8024001B

September 23, 2013

A case of MSE update error on fresh XP!


Few days ago, I created a virtual machine of Windows XP SP3 (one reason was to do research work for Microsoft Community questions, other one was to gain experience). The first program I installed was Microsoft Security Essentials (of course!). When it was doing its first update it encountered an error which states I wasn’t connected to internet. At that moment I felt a mixture of  feeling- happiness because that was my intention behind creating XP machine and surprise because it was fresh installation of XP. I thought lets play with it!

First, I retried update procedure and got this:

After several tries opened MpCmdRun.log (found in C:\Windows\Temp) and saw what’s going on. A part of log (well, you can skip the log part as its very lengthy and not required also, log part is written in italics):

————————————————————————————-
MpCmdRun: Command Line: “c:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\MpCmdRun.exe” SignaturesUpdateService -UnmanagedUpdate
 Start Time: ‎Sat ‎Sep ‎21 ‎2013 23:05:19

Start: Signatures Update Service
Update Started
Search Started (MU/WU update) (Path: http://www.microsoft.com)…
Time Info – ‎Sat ‎Sep ‎21 ‎2013 23:06:59 Search Completed
Download Started…
Time Info – ‎Sat ‎Sep ‎21 ‎2013 23:08:48 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Completed
Download Completed
Download Completed
Update failed with hr: 0x8024001b
Update completed with hr: 0x8024001b
End: Signatures Update Service
MpCmdRun: End Time: ‎Sat ‎Sep ‎21 ‎2013 23:08:49

————————————————————————————-
MpCmdRun: Command Line: “c:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\MpCmdRun.exe” SignaturesUpdateService -UnmanagedUpdate
 Start Time: ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:38:12

Start: Signatures Update Service
Update Started
Search Started (MU/WU update) (Path: http://www.microsoft.com)…
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:38:38 Search Completed
Download Started…
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:41:32 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:41:52 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:42:22 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:42:44 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:43:02 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:43:23 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 1%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 1%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 1%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 1%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:43:57 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 2%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:44:16 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 2%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:44:33 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 2%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 2%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:45:21 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:45:43 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:46:04 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 3%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:46:21 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 4%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:47:07 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:47:27 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:47:43 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Time Info – ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:59:46 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 5%
Download Completed
Download Completed
Download Completed
Update failed with hr: 0x80240022
Update completed with hr: 0x80240022
End: Signatures Update Service
MpCmdRun: End Time: ‎Sun ‎Sep ‎22 ‎2013 12:59:47

————————————————————————————-
MpCmdRun: Command Line: “c:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\MpCmdRun.exe” SignaturesUpdateService -ScheduleJob -UnmanagedUpdate
 Start Time: ‎Mon ‎Sep ‎23 ‎2013 21:08:46

Start: Signatures Update Service
Update Started
Search Started (MU/WU update) (Path: http://www.microsoft.com)…
Time Info – ‎Mon ‎Sep ‎23 ‎2013 21:08:59 Search Completed
Update failed with hr: 0x8024001e
Update completed with hr: 0x8024001e
End: Signatures Update Service
MpCmdRun: End Time: ‎Mon ‎Sep ‎23 ‎2013 21:08:59
————————————————————————————-

————————————————————————————-
MpCmdRun: Command Line: “c:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\MpCmdRun.exe” SignaturesUpdateService -ScheduleJob -UnmanagedUpdate
 Start Time: ‎Mon ‎Sep ‎23 ‎2013 21:14:37

Start: Signatures Update Service
Update Started
Search Started (MU/WU update) (Path: http://www.microsoft.com)…
Time Info – ‎Mon ‎Sep ‎23 ‎2013 21:15:40 Search Completed
Download Started…
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Time Info – ‎Mon ‎Sep ‎23 ‎2013 21:15:52 Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Progress-
 Update Index:0 of 1 – 0%
Download Completed
Download Completed
Download Completed
Update failed with hr: 0x8024001e
Update completed with hr: 0x8024001e
End: Signatures Update Service
MpCmdRun: End Time: ‎Mon ‎Sep ‎23 ‎2013 21:16:18
————————————————————————————-

Now here we can see several error codes. I will explain meaning of all of them:

  1. 0x8024001b: WU_E_SELFUPDATE_IN_PROGRESS The operation could not be performed because the Windows Update Agent is already updating Windows. Okay, now this was my fault. I started Windows Update when MSE update was running.
  2. 0x80240022: WU_E_ALL_UPDATES_FAILED Operation failed for all the updates.Of course, this doesn’t give any clue of fault.
  3. 0x8024001e: WU_E_SERVICE_STOP Operation did not complete because the service or system was being shut down.Hmmmm, that does make some sense. But who can turn off Windows Update service? This is indication of some error in Service only.

Okay, now I bored you heavily, let’s move to its solution. Normally, we solve it using a simple method- Renaming ‘SoftwareDistribution’ folder. But, simple renaming will not work as it is locked by Windows Update service. So, we first have to turn off Windows Update service. For this whole purpose, we use four commands (entered in Command Prompt {Run it as Admin. for Windows Vista, 7 & 8}):

net stop wuauserv

cd %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution

ren Download Download.old

net start wuauserv

The first one stops Windows Update service, second navigate Command Prompt to ‘C:\Windows’ folder, third renames the folder, fourth enables Windows Update service.

For your simplicity I have created a bat file, just download it, right click on it, select ‘Run as Admin’ [on Windows Vista, 7 & 8] and rest is on that file. Download it from here:
http://sdrv.ms/1fuqyRJ
[In file you will find ‘pause’ command at last, it enables you to view the results of commands]

After running those codes, I got this:

WOW! That fixed it. Not only that my Windows Update was also sticking on ‘Checking for updates’ and it was also fixed!