Where we stand with the Cortana/Search redlining bug

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We’re stuck between a rock and a very hard place. On the one hand, if you’re running Win10 1903 — you may have been pushed — you really need to get
[See the full post at: Where we stand with the Cortana/Search redlining bug]

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Mr. Natural, geekdom

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As of 6:30am server time on 7/4, the MS pages for KB4512941 (the second August cumulative update for 1903) still say:

Microsoft is not currently aware of any issues with this update.

The patch was released 6 days ago.
Who tests this stuff?

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woody

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Don’t you worry, come next Patch Tue in six days’ time (11/09) and this will be old news (again)!

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This is not going to be old news until the Microsoft clowns get the act together. Unfortunately, it’s Microsoft’s policy to move forward as soon as they ship their half-baked products. This means that such bugs never get fixed in current and previous versions, and the next version is scheduled to be released next year (20H1). Unfortunately, most of the bugs introduced in 1903 (as well as 1809) are not fixed at this time in the 20H1 preview builds.

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anonymous wrote:

and the next version is scheduled to be released next year (20H1)

The next version, 19H2 is scheduled to be released probably next week Patch Tuesday 10/09

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Alex5723 wrote:

19H2 is scheduled to be released probably next week Patch Tuesday 10/09

Change that to : 19H2 is scheduled to be released in the coming weeks.

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woody wrote:

We’re stuck between a rock and a very hard place.

Not all of us. I don’t have the red-lining issue.

PKCano wrote:

Who tests this stuff?

I do. I check for updates almost every day, download and install every optional update with the exception of drivers; I have driver updates blocked. I have a handful of processes I have suspended via the UI, including Cortana and Search.

Cortana is very handy on my Windows Phone (1709 build 10.0.15254.582), but I have no use for her on a PC. I don’t use Search, I use a partitioning/filing scheme that lets me know where all my stuff is, and I can just go straight to anything via File Explorer

The only registry tweaks I have done are to completely remove all Libraries and Special Folders from throughout the UI. I’ve had my own libraries and special folders (partitions) for a couple of decades, and I like mine better. My hardware is 6 years old (except for SSD’s/HDD’s), and nothing special; Intel motherboard with built-in graphics and Core i5 4670 CPU.

I’ve been running Windows 10 since I joined Insiders to get it, and I’ve only had two short-term minor issues in all that time. Both had to do with dism.exe (did not affect performance or stability) which were dot NET related, and Windows Updates cured those.

The question I keep asking myself is, “Why do I not have problems with Windows updates?”  And I know that I’m not alone.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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fk5353, Barry, geekdom, woody, zero2dash

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I’m not a seeker, but I am on 1903 with the August patch Tuesday updates and I’ve had no issues with any VBscript apps on several machines. Because of deferrals, I have not been offered the 2nd or 3rd cumulative updates yet so I cannot comment on those yet.

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The VB/VBA/VBScript error only occurs when your program tries to handle an empty array.

So everything may work swimmingly for days, weeks, months, and then kaboom.

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doriel

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Do you have any software that’s not Microsoft brand such as anti-virus, office product, or firewall?

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Woody I’m glad you mentioned this because I’ve become annoyed with the broken Cortana search in 1903.

I have not pushed the problematic patches mentioned but I am slowly pushing 1903 to users because most of our people are still on 1803 which won’t be supported in a couple months. I’m skipping 1809 because I don’t want to put workers through 2 version upgrades.

I have a number of complaints from people upgraded to 1903 with broken Cortana search. For now I’ve created a bat file to run which I put on the user desktop to restart Windows Explorer which works for now. I don’t understand what the holdup is on this.

If you have a broken search create a bat file with this command and put it on your desktop to fix the issue for now.

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe & start explorer

Perhaps Susan can push some buttons and find out what the holdup is.

 

Red Ruffnsore

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I have to echo bbearren. I think the wrong question is being asked. I upgraded to WIN10 as soon as it was available and since then have downloaded every Cumulative and Feature update the day it was released. 1 or 2 very minor problems easily fixed and that’s it.

Is it possible because we dont change things that are not meant to be changed Don’t nitpick on updates (install this dont install this wait on this one) is the reason we dont have problems?

I do not change anything unless there is a setting to change it. No registry hacks no 3rd party software that forces W10 to do things it was never supposed to do.

It makes me wonder.

 

Barry
Windows 11 v22H2

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geekdom wrote:

Do you have any software that’s not Microsoft brand such as anti-virus, office product, or firewall?

I have an Office 365 subscription (Office was integral for my work before I retired, and I don’t have any reason to change), I use Windows Defender and firewall.  I have non-Microsoft video editing software, audio editing software, image editing software, Firefox, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, a number of utilities; quite a bit of non-Microsoft stuff.

I don’t use System Restore and have it disabled, and as I mentioned Libraries and Special Folders are completely removed from my systems.  I use TeraByte Image For Windows for my backup solution.  I use Revo Uninstaller as well as BCUninstaller rather than Windows Programs and Features for uninstalls.

My daily-driver mini-tower desktop PC has 3 SSD’s, 2 1TB SSHD’s, and a 2TB HDD single partition that is target for my drive images.  Across those drives are 21 partitions/logical drives.  I dual-boot two installations of Windows 10 Pro on my desktop and also my laptop.  My NAS runs Windows 10 Pro as well, but I don’t dual boot there.  It has a RAID 10 setup with 5.45TB total storage.

All of these installations are on Seeker status, and I haven’t had issues with any of them, other than the non-critical dism.exe I mentioned that was temporary and really a non-issue issue.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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geekdom

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That’s at least twice that you have used the phrase “broke VB”, Woody.  That’s misleading.  Apps written in VB.net, which debuted in 2002 or so, work just fine.

The problem is with apps written with VB6, which was declared “legacy” over 10 years ago.  I’m sure you know that, so I don’t understand why you’re spreading fud about vb in general.

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b

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Woody is indeed prone to exaggeration at times, but in this specific case, the widely-scoped statement is warranted because the crash affects Office VBA as well.  Tons of people write brand-new macros for Excel in VBA, every day… it’s a fully-supported solution.

Yes, Microsoft is trying to encourage people to switch to the newer Javascript-based model, but that’s a lot to ask of many people for whom programming is not their primary job, and who have spent the last 20+ years automating their documents with a few lines of VB here and there.

 

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AlexEiffel

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The original problem report and Microsoft’s summary in KB4512508 correctly states the affected products …

Visual Basic 6 (VB6), macros using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), and scripts or apps using Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript)

So VB6/VBA/VBScript was broken by the August update.  The “6” needs to be included.

 

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b

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I am currently moving my credit union customers (about 16 users) from 1709 to 1809. Each move is a clean install, not an upgrade. Once they are all on 1809, I will speak with my supervisor about what is next. My guess is that in about three to four months I will begin moving everyone to 1903. Hopefully 1903 will be sufficiently mature by then.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM

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Since we’ve been running 1903 at the office for months now, with no issues, I just recently in-place upgraded my new-to-1809 home machines to 1903 and have no issues there either.

To me, 1903 seems just as stable as 1809, 1803, 1709, and 1703 were before it. I rarely see any complaint posts about 1903 on /r, and when I do, it’s usually PEBKAC or an outdated driver that is the culprit.

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You clean install each feature release?

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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I am running 1903 here and at home and have never seen an issue with the VBscript/VBA.  If you are…. I would go back to your vendor (assuming it’s still supported) and scream [blue] murder and see if they can come up with a better solution.

These issues only hurt if they hurt.  If they don’t, you are going… what problems?

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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woody

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There is a way to prevent SearchUI from the cpu issue if you have installed KB4512941 and experiencing the issue. If you disable “let apps run in the background” under privacy settings SearchUI will show as disabled but Cortana search will still work.

I have always disabled “let apps run in the background” on every version of Windows 10. I recall reading with 1903 that you have to now leave this enabled for Cortana to “work properly”. Turning this off previously did not affect Cortana search.

I have this policy disabled in group policy so I think we may be ok. I’ll be pushing to a few more pc’s to confirm.

Red Ruffnsore

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AlexEiffel

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If you disable “let apps run in the background” under privacy settings SearchUI will show as disabled but Cortana search will still work.

That didn’t work in my case. I have had the group policy “Let Windows apps run in the background” set to “Force Deny” since long before the update, and I still experienced SearchUI.exe eating a core and search not working.

Even if this did work, I can’t imagine how it would fix the search being broken; at most it should save your cpu when you’re not using the start menu, and result in high cpu usage when you are.

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Mr. Natural wrote:

There is a way to prevent SearchUI from the cpu issue if you have installed KB4512941 and experiencing the issue. If you disable “let apps run in the background” under privacy settings SearchUI will show as disabled but Cortana search will still work.

I have always disabled “let apps run in the background” on every version of Windows 10. I recall reading with 1903 that you have to now leave this enabled for Cortana to “work properly”. Turning this off previously did not affect Cortana search.

I have this policy disabled in group policy so I think we may be ok. I’ll be pushing to a few more pc’s to confirm.

Doesn’t this prevent programs like Mail from retrieving new messages & informing the user of upcoming Calendar events?

Bit of a heavy hammer….

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Fred

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We use Office 365 in an AD environment with O365 cloud hosted Exchange. I’ve had that group policy set for quite a while and have not had any complaints from users.

The 1903 group policy admx file is available and it has all the options to allow you to pick and choose which options to allow or deny to run in the background if a problem arises.

Red Ruffnsore

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Outlook isn’t affected because it isn’t UWP-packaged and therefore not subject to the  behaviour controlled by that setting.

But as more parts of the Windows GUI moves into UWP containers and takes advantage of UWP’s background tasks feature (which is a really good system…. much MUCH safer than the old-school Windows Services approach), disabling background task operation altogether is likely to cause subtle and unusual problems in the future.

And hey, once Windows 7 and 8.1 age out of existence in three years, don’t be surprised if Microsoft starts shipping Outlook exclusively inside a UWP container, and using UWP background tasks to keep the calendar updates & related notifications running correctly even if Outlook isn’t open.

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AlexEiffel, Mr. Natural

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This is why I don’t install any version until it’s been out for 1 year, I still get 6 months of patches. Then I move on to the next one lol.

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That posture wouldn’t have helped here.  The VB problem came as a a consequence of incorrectly fixing a security vulnerability that dates back 20 years.  The incorrect fix was released for supported versions of Windows, even Windows Server 2008 and Windows 10 LTSC 2015.

 

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Quotes from MS support KB article 4512941 updated Wed 9/4:
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4512941

Symptom:

Microsoft is getting reports that a small number of users may not receive results when using Windows Desktop Search and may see high CPU usage from SearchUI.exe. This issue only occurs on devices that have disabled searching the web using Windows Desktop Search.

Workaround

We are working on a resolution and estimate a solution will be available in mid-September.

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b, geekdom

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Patch Tuesday is September 10, 2019. One wonders if mid-September includes Patch Tuesday?

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[EP]

NO geekdom

read this recent article from Liam Tung of ZDnet:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-1903-buggy-update-slows-pcs-breaks-desktop-search-says-microsoft/

Microsoft estimates a resolution will be available in mid-September, so it will probably not be fixed by the upcoming Patch Tuesday on September 10, but by a subsequent optional cumulative update.

Edit: pay close attention to what was mentioned in that article, woody. a fix for the cortana/search redlining bug may NOT make it onto the patch Tuesday of 9/10 and will take a newer non-security cumulative update [a “C” patch in September in either 3rd or 4th Tuesday]

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by EP.

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I have a different situation with search in verson 1903 build 18362.295

When clicking on search a window opens with one line of Top Apps the first listed was SW that never used, as not got round to deleting it was missing drivers, the second was Kindle last use over a year ago more bizare was the  next one as a ‘TOP APP’ Uninstall Kindle.

One cannot delete or edit line other than uninstall the App.

Peter

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warrenrumak wrote:

Mr. Natural wrote:

There is a way to prevent SearchUI from the cpu issue if you have installed KB4512941 and experiencing the issue. If you disable “let apps run in the background” under privacy settings SearchUI will show as disabled but Cortana search will still work.

I have always disabled “let apps run in the background” on every version of Windows 10. I recall reading with 1903 that you have to now leave this enabled for Cortana to “work properly”. Turning this off previously did not affect Cortana search.

I have this policy disabled in group policy so I think we may be ok. I’ll be pushing to a few more pc’s to confirm.

Doesn’t this prevent programs like Mail from retrieving new messages & informing the user of upcoming Calendar events?

Bit of a heavy hammer….

Can’t Microsoft imagine that there are people who do not want to use Cortana and Cortana-search and Bing-search and the various continiously searchings and indexings? And are even that bold to switchoff the indexing stuff?

All the processor stealing powers make peaple buy new hardware. Or is this just  microsofts businessmodel? Cheating and selling.

 

* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *

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LHiggins

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I wanted to ask if there is any update on this KB4512941 Cortana bug. I have my updates set to defer for 30 days, so I am expecting to see the August updates – 4512508 and 4512941 appearing on my Win 10 Pro v1903 laptop in a couple of days. I was just wondering where we stand with that Cortana bug – and if it is going to be safe to get both of the August updates when I see them. My September updates should be deferred till October – so I won’t need to “worry” about them yet, but I do want to be prepared for the August ones.

I do not use or want Cortana or Bing – and Cortana is disabled via Group Policy. I also disabled Bing results in local search – thought at this point I am not sure just how I did that.

In any case – before these appear, I just wanted to check in to see what to do with them.

Thanks!

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LHiggins wrote:

I wanted to ask if there is any update on this KB4512941

Apparent fix for the SearchUI.exe redlining bug introduced last month in Win10 1903

https://www.askwoody.com/2019/september-patch-tuesday-rolling-out/

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LHiggins

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Thanks Alex,

Yes, I just now saw that. So since that October update is deferred for me for 30 days – should I just try to skip the August Cortana issue one for a while, till the October ones are vetted and then get them both? Since there now seems to be a fix, I don’t want to get caught creating an issue that can be avoided – or corrected.

Or – will that fix really be a fix – LOL!

Thanks!

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