Debugging what Event is Preventing a Computer from going to Sleep

The saga continues…

On a previous blog post I detailed my attempts to debug Windows 10 and it’s constant issues keeping a computer from being able to sleep peacefully.

Well, I encountered a new issue and I’m about ready to set Microsoft on fire for their lack of QA Testing.

Here are a list of optimal steps I took to find the culprit:

1. Open a Command Prompt as Administrator
2. Type powercfg -requests
3. Look for offending processes and start googling steps to mitigate based off the *.exe name

Well it turned out this time it was a core Windows process that was causing the issue and it seemed that many many many people have reported this since July 2020, see below identifier message.

EXECUTION:
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume2\Windows\System32\MoUsoCoreWorker.exe
USO Worker

I didn’t believe in blindly disabling the “Update Orchestrator” as some people suggested – instead I opted to search for what was actually causing the issue and happened upon this solution from /u/MsWolf88 on the below Reddit post.

So here are the steps I took as a result of /u/MsWolf88’s information:

1. Fresh reboot of Windows 10 computer
2. In the Start Menu type “Check for Updates” and open it
3. Check for any outstanding updates and install them – not necessarily the optional updates.
   • If reboots are required as a result of this step do as the prompts say and resume on the next step after all pending updates are satisfied
4. Close all windows and applications that may be open – specifically the Windows Update window if still open
5. In the Start Menu type “Services” and open it
6. Find “Windows Update” in the menu that comes up – right click it and click restart
7. In the Start Menu type “Check for Updates” and open it
8. Check for any outstanding updates and install them – not necessarily the optional updates.
   • If reboots are required as a result of this step do as the prompts say and resume on the next step after all pending updates are satisfied

In my case it turned out that their was a hung update that required a restart of the “Windows Update” service but wouldn’t show it was pending despite many reboots (I shut my computer down manually daily) and after triggering the forceful restart of “Windows Update” service it showed the offending update that needed to be applied.

Now, my computer goes to sleep after one minute as God Microsoft Bill Gates intended and no longer has Insomnia until I find the next stupid QA Issue that Microsoft missed.