A Haunting in Windows 11

[alaterdate]

Something cursed I saw today. [link to the full cohost post]

This person's PC started acting up, most notably Task Manager would hang, the taskbar disappeared, and Settings were nowhere to be found—not even as an admin trying to open it from the command panel. They lived with Windows 11 acting up for two years until it got to the point that their PC was rendered almost completely unusable and they set off in search of what could possibly be causing all these problems.

The following is the solution post they found to banish the demons.

Via Microsoft forums

Image Transcription

So I finally solved it!

Source of the problem: an Android TV (HiSense model) connected to my network. Yes. A TV caused this issue.

Details:

The root cause is the TV generates random UUIDs for UPNP network discovery every few minutes. That means it poses as a new device. This caused windows to add it to the device list (Device Association Framework, aka DAF) as a new device. This means now 1000s of devices (which is the same device) filled the device tree causing it to enumerate forever. Thus the "deadlock".

TaskManager used DasHost to enumerate devices for some reason, so that hangs.

Bluetooth relies on the device discovery, so that also hangs, and Settings app along with it.

Network discovery in file explorer obviously also needs Device discovery, so that also hangs.

How to solve:

1. Open Services App, find "Device Association Service", right-click it, properties and change Startup type to "Disabled". Then Apply and close.

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Turns out their SMART TV was making itself show up as a new device thousands of times and causing the PC to bug out. Made my jaw drop.

Comments

[kradeelav]

[internally screaming] fascinating. but also.

[pauraque]

This is some Windows 95 Tips shit.