SkyDrive Sync Engine Host

Anonymous
2013-10-19T14:50:56+00:00

So far the update to Windows 8.1 has gone very well. I have, however, noticed an issue on ONE of my PCs that's been updated.

The SkyDrive Sync Engine Host process in Task Manager is constantly consuming 12 - 15% of the CPU. Now all of my files that I've chosen to sync have already synced properly. The 'Size' and 'Size on Disk' match for all of the folders I've marked to sync offline.

I've rebooted the PC and, upon restart, the process goes right back in to its CPU consumption.

I will note, that even though the CPU consumption is up, the Network Utilization is not. So it can't be constantly downloading or uploading anything since it's not using the network.

Any ideas as to why this is happening and how I can fix it?

Thanks in advance.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-14T16:27:37+00:00

    After hours of searching etc. I found the fix or at least for me.

    Go to your "Task Manager" and close both SkyDrive services.

    Next, go to Windows Explorer and navigate to:

    C:\Users%USER%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\SkyDrive

    Delete the "SkyDrive" folder after backing up your SkyDrive date elsewhere. (just encase.  This is just a settings folder but any corrupted files will go missing after this.

    Do this t all computers using the same account.  Takes a few minutes or so depending on your account size.  It will start with nothing then quickly fill in with all your files from the cloud.

    Note: %USER% is replaced with your windows login; you will recognize I when you get to the user folder area i.e. C:\Users\

    Hope this helps.  :)

    Guys.. this is the answer... it works for me..

    This worked for me!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-15T18:11:24+00:00

    I tried RACoutu's suggestion again, just to be sure.  When I rebooted, the little cloud icon appeared in the system tray again, and I moused over it and saw the tooltip "Configuring 3%" (or something similar).  Figured, good, it's getting itself back to normal.  But a few minutes later, I heard my laptop's fans speed up again, and when I moused over the system tray, there was the cloud icon with the blue sync circle flickering, the tooltip showing "Checking for changes", and opening the task manager showed that process taking up a full CPU core again.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-16T19:45:53+00:00

    For some reason I'm unable to find out how to post a question. So sorry for replying on your thread here.

    Does ANYONE know how to DISABLE the Skydrive SYNC ENGINE HOST?? I have turned off Skydrive in the settings but the Skydrive icon keeps showing up in my notification area. I have to go to Task Manager to End Task on this process. This is the only issue I'm having with this. I DO NOT like cloud services. They are unsafe and can't be trusted. So I do not want this running at all!

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-02-17T16:38:40+00:00

    I had the same problem.  Here's how I resolved it.  I stopped the to skydrive services and made sure the skydrive startup task was set to disabled.  Then I made a backup of the files just to be safe.  And instead of editing appdata which I don't think is the best way to solve this type of problem, I just set the skydrive folder location to my C drive instead of my D: drive and once the change updated it was fixed.  I think this is caused when skydrive gets confused about the configuration (for example, with multiple computers or cloning drives etc) When a skydrive update is applied it is also fixes this type of problem it seems, too.

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-02-20T20:57:37+00:00

    I have the answer for you my friend, in fact for everybody.

    http://www.howtogeek.com/167058/how-to-disable-skydrive-integration-in-windows-8.1/

    Simply follow that instruction and you're good too go. I found it easier to link it than to mention everything here.

    -Kritun117

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