BITS Error 1290: 0x50a following updates

You have a full time job keeping me and Xircal honest.  Look, there is a followup post and I am trying to get the lowdown on that story, so if I was a bird dog I am actually pointing quail and not just sniffing droppings and looking at sparrows in confusion.  Feel free to jump right in if you have some more definitive questions.  Ha! your work may not be done with the Fix it.  You may be just getting started.

I agree problems with malfunctioning BITS is a long-standing issue - hence the fixes that have been around ever since XP was released. The faulty Fix-It is just one tiny extra source of BITS problems - with very specific symptoms.  

Unless I am missing something the poster Obsolete\_Windows has only made that one post - and has stated no symptoms relating to the title of the thread - or links to previous posts in the thread.

I am basing what I say on what he has revealed in that single post.

He starts his post by saying "Corrupted Windows Update activity occurred" - there is no way to know what he really means by this - but it makes no mention of ANY symptoms of a BITS problem - sounds more like he means the SVCHOST problem. It just seemed to me he was confusing the SVCHOST problem and the BITS problem (due to Fix-It or by another cause) - and expecting a fix for one to solve the other issue.

The reason I feel he is confusing what "Security" item he should have installed before using Windows Update is that he stated " I installed Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) BEFORE going online for Windows Update.  ...........  and then the svchost.exe problem began.  I tried uninstalling and reinstalling MSE but it did not eliminate the problem."

Why is he stating this "BEFORE" as if it was supposed to be something that needed to be done to prevent a problem - and why would uninstalling and reinstalling MSE have anything do do with fixing the (SVCHOST) problem? 

Just trying to keep speculation based on the facts at hand - nothing more.

I checked that post -

and I think if you read it again you will see it never says the BITS registry was trashed.

 

In fact it never reports any actual evidence that there was any problem with BITS at all - he just jumps into Xircal's BITS fix for no apparent reason - other than he had the SVCHOST problem.

 

And he had the SVCHOST problem because - as you noticed - he seems to have confused installing the "Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer" with installing "Microsoft Security Essentials" - and appears not to have protected himself from the SVCHOST bug before attempting to run Windows Update. 

 

All he reported was that "there was no "bits" folder in c:\Windows\System32" - which is normal for an install from an XP CD that includes the integrated SP3 service pack - and of course leaves no ServicePack folder on the hard drive.

 

With all due respect Keith (and I do respect you for supporting my diagnoses re the faulty Fix-It) -

you are jumping to wild conclusions re "the bad code .... being incorporated into other software" As the person who reported, diagnosed and found the bad code in the faulty Fix-It -  I do not agree with your with conclusions. I have posted the actual code for all to see - and it is just stupid mistakes - one is typing "true" instead of false for one test - the other is omitting a small 5 line block of code that sets three flags.

 

It is certain that there are other "mistakes" in Microsoft software - there always have been - hence the masses of Windows/Microsoft Security and Non-Security Updates we have to endure. But this particular "bad code" from the faulty Fix-It is in two Powershell scripts - in a single Troubleshooters Diagcab file - wu.diagcab. There could obviously be other unrelated (and undetected) coding errors  in any of the other Troubleshooters.

 

You might want to reconsider the wild assertion you made above - we could both then re-edit (remove) our posts and get back to the real facts.  

The person reported having applied Xircal's procedure which included diagnostic go/no go for the fix  so it was reasonable to presume that BITS was trashed or why would Xircal's procedure be applied?

You conclude there was no apparent reason for the application of Xircal's fix while I would suppose the need for Xircal's fix would be a trashed BITS.  Including the latest cumulative security update as a part of Xircal's procedure muddies the water somewhat.

I did ask specific followup questions about the cumulative security update which is mentioned in Xircal's procedure also and I expect the poster knows the difference between MSE and the update.  

I observed the CPU spiking with MSE on my own machine otherwise working normally and uninstalled it because it was a regular predictable CPU hog even when not in use.  It was the MsMpEng.exe that was hogging CPU and it can also interact in conflict with Windows Update.  Part of the CPU overload occurs due to the anti malware scanner scanning itself and adding its folder to the scan exceptions list will reduce the CPU load but not enough and the MsMpEng.exe will still spike at random times unpredictably, so I got rid of MSE because it is a buggy beta application and a not needed headache more trouble than it was ever worth.  Better third party freeware is available.

http://techat-jack.blogspot.com/2012/09/solved-high-cpu-usage-of-microsoft.html

My conclusions are preliminary and based upon what limited information the user provided until there is a reply to the questions I asked for clarification.  However the description given seemed pretty specific and didn't indicate confusion between MSE and the cumulative security update for IE8.  There is no definitions update for the cumulative security update for IE but there is for MSE.  The poster wrote:

"After installing the OS and drivers and IE8, Automatic Updates was disabled and I installed Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) BEFORE going online for Windows Update.  MSE updated itself (KB2310138 Definition 1.165.808.0), and then the svchost.exe problem began.  I tried uninstalling and reinstalling MSE but it did not eliminate the problem."

Let's see what the poster may reply in answer to my questions seeking more details. You were thought to be making a wild assertion about the Fix it by Xircal but I didn't think so because several people were already reporting the Fix it was definitely or suspected to be haywire, even though the details of how were later investigated and confirmed by you.  I have suspected all along there is more to the broken BITS issue than it being a niche issue limited to a Fix it tool.  The general idea there is reasonable.  Another variable about the Faulty Fix it you identified, is that not everyone reporting to have used that Fix it got a broken BITS as a result, while it would seem the probability was great it would occur, it appears not to have been certain.  The same could be true for MSE.  It could be 1 time in a hundred that the issue occurs.  What I passed along was what another poster had reported as best I understood it as being interesting and I'm waiting for more information.  Until there is clarification of the facts I am not removing my post which was intended to make no wild assertion.

I think you misunderstand what I have said is I believe the corrupted BITS issue goes beyond just the Fix it tool or a faulty reg file.  The procedure for the reinstalling of BITS being posted by Microsoft without identifying a cause and effect scenario would tend to indicate the cause/s are unknown or many.

I checked that post -

and I think if you read it again you will see it never says the BITS registry was trashed.

In fact it never reports any actual evidence that there was any problem with BITS at all - he just jumps into Xircal's BITS fix for no apparent reason - other than he had the SVCHOST problem.

And he had the SVCHOST problem because - as you noticed - he seems to have confused installing the "Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer" with installing "Microsoft Security Essentials" - and appears not to have protected himself from the SVCHOST bug before attempting to run Windows Update. 

All he reported was that "there was no "bits" folder in c:\Windows\System32" - which is normal for an install from an XP CD that includes the integrated SP3 service pack - and of course leaves no ServicePack folder on the hard drive.

With all due respect Keith (and I do respect you for supporting my diagnoses re the faulty Fix-It) -

you are jumping to wild conclusions re "the bad code .... being incorporated into other software" As the person who reported, diagnosed and found the bad code in the faulty Fix-It -  I do not agree with your with conclusions. I have posted the actual code for all to see - and it is just stupid mistakes - one is typing "true" instead of false for one test - the other is omitting a small 5 line block of code that sets three flags.

It is certain that there are other "mistakes" in Microsoft software - there always have been - hence the masses of Windows/Microsoft Security and Non-Security Updates we have to endure. But this particular "bad code" from the faulty Fix-It is in two Powershell scripts - in a single Troubleshooters Diagcab file - wu.diagcab. There could obviously be other unrelated (and undetected) coding errors  in any of the other Troubleshooters.