I was trying to apply some Windows updates (specifically KB5048652) and it was failing. The system would reboot and try to apply the update (where it spins before the login screen), fail to apply the update, undo the update, and reboot.
Checking C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log, I saw poqexec.exe failing on HRESULT 0x80071AB1 - ERROR_LOG_GROWTH_FAILED.
This HRESULT means
An attempt to create space in the transactional resource manager's log failed. The failure status has been recorded in the event log.
Log here might give the impression of a log file, but I think it is actually related to "log" in the concept of "transaction log for commit and rollback" like in databases. For an update service, I'd expect Windows wants the filesystem to have some kind of transaction mechanism so failed updates can be cleanly and safely rolled back. I'm not an engineer at Microsoft and I am just speculating, so I could be wrong.
Doing research online, I've seen people suggest using the fsutil command, so I looked into this.
I applied the following steps and was successfully able to install the update:
(Admin command prompt)
fsutil resource info c:\
Resulting in:
Resource Manager Identifier : xxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
KTM Log Path for RM: \Device\HarddiskVolume5\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$TxfLog\$TxfLog::KtmLog
Space used by TOPS: 1 Mb
TOPS free space: 100%
RM State: Active
Running transactions: 0
One phase commits: 0
Two phase commits: 1
System initiated rollbacks: 0
Age of oldest transaction: 00:00:00
Logging Mode: Simple
Number of containers: 2
Container size: 10 Mb
Total log capacity: 20 Mb
Total free log space: 19 Mb
Minimum containers: 2
Maximum containers: 10
Log growth increment: 2 container(s)
Auto shrink: Not enabled
RM prefers availability over consistency.
Playing around with the fsutil command, this seemed to support my idea this was some kind of transactional log thing.
C:\Users\User>fsutil resource
---- RESOURCE Commands Supported ----
create Create a Secondary Transactional Resource Manager
info Display information relating to a Transactional Resource Manager
setAutoReset Set whether a default Transactional Resource Manager will clean its transactional metadata on next mount
setAvailable Set a Transactional Resource Manager to prefer availability over consistency
setConsistent Set a Transactional Resource Manager to prefer consistency over availability
setLog Change characteristics of a running Transactional Resource Manager
start Start a Transactional Resource Manager
stop Stop a Transactional Resource Manager
C:\Users\User>fsutil resource setLog
---- SETLOG Commands Supported ----
growth Change the automatic growth settings
maxExtents Change the maximum number of containers
minExtents Change the minimum number of containers
mode Switch between undo only logging and full logging
rename Change the RM's Guid
shrink Change the automatic shrink settings
size Change the number of containers explicitly
I tried to increase the size of the log, wondering if that was the issue.
fsutil resource setLog maxExtents 50 containers c:\fsutil resource setLog size 10 c:\- on this command, I got the error"Error: Log service encountered a corrupted metadata file."
That error suggested to me perhaps the log was corrupt. I'd also seen people suggesting this command:
fsutil resource setautoreset true c:\
According to the help text, this command does the following:
"Set whether a default Transactional Resource Manager will clean its transactional metadata on next mount"
So I did this, restarted the PC, and tried the above two commands successfully.
Then I downloaded and installed the update manually from the Windows Update Catalog (you can google the KB number and you'll find the download page hosted officially by Microsoft). Also I made sure all the typical services for Windows Update were running (wuauserv, bits, etc.). This went smoothly.
Then I restarted the computer and it worked fine.