The AchieVer Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Many Windows 10 Users Unable to Connect to Windows Update Service For the past two days, Windows 10 users from around the world have been reporting that they are unable to connect to Windows Update. When they attempt to do so, Windows 10 will complain that they are unable to connect to the update service. We first learned about this problem yesterday when our member Opera contacted us stating that they, and many others, were having issues connecting to Windows Update. When they tried updating, Windows would report that it could not connect to the update service. Windows Update Error The wording of the error, shown below, indicates that this is an Internet connectivity issue, but others are not so sure. "We couldn't connect to the update service. We'll try again later, or you can check now. If it still doesn't work, make sure you're connected to the Internet" Unfortunately, there is no clear cut answer as to what is causing this issue and some feel it is related to a botched Windows Defender update and others state that this could be a DNS issue. What is causing this issue? Windows blogger Günter Born feels that this issue could be related to Windows Defender as numerous people have reported having issues installing a Windows Defender update before receiving this error in Windows Update. At the same time, in my tests on 4 different Windows 10 computers running 1803 through 1809 with varying software configurations, none of them are having this issue. They also had no problems installing the latest Windows Defender 1.285.558.0 update that was released this morning. Latest Windows Defender Update In fact the only way I could trigger this update was to set my DNS server settings to use a server I did not have access to or did not exist. This leads me to believe this is some sort of network connectivity issue. Many users on outage pages and Twitter are stating that this is an ISP DNS issue. For example, users of Comcast or Xfinity reported that switching their DNS servers to Google's 8.8.8.8 DNS service solved their problems. Yet, users in Japan and the U.K., who are obviously not using Comcast, are reporting the same problem. Others have also reported that changing their DNS did not help at all. So this is just a confusing mess, which has become the norm with Windows 10 lately. What works for some people, does not work for others. If you are encountering this issue, what have you tried and has anything worked for you? Have you tried switching to Google's 8.8.8.8 DNS service as described below? BleepingComputer has reached out to Microsoft for comment, but has not heard back at the time of this publication. Switching to Google's public 8.8.8.8 DNS service If you are encountering an issue connecting to Microsoft's servers, you can try switch your DNS servers to use Google's public 8.8.8.8 DNS service. To switch to Google's 8.8.8.8 DNS service, please follow these steps: In the Start Menu, search for network connections and then select the View Network Connections option as shown below. This will open a screen that lists the network adapters installed on your computer. Right click on the adapter you are using and select Properties. The adapter's properties will open and you should now double-click on the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) item as shown below. Now enter 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in the DNS servers fields as shown below. When done, press OK and close the network adapter list. Now try to connect to Windows Update and see if the problem is gone. If this worked, let us know in the comments, otherwise you can also try this guide published by Microsoft earlier this month. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Windows 10 kill switch must of malfunctioned again ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rorymi6 Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 changing DNS Servers did not help Same error message all my computers 😒 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neofita Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 welcome to the best Windows ever Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rorymi6 Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 18 minutes ago, rorymi6 said: changing DNS Servers did not help Same error message all my computers 😒 changed to google dns settings then flushed DNS cmd = ipconfig /flushdns now working !! ☺️ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 35 minutes ago, rorymi6 said: changed to google dns settings then flushed DNS cmd = ipconfig /flushdns now working !! ☺️ Why? it's not patch Tuesday when Im on Windows i keep the update servers blocked with a firewall tell i fell like updating even on Windows 8.1 if you have updates turned off , updates still call home all the time in the background unless you block it . Windows 10 is even worse about calling home and you really cant turn updates off only you can defer them unless you block the update server some how. Most of the time DNS bugs clear up in a day or so .I can just turn my vpn on and change dns . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.