[German]Some users of Windows 10 suddenly receiving the error 0x800706F7 when starting programs and/or the message 'The stub received bad data' is shown.
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The error description
I confess, I 've never seen error 0x800706F7 on my systems. But I stumbled upon this error a few day ago within the following tweet.
The stub received bad data. pic.twitter.com/xagrWgZvvZ
— Tero Alhonen (@teroalhonen) September 1, 2018
The error message 'The stub received bad data' was caused by Windows explorer. But this error may occur with other programs. Searching the internet using the error message, reveal a lot hits. The MS Answers forum thread here has been published in 2015 and has now 10 pages and received nearly 700 user marks 'I have the same question'.
Some background
The error code 0x800706F7 (RPC_X_BAD_STUB_DATA) and the text 'The stub received bad data.' isn't that helpful. The error says, that a remote procedure call failed, due to wrong data. An explanation may be found here.
Microsoft has already published kb article 975415 Error message when you pass a variant between a COM client and a COM server in Windows: "0x800706F7 (The stub received bad data)" for Windows 7. The kb article refers specifically to an error in the file Oleaut32.dll that has been fixed with a hotfix. However, this does not help with Windows 10. In the Microsoft Answers fortum thread here from 2015, a user reported that some updates would have fixed the issue. Also in October 2016 such an error was fixed with update KB3193494.
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Steps you can try to repair
At tenforums.com, this article locates the whole thing as an upgrade error from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and provides for a new installation. However, this case is unlikely to occur any more, so it can be neglected.
Check Windows for corrupted files
One reason for the error message could be corrupted Windows 10 system files or a corrupted Component Store. It is therefore recommended to check the system using the commands scf /scannow and dism as a precaution. I described the procedure within the blog post Check and repair Windows system files and component store.
The commands also attempt to repair damaged components. If this fails, you need to re-install Windows. After a successful repair attempt check, whether the error has disappeared.
Test under a newly created user account
Broken registry entries could be the cause for the error message. If the error is user-specific, the error should not occur under another user account. I am sceptical whether this will help, but there are indications of this cause. So I would try to create a new user account and test if the error is gone.
If the error is fixed, you can save the user files from the broken user account. Then the broken user account could be deleted under another administrator account and re-created again. This resets the user profile with all registration settings. The profile is then created again the next time the user logs on.
Cause: Too many or stopped services
Via a post in this thread I found an interesting cause for the error. Microsoft describes in KB article 2028588 Error 1783: The stub received bad data a possible cause:
When you open Services.msc you may get the following error:
The system encountered the following error while reading the list of services on:Error 1783: The stub received bad data
Accessing Services remotely may yield the same error. You may be able to Start and Stop the services using sc start and sc stop commands.
The error only applies in a scenario, if Services.msc is used. In this case too many running services are the cause. The service buffer is limited to 256 KByte for data. The proposal from Microsoft is:
- Uninstall unnecessary software,
- and uninstall unnecessary services.
The goal is to reduce the number of services – because I see this as a problem with Windows 10. Microsoft is introducing more and more services there, and every software package also means that it has to set up some services.
I find this feedback on Tom's hardware interesting. There, a user reports that he receive the message if they have manually stopped or deactivated services such as BITS.
Other things you can try
If the steps above don't help, see, if an update of the NVidia graphics driver is successful. But this seems to have only been a problem in 2016 (see). Also the hotfix mentioned above is not available for Windows 10.
Make sure that updates are installed
It already mentioned in the above text: Microsoft may have released updates in the past to correct this error. Therefore you should make sure that all updates (also for graphics cards etc.) are installed. If necessary, download the updates and install them offline.
Reinstall Windows 10
If all attempts to repair fail, I think only the reinstallation of Windows 10 is left. If necessary, you can try a repair installation via inplace upgrade. To do this, run setup.exe from an installation medium while Windows 10 is running. Then upgrade to the Windows 10 version. This keeps the installed app and programs as well as existing files.
Similar articles::
Windows 10 Wiki
Check and repair Windows system files and component store
Windows 10: file system error (-1073741819) – 'extended attributes are inconsistent'
