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Question

Unkillable process which remains after reboot

May 4, 2016 6:04AM PDT

So i've been having problems getting an unkillable process to just accept it's fate and die. I've tried every task killing program i can find and every one of them comes up with the same error as Taskkill: "There is no running instance of the task"

The process in question is Battle.net and the Battle.net helper, both of which continue to show up in the details tab of Task Manager. After an hour on live chat with Blizzard support, the only suggestion was that the process is somehow getting hung in a piece of hardware. After that i tried turning off my system and unplugging it for a few minutes. That seemed to work, however it has since stopped working.

Interesting note that when i tried " taskkill /im battle.net.exe /t /f" it returned saying "The process with PID 9196 (Child process of PID 9112) could not be terminated" 9196 being battle.net.exe, i tried killing 9112 and it just said that the process was not found.

And help with this?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: unkillable process
May 4, 2016 6:12AM PDT

Why do want to kill it if you first let it run? Wouldn't it be easier to not run it?

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Reason for wanting to kill it
May 4, 2016 6:16AM PDT

Sorry i forgot to mention, I can't launch the battle.net client, uninstall it or delete the main running files because of this hung process, which means i can't play any of my Blizzard games.

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Re: kill
May 4, 2016 10:41AM PDT
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RE: Kill
May 5, 2016 3:02PM PDT

Yeah the problem is that when i reboot, it doesn't disappear.
And it isn't on any start-up list, even autoruns shows no mention of any battle.net or Blizzard program. It's not that the program is starting up automatically, it's that apparently when i shut down with the program running (Haven't tested it with shutting down after closing the program) it seems like a non-working 'ghost' of the program is somehow staying active for the next time i boot up, leaving me unable to launch the program or alter its files.

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We're not there to look at your Autoruns
May 5, 2016 3:12PM PDT
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/7343 notes the item Agent and there are others.

Are you sure you know each and every line item in Autoruns?

Share a report for others to pick over.

PS. Added with edit. I'd like to see that autoruns report.

Post was last edited on May 5, 2016 3:27 PM PDT

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Answer
Potential solution
Nov 27, 2016 12:53AM PST

Hi there,

I know it's been a while and you've probably found a solution of you're own or at least found a workaround, but I have a potential cause of what's happening for anybody else who encounters this issue. I was encountering the exact same issue as you: I'd be playing a certain game and it would hang; I'd end task but the process would remain; I'd restart the computer but the process would still be running in the details tab of task manager.

When doing my own digging I found an article that potentially explained why end task didn't work. Drivers need to let go of a process for it to close, but a faulty driver might continue to hang onto a process indefinitely. This then immediately explained how the process could remain even after a complete computer power off. In Windows 8 and above they shortened start-up time by saving driver states to hard disk on shutdown, allowing the drivers to be resumed on startup instead of having to waste time restarting them. Great for startup speed, but that means that if a faulty driver is holding onto a process it will just resume with that process still hostage to it.

To see what driver is holding it hostage, you have to use WinDbg, which requires you to change a kernel setting then restart your computer. Doing this makes your computer do a complete driver restart, which immediately made the rogue processes disappear for me, adding credibility to my theory, but preventing me from confirming if that is what was happening.