Support Assistant crashes on start

[Komposten]

Hi,

Since I updated my HP laptop to Windows 10 October 2018 update, I can no longer open the Support Assistant. When I click on the blue ?-icon in the taskbar it opens the splash screen as usual, but then proceeds to crash (sometimes it gets as far as opening the Support Assistant window).

Re-installing Support Assistant does not help.

Anyone have any idea what caused this/if it can be fixed?

Additional information:

I haven't found a log file (are there any?) and there is no stdout or stderr output (checked by launching through cmd and redirecting both streams to files).

I did find some Error and Warning events in Event Viewer, though.

The first one that appears is a "PerfNet" error with the text "Unable to open the Server service performance object. The first four bytes (DWORD) of the Data section contains the status code."

It is followed by four Warnings from "Perflib" stating that access was denied to some .dlls (bitsperf.dll, Secur32.dll, msdtcuiu.dll and wmiaprpl.dll).

Finally, there are two actual HPSF.exe errors.

The first one is a .NET Runtime error saying that "the process was terminated due to an unhandled exception", with exception code c0000005.

The second one is an "Application Error" with the following information:

Faulting application name: HPSF.exe, version: 8.7.50.3, time stamp: 0x5c0e22fa
Faulting module name: d3d9.dll, version: 10.0.17763.1, time stamp: 0xfc1b9e5e
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000001986e
Faulting process ID: 0x24e0
Faulting application start time: 0x01d4c84312cdb3fb
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Hewlett-Packard\HP Support Framework\HPSF.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d3d9.dll
Report ID: 458b6580-153d-4ae0-8b9d-181dceadf2b2
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

[IT_WinSec]

Hello @Komposten 

Welcome back to the HP Support Community.

1. Download and run Revo Uninstaller Portable app to complete more in-depth removal of the program and its left overs. Download the portable version >> https://portableapps.com/downloading/?a=RevoUninstallerPortable&n=Revo%20Uninstaller%20Portable&s=s&...
2. Run its setup
3. Start Revo Uninstaller
4. Find HP Support Assistant and proceed to remove it
5. Do the same for HP Support Framework (or anything HP Support related)

Note - watch this tutorial about using Revo Uninstaller >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgSJkd11voM

Make sure that at the end of the program uninstallation you also perform ADVANCED scanning and remove any registry and folders leftovers

6. Restart your computer - here are instructions how to do it >> https://www.digitalcitizen.life/7-ways-shut-down-or-restart-windows-10-pc-or-device

7. Download and run Wise Registry Cleaner (portable) from this location >> https://portableapps.com/downloading/?a=WiseRegistryCleanerPortable&n=Wise%20Registry%20Cleaner%20Po...

8. Start Wise Registry Cleaner and perform Deep scanning - remove all errors it may find.

9. VIsit this link and re-download HP Support Assistant >> https://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/hpsupportassistant/hpsupport.html

10. Reinstall HP Support Assistant and see if it will work for you

[IT_WinSec]

If the above does not help, try running Microsoft .NET Framework repair tool >> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30135

If the repair fails, make sure you read this Microsoft blog and download and run their .NET Framework Clean up tool to completely remove .NET >> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/astebner/2008/08/28/net-framework-cleanup-tool-users-guide/

Eventually, re-download .NET Framework as per the instructions in the blog article - probably .NET 4.7.2 or some earlier if needed

[Komposten]

Doing a full, clean uninstall + reinstall of HPSA and HPSF (following instructions) did not solve the problem.

.NET Repair Tool only re-setup a service and restarted it. HPSA still broken.

What version(s) of .NET would you have me remove using the cleanup tool? All of them?

(It lists 1.0, 1.1, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, and 4.7.2.)

[IT_WinSec]

Versions 4 can be removed by the tool and eventually reinstalled