KB5041578 Server 2019 Freezing

I wanted to make sure that others are aware. There is a known issue with Server 2019 patch KB5041578 causing freezing and sluggishness. The fix appears to be a semi-common one unfortunately and that is to:

  1. stop/disable the cryptsvc. (Note: You will likely find that you will have to disable the service because it will constantly start back up if you don’t disable it).
  2. Kill the pid of the service using Taskkill /F /PID <PID of service cryptsvc
  3. Clear out the contents of the catroot2 folder or rename it.
  4. Reenable the service
  5. Start the service (it should startup on it’s own anyway though)

There is a task on Bigfix.Me that does most of the required tasks so if you don’t want to do all of it then you could strip down to the parts required for this. From what i’ve read I believe if you run this before the patch the issue doesn’t occur and you don’t have to do the fix after the patch. I just thought i’d pass it along to anyone else facing the issue.
https://bigfix.me/fixlet/details/27344

Here is a BleepingComputer article about it as well.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-august-updates-cause-windows-server-boot-issues-freezes/

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-server-for-it-pro/kb5041578-causing-windows-server-2019-to-be-unresponsive/m-p/4219925

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowserver/forum/all/kb5041578-causes-windows-server-2019-to-have-very/1143cb9a-3c47-4dd6-a90b-d6a7c1a67c32

5 Likes