Windows 10 version 20H2 KB4598242 - Temporarily broke Remote Desktop Connection

Remote Desktop Connection stopped working (temporarily) after installing KB4598242.
I'm sharing this as a "heads up" - Hopefully you won't have this issue.

I use RD to get to my remote observatory.
KB4598242 installed while I was trying to get windows to search for an updated device driver for my video capture device.
This was unexpected - I usually pause updates until I've run them on the test machine.

The net result was I could not log into the machine after the KB4598242 installed and the machine rebooted.

Remote Desktop Connection would take the password, but would then just go back to the prompt where you enter the computer name. No error, no message indicated problem authenticating.

I let it sit. I power cycled the machine. I let it sit. After about 30 minutes it started behaving again.

The good news is it is working now; and since this observatory is close by, so I could have gone to see if I could fix it in person if I had to. If it was across the planet, not sure.

Maybe I was just unlucky.

Release Date: January 12, 2021

Version: 2004-OS Build 19041.746 and 20H2-OS Build 19042.746


https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4598242

Thanks for the warning, Colin. Particularly since our group has a higher percentage of remote users than most.

Hi Colin,

Just another reference point - my RDP came right up as expected after installing KB4598242. Who know....

Thanks for sharing your data point Dick. I am suspicious of the certificate being problematic, as apparently the certificates are somewhat broken in this release. Hopefully they get that fixed. The upgrade went ok on 2 other machines, and one had similar symptoms and corrected itself after a few minutes. Am wondering if its a problem with the service taking a long time after restarting. The Obs PC is a slow one. Anyway, it wasn't fatal.

Colin, It's interesting you should say this. Since installing the update, I've had some random restarts on my home computer. I haven't noticed problems on the observatory computer. Looking at the System Events log didn't reveal anything obvious. In checking the "CBS.log" file in C:/Windows/Logs after running sfc /scannow, which said it did do repairs however, I couldn't find any specific reported errors that needed fixing. A second run of sfc /scannow ended without reporting errors. Googling some of the CBS.log more-detailed statements (didn't say they were errors) suggested running "chkdsk /f" - no provblems there.

We'll see how it goes.

As I read it, we're looking at an apparent second fix to fix a first fix:

January 12: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/new...8242-released/

January 22 (today; optional, i.e. not automatically installed): https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/new...estart-issues/

Thanks Eric!