PENDING SVCHOST.EXE is consuming resources & locking-up computers with DATASTORE.EDB

[sreedhar]

We have two regional sites with complaints that each day around 2pm their workstations are locking-up. They have sent me screenshots that indicate SVCHOST.EXE is using excessive resources with the file C:\WINDOWS\SOFTWAREDISTRIBUTION\DATASTORE\DATASTORE.EDB

I've found a few articles that suggest this file is the database that tells Windows Update which patches are already installed on the computer, and say to exclude this file from Antivirus scanning. I have verified that our antimalware policy already excludes this file.

Why else might SVCHOST lock-onto this file and lock-up computers? Has anybody else run into this?

we are running ConfigMgr 2012 R2 CU2 and using SCEP antivirus. We deploy Software Updates with ConfigMgr. The affected workstations are Windows 7 SP1 Enterprise.

Thanks!

 

[Prajwal Desai]

its very difficult to tell why the high CPU is consumed by this process. Open Task Manager, right-click the svchost.exe that is causing problems, then click the last option - "Go to Services". You will get a list of all the services that are running in that particular svchost. Check which process is consuming high CPU.