Cannot end Windows 7 process, even tried pskill

I am having a problem where processes are hanging and absolutely refuse to die. I have tried using the task manager and pskill from the console (with admin rights) and while the program will state that it has killed the process it still remains and I cannot open a second process. This has happened with Opera and Truecrypt.

Operating system is Windows 7 Professional (64-bit). Rebooting the computer clears the hung process.

I also tried using a program called Ultimate Process Detail & Killer, which didn't help either.

Chris

Posted 2011-02-03T17:02:44.023

Reputation: 123

@Chris Have a look at the related links over here

– Sathyajith Bhat – 2011-02-03T17:17:44.920

Have you scanned for malware?, have you run a System File Checker?, have you run a chkdsk /f? – Moab – 2011-02-03T18:52:21.473

@Moab Tried all that too. Highly annoying to have to reboot everytime this happens. I finally let Truecrypt sit, after about 20 minutes it finally closed on its own. – Chris – 2011-02-03T19:58:28.403

Do you have the latest version of Truecrypt? I have had this happen with other applications, I do what you did after terminating the process, just wait, sometimes that is the best solution. – Moab – 2011-02-03T20:14:25.880

@Moab: Yes, I have the latest version of Truecypt. I don't want to point at Truecrypt as the culprit as I've experienced it with Opera too. It's like the memory for said application goes into limbo for 20+ minutes before coming out. Opera never came out. – Chris – 2011-02-03T21:15:02.130

That is unusual for W7, Might be some sort of driver conflict. You might try using Reliability Monitor to see if anything got logged...http://www.msigeek.com/5518/measure-hardware-and-software-problems-using-reliability-monitor-in-windows-7

– Moab – 2011-02-03T22:05:57.803

Answers

Try the debugger:
```
ntsd -p <pid> -c q
```
Processes can be unkillable if they are waiting for an I/O or similar operation to finish ("uninterruptible sleep") (see also [1])
or if they are already dead¹ (aka "zombie processes" in Unix).

¹The Old New Thing: Why do some process stay in Task Manager after they've been killed?

user1686

Posted 2011-02-03T17:02:44.023

Reputation: 283 655

The feed back I got, trying to kill a Visual Studio debuggee is: Cannot debug pid 4580, NTSTATUS 0xC0000048 "An attempt to set a process's DebugPort or ExceptionPort was made, but a port already exists in the process or an attempt to set a file's CompletionPort made, but a port was already set in the file or an attempt to set an ALPC port's associated completion port was made, but it is already set." Debuggee initialization failed, NTSTATUS 0xC0000048 (continues on next comment) – sergiol – 2016-06-20T16:35:06.527

(continuation) An attempt to set a process's DebugPort or ExceptionPort was made, but a port already exists in the process or an attempt to set a file's CompletionPort made, but a port was already set in the file or an attempt to set an ALPC port's associated completion port was made, but it is already set. – sergiol – 2016-06-20T16:35:29.510

Cannot debug pid 41236, NTSTATUS 0xC000010A "已尝试访问正在退出的过程。" Debuggee initialization failed, NTSTATUS 0xC000010A 已尝试访问正在退出的过程。 ntsd: exiting - press enter --- – zhaorufei – 2018-04-28T01:12:38.347

what exactly is the ntsd command? any links to the uses, thanks. – Moab – 2011-02-03T22:00:17.127

@Moab: ntsd is Windows NT Symbolic Debugger, part of Windows XP and later. (The q command means just "quit".) There's some information at MSDN.

– user1686 – 2011-02-03T22:14:37.963

Thanks grawity, So that command tells the process to quit? what does -p and -c mean, thanks for your patience. – Moab – 2011-02-03T22:30:40.823

1@Moab: They're options: -p tells the program that the following argument is a numeric process ID to attach to; similarly, -c precedes a single command - without it, you would get ntsd's interactive mode. – user1686 – 2011-02-03T22:54:51.530

Is there any chance to see what does it wait for? Because Miranda and Skype both hang like this and I can't see what may be the core problem, that I need to solve :( – Tomáš Fejfar – 2013-05-09T16:16:27.177

@TomášFejfar: in Process Explorer or Process Hacker, open process properties → threads → thread stack; it might give some clues – user1686 – 2013-05-09T16:24:17.253

Ah, nice. I'll try it next time it happens – Tomáš Fejfar – 2013-05-09T19:42:09.460

Use the following command:

Taskkill /IM **.exe /F

JMM

Posted 2011-02-03T17:02:44.023

Reputation: 21

1ERROR: The process "GitHub.exe" with PID 11112 could not be terminated. Reason: There is no running instance of the task. – Mateen Ulhaq – 2016-03-26T00:43:59.340

This does not work. – Anixx – 2016-11-12T14:33:51.243

-1

Space Tornado Killer might do the trick, as I have it installed on my PC.

Space Tornado Killer is a free Windows utility that allows you to end/kill multiple running Windows processes at once, with one click of a button. Hold down Ctrl and click to select one, two, three or any number of processes. Then simply click Kill Selected or hit F4 to end all the selected processes at once.

This utility is designed to complement Task Manager, not replace it.

For further details & to download

http://www.spacetornado.com/killer/

Simon

Posted 2011-02-03T17:02:44.023

Reputation: 4 193