in Windows Answers

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-update/windows-update-remains-at-checking-for-updates/ff3c442e-79a6-40d3-ac35-29e130cebef1

and a possible solution provided by Jim Morley. This seemed to work for several people and I was tempted but did not like the idea of having to do a complete reinstall again so I tried following all the steps but omitting the re installation.

To my delight Windows Update found 218 Important updates within 15 minutes (I was not sitting at the PC at the time but it was more than 5 minutes which was when I moved away. My Thinkpad is busy downloading 215 of these (selected by WU, not by me) but being an elderly notebook this will take several hours to complete. I will report back later (possibly tomorrow!) if all goes well but it seems the main problem has been solved.

What speed! I have just run Windows update overnight and it was still searching for updates the following morning.

I have just run my Thinkpad updater overnight but it still doesn’t find any updates.

It looks as though my suspicions may be right. What will Microsoft not do to try to persuade Win 7 users to downgrade to Win 10?

Thank you for the advice. Following my post I discovered I had done a Windows System Image in November and so restored this image and tried Update again with the same negative result. I slept on he problem overnight and then tried the desperation step of doing a full reinstall of Windows.

The first significant event was that early on it asks whether it should check for updates to the installation. I agreed to this but to my dismay this updater did the same thing and kept searching for 40 mins. I stopped this and repeated the process but skipped the updating step and the installation went without a hitch, including activation. Did this solve the problem – No!

I rebooted again and ran the Windows Update Troubleshooter again. It passed everything but reported an error 0x8024402C. I researched this on the Web but all suggestions seemed to be about trouble with Proxies and I have none. Microsoft said the error occurs because an incorrect character exists in the proxy override setting and offered a fix but when I ran this it said that this fix was not for my set up – presumably either Win 7 or perhaps because there are no proxies.

I found another post which suggested Control Panel/Troubleshooting/Windows Update and this ran as far as displaying “Searching for updates on-line” and stayed there for half an hour!

Finally I downloaded (very slowly) the SURT mentioned and the installer which gets as far as “Searching for updates on this computer” and has stayed there for abour 45 mins.

I see there are several other people in this thread and others describing a similar situation and in view of the episodes mentioned above I am wondering whether there is not a problem at the other end and not on my computer. I have now spent many hours on this problem and am still faced with a notebook that will come under increasing risk while on-line so, Please can someone with the necessary knowledge sort this out.

My thanks are here in anticipation!

Oops! I missed that option and merely got rid of the reminder icon. Have done as suggested and am now downloading 9 updates.

Many thanks for your help.