Blank Screen - Power On

Almost every day for about the past 10 days my machine will become totally unavailable. All I'll see is a blank display, yet the power light is on. I have a remote connect tool (ScreenConnect) and it'll show the machine as offline, so it's not a graphics display issue. When I examine the event logs there's nothing much to go on, and this lockup or whatever it is happens at various times of the night (4 AM, 8 PM, etc.). The last entry each time in the event log has been this "critical" error:

The NLS operation failed because the registry key Control Panel\International\User Profile cannot be opened. Error code is 2. Error message: The system cannot find the file specified.

It's listed as critical, but I see those happening a lot in my logs at all times of the day.

The machine has never gone down while I'm active on it, or ever during the day even when I'm not consistently on it, like for an hour or more. It's always after what would be an extended time of basic inactivity.

Any ideas?

Caledon Ken said:

Hi js0873

What changed 11 days ago?

Did you add a program, change hardware, change a setting?

Did our friends at MS deliver an updates or drivers? Start > Settings > Update and Security, on right "view update history".

Check list carefully, down at bottom are others and driver updates.

Are you using 1803 or 1809, and did you just get 1809?

Think this is a hibernation issue brought on by new driver. You mentioned extend time of basic inactivity.

You could disable hibernation and test.

To a command prompt(admin) or powershell(admin) type the following command

powercfg -h off

To reverse in a few days change to word off to on. If it is hibernation hopefully you can id driver, always painful.


Ken

Thanks. I remember when it started I looked for anything new, but didn't recall much of anything. Then I decided to install updates since I was a bit behind, and wound up installing the feature update to Windows 10, version 1809. That's all that shows there now in update history, I guess since it's a relatively large update.

I never hibernate so that's not an issue, but even if it was it's not coming out of hibernation. I'll go ahead and issue the command though, but my machine has never hibernated before.

I disabled, yet same result. Yesterday my machine locked at 5:37, roughly 30 minutes after I left. It's never done it to me while I was on it. I'm attaching the logs with the very last entries to see if that helps.

Caledon Ken said:

What language is showing in your notification area?

Do you have any additional language packs installed?

Have you run

sfc /scannow

to a command prompt(admin) or powershell(admin)

I did run scannow and it said no problems.
The only language I have installed is Engine as far as I know.

Caledon Ken said:

I wonder if your profile became corrupted with the installation of 1809.

This has all gotten confused with the Windows update process. I was having the problem prior to 1809. I only upgraded to 1809 to see if it would help, but it sure hasn't.

I take image backups each night with Acronis so that's not a problem.

Today I moved my workload over to another physical machine, just to see if it happens again and if not maybe this was hardware related, though I doubt it.