I found that one of our servers has been trying and failing to install the same 2 updates every day since August 2020. They are:
2020-07 Servicing Stack Update for Windows Server 2016 for x64-based Systems (KB4565912) - Error 0x8000ffff
2020-08 Cumulative Update for Windows Server 2016 for x64-based Systems (KB4571694) - Error 0x8000ffff
I manually downloaded the September Servicing Stack Update and tried to install it and after a long time it reported that the update had failed. I tried running sfc /scannow and it reported "There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again."
I rebooted the server and retried and got the same error. I found that "C:\Windows\WinSxS\pending.xml" is 175KB and that there are dozens of items under each of these registry keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\SessionsPending\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\PackagesPending\
I tried running SFCFix and it gave several errors some of which weren't included in it's text log, one I think was a DISM error 0x8000ffff
2020-07 Servicing Stack Update for Windows Server 2016 for x64-based Systems (KB4565912) - Error 0x8000ffff
2020-08 Cumulative Update for Windows Server 2016 for x64-based Systems (KB4571694) - Error 0x8000ffff
I manually downloaded the September Servicing Stack Update and tried to install it and after a long time it reported that the update had failed. I tried running sfc /scannow and it reported "There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again."
I rebooted the server and retried and got the same error. I found that "C:\Windows\WinSxS\pending.xml" is 175KB and that there are dozens of items under each of these registry keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\SessionsPending\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\PackagesPending\
I tried running SFCFix and it gave several errors some of which weren't included in it's text log, one I think was a DISM error 0x8000ffff
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