Category: Random Fix

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Dell laptop Task Manager CPU stuck at 22%

I had the strangest problem troubleshooting a client’s slow laptop. I ran a full diagnostic, hard drive checked out. The craziest thing was the hard drive was a SanDisk SSD and it was performing nothing like an SSD.

One thing that stood out to me was the CPU being stuck at 22% no matter what I did. It would not go higher or lower. On a hunch, I Googled “22% CPU dell” and came across someone on the Dell forums who had the same problem. It has to do with the power adapter not being able to charge the battery. In the case of the Dell forum and my client, it was the third-party power adapter. I noticed the battery was not going any higher than where it was initially.

I unplugged the power adapter and the CPU usage on Task Manager started going and the laptop started running at its normal SSD speed. I was shocked.

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Edge Chromium protocol handler always open these types of links in the associated app

I’ve moved my daily browsing habits to the new Edge that is based on Chromium. I have been using it since the very first release. I am now using the stable beta version.

I noticed about a month or so ago that whenever I tried connecting to a Screenconnect session, the protocol handler would always ask me: This site is trying to open ScreenConnect Client, but it would not have the checkbox to allow me to always open these types of links in the associated app.

Edge Chromium protocol handler with no Always open these types of links in the associated app option

I finally decided to try and figure out if there was an option within Edge to enable this again. After checking the site permissions area, I could not find a setting that would allow this check-box to return.

I started searching the web, and through all the BS Google search results, don’t even get me started with that, I found a few other threads where people were reporting the same thing.

It appears that as of Chrome 77 which Edge Chromium is based on, they removed the option to always open these types of links in the associated app.

Their reasoning is because there was no way to undo the always remember option, they decided it was insecure and a security risk, therefore, they removed it completely.

Here is the thread I found: https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/14194567?hl=en

In the thread, there is a workaround. It entails modifying the preferences file in your default profile.

Hi All, there is a way around this, you can insert a record into the preferences file
found in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
The file “Preferences”  contains JSON serttings, our example is for a Web Client Print handler, so just added the below:
“protocol_handler”:{“excluded_schemes”:{“webclientprintiv”:false}}

You must close all instances of chrome including any running processes before you do this or chrome will overwrite the file and get rid of your changes.

And it works.
NB: you’ll have to check your own scheme names to add.
Hope this helps.
Jonesi

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/14194567?msgid=15347344

I tried modifying the preferences file for the dev version of Edge that I am running alongside the beta and Canary. I went to: %HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge Dev\User Data\Default and tried editing the preferences file found there. When I run Edge, I get an error message saying: Profile error – Your preferences file isn’t valid, or was corrupted. We couldn’t recover your settings. It changes the preferences file to preferences.bad and then creates a new Preferences file.

According to this ConnectWise technical bulletin: https://docs.connectwise.com/ConnectWise_Control_Documentation/Technical_support_bulletins/Constant_prompt_to_open_ScreenConnect_Client_in_Chrome, you should be able to add the following: “protocol_handler”: {“excluded_schemes”: {“sc-xxxxxxxxxxxxx”: false}}, to the Preferences file, and it should always remember your choice that you would like to allow this app to run without having click on Open.

I tried it multiple times, placing the code in different areas, making sure the formatting was right. It never worked. I am going to assume that Microsoft block this change. I really don’t know much about how you can modify open-source browsers, but I’d imagine, most if not all that are based on the same source, follow the same guidelines or standards.

If you figure out how to force the new Edge browser to always allow specific protocol handlers to run instead of having to click on Open all the time, please leave me a comment.

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Outlook is retrieving data from the Microsoft Exchange Server outlook.office365.com

I have a client who has been having this problem for several months now. It started out of the blue. No one else in that site has the same problem. Although the computers are not exactly the same, they all share a commonality in that they are all Dell OptiPlex workstations running Windows 10 Pro and Office 365 Business Premium Office suite.

What happens is while using Outlook, whether it’s changing from one folder to another, Outlook will randomly freeze and up at the title bar it will say (Not Responding) and then down below in the system tray where the Outlook icon is, it will pop up a black notification box that says “Microsoft Outlook Outlook is trying to retrieve data from the Microsoft Exchange server outlook.office365.com.

I cannot re-create the problem at will. It sometimes takes an hour or two for it to randomly appear again.

I have tried the following:

  • Clean Boot
  • Disabling or having the computer prefer IPV4 over IPV6 via Microsoft’s registry fix
  • Disabling hardware acceleration in Outlook
  • Clean install
  • Online repair of Office
  • Multiple new Outlook profiles
  • Outlook safe mode
  • Changing out the network card
  • Tried only via wireless
  • I will come back to this list when I remember what else I’ve tried
  • 11/19 – Replaced the entire network stack, router and switch
  • 11/19 – Replaced the entire workstation with a brand new Dell 7070 with the following specs:
  • Intel Core i9 9900K
  • 32 GB Memory
  • 512 GB PCIe NVME SSD
  • Intel Gigabit PCIe NIC
  • Fresh install of Windows 10 Pro with it being joined to a domain as well as a fresh install of 64-Bit Office 365. The problem has happened on both 32-bit and 64-bit

I have tried using Process Monitor by monitoring Outlook.exe, but nothing of significance is ever shown.

Everything I’ve found online says it might be due to too many items in the calendar. There is a total of 151 items in the calendar.

The other thing I’ve found is that there are too many e-mails. I find that hard to believe since my own Office 365 account has much more than this end-user and I do not see the same problem.

A few people mentioned updating their router’s firmware fixed it for them. I installed all firmware that was available for their router and the problem remains.

I have the end-user’s Exchange account set up in a Windows 10 virtual machine and the same version of Outlook the end-user uses on the Dell OptiPlex.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to recreate the problem. However, I have not used it as a normal end-user would meaning, for eight hours a day, sending e-mails, receiving, etc. so it’s hard to say if it truly does not happen on this virtual machine.

The Dell OptiPlex in question has the following specs:

Intel i5
256 GB Samsung Solid State Drive
8 GB Memory
Windows 10 Pro
Office 365 which is the equivalent to Office 2019

There is a caveat. This entire problem is closely related to something with Quick Books 2019 Pro.

Sending e-mails from Quick Books often times will cause Outlook to freeze up and or it takes a very long time. Sending e-mails via Outlook also tends to cause the error message to occur; however, it does also happen when not using Outlook.

I’ve confirmed the portion that affects QuickBooks and Outlook sending e-mails is a bug on Intuit’s end. That is an ongoing bug with absolutely no fix, other than a workaround, which is to use the send forms feature after queuing several e-mails to be sent.

I am still trying to find a fix for the main problem which is when using Outlook 365 or Outlook 2016 with two Exchange accounts and two shared mailboxes, when just clicking on an e-mail in the inbox, Outlook freezes completely, it says NOT RESPONDING at the top, the bars are greyed out as though it’s about to crash and is not responding to any mouse clicks. On top of that, a small window pops up at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen which says: Outlook is retrieving data from the Microsoft Exchange Server outlook.office365.com.

At this point, the only thing we have not changed out is the cable run that the computer plugs into up to the patch panel. I am having that tested tomorrow with a cable certifier. If it comes back as certified and good, I don’t know what else to try. I am at my wit’s end. I cannot believe that even after a brand new, maxed out computer, it still happens. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

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Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST): The inbox storage driver iastora.sys doesn’t work on these systems and causes stability problems on Windows. Check with your software/driver provider for an updated version that runs on this version of Windows

If you get this error message while trying to upgrade to Windows 10 1903, and you update your storage driver, but this message is still appearing, you have to go into C:\Windows\system32\drivers (WARNING, WHAT I AM ABOUT TO TELL YOU CAN HOSE AND DAMAGE YOUR SYSTEM. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD BACKUP THAT YOU’VE TESTED. I WOULD CREATE A RESTORE POINT JUST IN CASE YOU GET STUCK, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES THAT MAY OCCUR TO YOUR COMPUTER BASED UPON THIS INFORMATION) and look for the iaStorA.sys file and rename it to iaStorA.sys_old. However, make sure you are seeing the updated Intel storage driver within Device Manager first.

Once you rename the file, you can go back out and re-run the update. This should get you past this error message.

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iCloud 0x800CCC0E Outlook cannot synchronize subscribed folders after enabling multi-factor authentication

If you’re struggling to try to get your iCloud account with multi-factor authentication enabled to work properly within Outlook, and you’ve tried going to File > Account Settings and tried changing your password there, you’re in luck.

You first have to generate an app password at appleid.apple.com.

Next, you have to go through Control Panel, Mail app and then choose the iCloud account there. Next, click on change and then enter in your newly created app password. Click next and allow it to do a test send/receive. If it sends/receives OK then go ahead and click finish.

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On1 Raw 2019.5 error 1005

If you’re trying to open a file from browse mode in On1 RAW 2019.5 and you receive the icon indicating no photo available, you might need to convert the color space profile of that photo to something other than what it currently is. Try changing it to sRGB and seeing if it opens up properly.

If you don’t have access to a program like Photoshop, you can download Irfanview, which is free.

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Office 365 shared mailbox prompting Search Protocol Host password prompt

I have a client who has two shared mailboxes in Outlook and they started to receive a password prompt asking for the password of the shared mailbox account. Typically the shared mailbox accounts do not have password. I know that it is possible to assign a password and then grant webmail access but in this case, no matter what password we tried, the password prompt never went away.

It appears that if you have previous Outlook profiles with that particular account added to said profile and it was not an actual Exchange or Exchange shared mailbox at one point then you will receive a password prompt as Windows is trying to index that file for search.

Source: https://gcits.com/knowledge-base/remove-microsoft-windows-search-protocol-host-prompt/

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Realtek NIC constantly disconnecting and reconnecting on Windows 10

If you encounter a workstation that has a Realtek NIC that constantly connects to the network and reconnects, I suggest you turn the following settings off or on in device manager:

Auto Disable Gigabit > Relink Battery or AC
Green Ethernet > Disable
Energy Efficient Ethernet > Disable

Thanks to: https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/304958-realtek-pcie-gbe-family-controller-keeps-disconnecting-my-fix.html for the fix.

PS, this is truly a random fix. This was a shot in the dark right out of far left field and it worked. I was going to replace the NIC as the next step but glad I tried this.