Why does Store Broker (wshost.exe) keep killing my CPU?

Anonymous

I've got a new Windows 8 machine and, for some reason, the Store Broker keeps pegging my CPU. It seems to pop up every time I do anything with the Windows Store (makes sense) or use some Metro apps (also makes sense). However, for some reason, this process takes up 33% of my CPU and never lets go of it once it starts. This causes the machine to get hot which causes the fan to come on and the combination drastically reduces my battery life (from 11hrs to 3).

Aside from frequently checking for and killing this app, is there anything else I can do about this? Is anyone else having this problem? Is it a misconfiguration on my end? I'm running this on a new Surface Pro 2.

Thanks!

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Anonymous

I SOLVED this. At least for myself. It's been a 3-day journey. Argh!

The upshot is this:

Kill Store and Store Broker from task list.

Rename the Cache folder to CacheOld at:

C:\Users(Your User Account)\AppData\Local\Packages\WinStore_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState

(Your WinStore_gobblygook might be a different bunch of gobbblygook)

Create an empty folder called Cache.

Solved! For me anyway.

Enjoy,

Ron

I have been at this for days. I've read every article and post everywhere. I have updated graphics drivers, set date and time, run wsreset, sfc /scannnow, created new user account (store did work for new account), app troubleshooter, etc, etc, etc...

Today I just started digging around and looking at dates. I don't have log files to back this up but I believe I broke Store with CCleaner. I'm not sure exactly when the Store broke so this is a best guess but it makes some sense since Ccleaner does clean Store cache.

I also recently installed Tor Browser but my gut is that that was totally unrelated.

I might create a sandbox user and try to break Store with Ccleaner to confirm. But honestly I am tired of this little adventure.

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220 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-02-16T19:08:10+00:00

This issue has been happening on my Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 for several months. My CPU for the Store Broker easily hits 90%. I won't say for sure, but I didn't notice the high CPU till I tried to download a YouTube app...but it never downloaded. Thought maybe the thing just keeps trying to get the app and just spins it wheels.

It would be nice if MS would give one of us some form of trace to run to assist them.
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Anonymous

2014-02-15T18:09:06+00:00

I also REFRESHED, store and store broker still broken.
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Anonymous

2014-02-15T16:13:57+00:00

I dumped the store broker on my pc and did a thread analysis. All of the hung threads are calling a string compare function within WinStoreUI!WindowsStoreCache::DoQuery.

I have not done much more research, but have used the following method to clear my "windows store cache", assuming something is corrupt. Will post back if it my cpu stabilizes.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/13133-store-cache-clear-windows-8-a.html

Just a follow up. Clearing the windows store cache makes no difference. In my case the CPU utilization issue seems random. In addition after a period of time my system will launch multiple Store Broker processes all competing to use 100% CPU.

I am willing to submit process dumps to microsoft for review.
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Anonymous

2014-02-15T15:48:29+00:00

This shows my task manager with store broker right at the top, using 35% CPU.
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