Problem checking for updates - Code 80240442 - Windows Update ran into a problem

OK, so a week or two ago everything started magically working. But not wanting to get one of those annoying "that's great" messages from Ratandeep, I didn't report it.

Since then I have had lots of updates install automatically. Manual update almost always fails (same error code as usual). Automatic updates sometimes fail. Once Windows Update reported that I'd "never" checked for updates, then it installed more updates within the next day or two.

I think I'm more or less caught up at this point but this software is still buggy, buggy, buggy.

And so NO, Ratandeep, I'm not going to my "local repair shop" or completely wiping my hard drive or any of the other time-wasting things that might or might not fix my computer. It would be great if Microsoft would start out by owning this issue as many on this thread have requested.

I usually go with oldest first, unless I see something somewhere about an order.  If yours still boots, it is probably fine.  I heard it was a collection of updates, and it got pulled on the downloads too, just took longer.  At least one issue was related to fonts getting installed in the wrong spot, which could have just been from some program you installed that did that.

The update issue either looked like bad update servers on Microsoft's end or some issue with UEFI BIOS and some OEMs that handle UEFI different from Microsoft.  I found a post with a workaround for the UEFI issue(http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/526163/uefi-secure-boot-may-cause-windows-updates-to-fail-with-error-code-0x800f0922/), but it doesn't work with 8.1 update 1.  Looking up the post again, I see a comment with more updates that have UEFI issues.  I haven't tried removing those yet, but that may fix my issue..  I run about 5 or 6 machines with almost the same software, and just one of them has the update issue.  It is also the only machine I have with UEFI that isn't Microsoft hardware too, so that makes sense as a cause of the issue, at least in my case.  I also noticed a difference in network traffic for machines that work vs machines that don't.  I sent the logs of each to their tier 2 and tier 3 support, but they could never figure it out.  All the way up the support chain, they insist that the issue isn't them...

Thanks Korn 1699, but what other alternative is there??  I guess I should install the oldest ones first.  Do you know which was the August patch that caused machines to stop booting into Windows?  Or where I can find the information?

And, why the people in MS, who are the "experts", do not tell us what to do?

I just went back into the Win update from Control Panel and the same error appears.  Clearly it has to be a "glitch" in the software.  Why MS doesn't fix it?

Thanks for sharing.

CEC

Sometimes the order that you install them matters, so you do want to be a little careful when you install them from there.  Also, if a bad update is pulled from windows update before it is taken off there, you could end up installing it (like the patch from August that would cause some machines to stop booting into Windows).  Those are just some things to be aware of.  I have been going there, since WSUS offline only seems to catch about half the updates I need...