Can't restart. Re-start circle(?) just goes round and round endlessly

Sorry, that's a typo. I did press Ctrl-Alt-Delete several times.

This re-start issue I'm experiencing is a really tough nut to crack. I just spent the past hour troubleshooting and manually rebooted the PC at least a dozen times again.

To eliminate possibilities:

1. I again made sure that my Gigabyte Z370 motherboard is running on Optimized Defaults (I stopped overclocking years ago)
2. Ran Malwarebytes (I have this installed offline). Result: no malware
3. Ran Windows Security (disabled normally). Result: no malware
4. Disabled the 3-4 remaining startup programs one-by-one that require online access (eg. VPN, Steam, OneDrive, etc.)
5. Shutdown the PC from the commandline: shutdown /s /t 0. Same problem.

I'm still getting the same problem. Re-start and Shutdown still not working. I have to intervene and manually press the re-set button on the box. The only thing that's still in my Startup is a printer driver for my Brother printer and a screen cap app, SnagIT. Both can't be the culprit to the problem since I've been using the same old and tried versions for years. They both don't auto-upgrade or call 'home'.

Did you do the Disk cleanup as I suggested (%windir%\system32\cleanmgr.exe)?

Did you try a Repair Install ?

bofhlusr said:

Sorry, that's a typo. I did press Ctrl-Alt-Delete several times.

Okay =)
I was assuming you may have made the typo of saying tab instead of delete. No worries.

bofhlusr said:

This re-start issue I'm experiencing is a really tough nut to crack. I just spent the past hour troubleshooting and manually rebooted the PC at least a dozen times again.

I completely agree

And thanks for the log of other things you did to eliminate their possibility of doing this.


So, I tried looking at similar logs of the one I took a picture of in my last post (post number 37). I found a few links, there's one with some Windows Update, which kinda steers away from the whole subject, but I dunno, check it out, maybe even try it out? Who knows. See if you can find other examples online of the example I took a screenshot of, from your log file of the attempted restart operation.

Here's the links I found. There's many more, and even more accurate to your log:
Server 2012 KB5009586 lsass reboots - Windows Server
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...8-0c962c9e486d


EDIT (6:56 AM my local time):

Also check out this link:
Event ID 1014: What does it mean & how to fix this DNS issue

It's solutions for the Event ID #1014, that happened 13 seconds before you tried the restart? Or right at the restart, then 13 seconds later you had that weird "restart" command show up afterwards.
Did you write down the exact time (including seconds) of when you did the restart attempt?

pepanee said:

Okay =)
...
Did you write down the exact time (including seconds) of when you did the restart attempt?

No, I didn't think I needed to since it's in the .evtx file I posted here in which you should have a copy of. It is the 3rd item from the bottom. It is under the Source column where it says "User32". This is when I issued a reboot (or restart) in Windows.

About 30-60 seconds later after I did a reboot in Windows, I pressed the reboot (restart) button on the PC box. This is shown under the first column called Event as "Critical" in the same .evtx file.

I'll check out the links you posted although I don't feel too hopeful. On previous occasions I spent a lot of time trying to get rid of Error "10016 DistributedCOM" and never succeeded in getting rid of that error. I learned to live with it and ignored it since it apparently didn't make a difference to what I do in the PC.

Someone here posted that it might be better to just re-install Windows. Alternatively, I could just restore using a disk image from sometime last year, but that will delete changes and upgrades since then. I'm hoping there are better alternatives. I am now wondering if I could just do some kind of advanced repair but that too might have its own set of issues.

EDIT: I just took a look at your links and also reviewed previous posts in this message thread. Post #13 from @idgat is getting more and more appealing in light of other alternatives. Sometimes giving up and cutting losses is the best solution. I dunno. I'll soldier on knowing that at least just cursing Microsoft and raising the white flag is always an option. lol

- - - Updated - - -

Megahertz said:

Did you do the Disk cleanup as I suggested (%windir%\system32\cleanmgr.exe)?

Did you try a Repair Install ?

I just ran cleanmgr.exe. It cleaned up about 2.3 GB on drive C:\ (about 2.2 GB were Thumbnails). I have about 1 TB free on this drive (it's an NVMe drive).

For the repair install, would you know if I have to worry about a Windows serial number? I installed or upgraded this PC to Win10 many years ago and I have no idea where the serial numbers might be (either this PC was upgraded for free by Microsoft or new serial numbers used to install or upgrade. I vaguely remember buying Windows twice already and I have no intention of possibly buying it a 3rd time whatsoever especially since Win11 is already available --but I can't upgrade to Win11 though. I have a super reliable Brother brand printer which is built like a tank. Unfortunately, I checked and I doubt Brother will ever update the print driver for Win11).

bofhlusr said:

For the repair install, would you know if I have to worry about a Windows serial number? I installed or upgraded this PC to Win10 many years ago and I have no idea where the serial numbers might be (either this PC was upgraded for free by Microsoft or new serial numbers used to install or upgrade. I vaguely remember buying Windows twice already and I have no intention of possibly buying it a 3rd time whatsoever especially since Win11 is already available --but I can't upgrade to Win11 though. I have a super reliable Brother brand printer which is built like a tank. Unfortunately, I checked and I doubt Brother will ever update the print driver for Win11).

Once you install and activate Win 10 / 11 you acquire a so called "digital license". Your computer specs ares stored on MS servers and even if you do a clean install (on a blank drive), on same computer, it will activate.
A Repair Install is just an upgrade with same version. It will replace Windows keeping your data and programs. A drive backup is always recommended.

Download Win 10 22h2 installation iso using MCT
Disable any antivirus, right click on the iso and select Mount. On the Virtual DVD drive select Setup.exe

Megahertz said:

Once you install and activate Win 10 / 11 you acquire a so called "digital license". Your computer specs ares stored on MS servers and even if you do a clean install (on a blank drive), on same computer, it will activate.
A Repair Install is just an upgrade with same version. It will replace Windows keeping your data and programs. A drive backup is always recommended.

Download Win 10 22h2 installation iso using MCT
Disable any antivirus, right click on the iso and select Mount. On the Virtual DVD drive select Setup.exe

While I have not decided to do this option, I thought I might as well go ahead and download the iso file.

I ran the MediaCreationTool which gave me two options: I think it was to re-install Windows or download an ISO file for *another* PC. I chose the latter option which was to download the ISO file.

I now have the Windows.iso file downloaded. Do you know if this file will upgrade my PC and that this is not for another PC requiring a new serial number? That is, can I use this iso file to upgrade or repair my PC without having to enter a Windows serial number?

bofhlusr said:

I now have the Windows.iso file downloaded. Do you know if this file will upgrade my PC and that this is not for another PC requiring a new serial number? That is, can I use this iso file to upgrade or repair my PC without having to enter a Windows serial number?

The iso file can be used to extract the files to an USB drive to create a Win 10 22h2 USB installation drive (to clean install or upgrade any computer).
The Win 10 22h2 iso file or the USB installation drive isn't linked to a license. In fact it has many versions (Home, Pro etc) on it.
As you're doing an "upgrade install" it will install same version (home or Pro). It won't request any license key.

Megahertz said:

The iso file can be used to extract the files to an USB drive to create a Win 10 22h2 USB installation drive (to clean install or upgrade any computer).
The Win 10 22h2 iso file or the USB installation drive isn't linked to a license. In fact it has many versions (Home, Pro etc) on it.
As you're doing an "upgrade install" it will install same version (home or Pro). It won't request any license key.

Appreciate the quick reply. Thank you.

Yea, I'm not too sure about what's going on. My bestest guess is that there is something that's causing a wait-time lag, expecting some application to respond within a timely manner about something, which that app never does, hence making the computer wait a very long time.

I honestly cannot figure out what that could be. I'd be doing a lot of different tests on apps and stuff, but it would take so much time to type out exactly everything.

Since your Safe Boot restarts so quick, then that's pretty much the only logical conclusion I can reach; some application is told to do something, but instead, it doesn't know what to do, hence creating a long and unnecessary wait time. I apologize, I don't know where to go from here.

I guess the next step would be doing the repair install, which is gonna suck. I think it's some app causing the delay.
Figure out which app it is, fix that little bug, and you're set to go. Sorry man; that's my best response about this,

pepanee said:

Yea, I'm not too sure about what's going on. My bestest guess is that there is something that's causing a wait-time lag, expecting some application to respond within a timely manner about something, which that app never does, hence making the computer wait a very long time.

I honestly cannot figure out what that could be. I'd be doing a lot of different tests on apps and stuff, but it would take so much time to type out exactly everything.

Since your Safe Boot restarts so quick, then that's pretty much the only logical conclusion I can reach; some application is told to do something, but instead, it doesn't know what to do, hence creating a long and unnecessary wait time. I apologize, I don't know where to go from here.

I guess the next step would be doing the repair install, which is gonna suck. I think it's some app causing the delay.
Figure out which app it is, fix that little bug, and you're set to go. Sorry man; that's my best response about this,

Appreciate your time and effort. I tried to 'thank you' here but the forum won't let me do it twice. Apparently I can only thank one user per message thread?