Delivery Optimization constantly using up to 80 % CPU

Question

For the past 4 or 5 days, Windows service Delivery Optimization (display name) / DoSvc (service name) has been constantly consuming up to 80 % of the CPU. Sometimes the CPU usage is fairly consistent and other times it's "spikey". Sometimes there's associated network activity and sometimes there's not.

Thus far, I have tried all of the following but nothing has made a difference:

1. Stopping the service but it times out with error message The Delivery Optimization service could not be stopped.
2. Killing the service's process ID but doing so fails with error message ERROR: The process with PID 80788 could not be terminated. Reason: Access is denied., even when doing so as LOCAL SYSTEM / nt authority\system.
3. Rebooting the PC.
4. Disabling it via Settings → Update & Security → Delivery Optimisation.
5. Pausing Windows updates via Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update.
6. Setting my NIC as metered via Settings → Network & Internet → <my NIC> → Properties.
7. Checked the event logs "Application" and "System" but found nothing regular or relevant.

I don't know if it's relevant but my PC's RAM usage has also been strange: 3.13 GB RAM missing

Answer 1

I Googled "windows 10 delivery optimization logs" and found https://petri.com/troubleshoot-windows-update-delivery-optimization which led me to its PowerShell commandlets.

After some experimentation, I executed Get-DeliveryOptimizationStatus -Verbose | Format-List Status,Priority,SourceURL,DownloadDuration,TotalBytesDownloaded which outputted the following:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-DeliveryOptimizationStatus -Verbose | Format-List Status,Priority,SourceURL,DownloadDuration,TotalBytesDownloaded
VERBOSE: Perform operation 'Enumerate CimInstances' with following parameters, ''namespaceName' = root/Microsoft/Windows/DeliveryOptimization,'className' = MSFT_DeliveryOptimizationFile'.
VERBOSE: Operation 'Enumerate CimInstances' complete.


Status                      : Caching
Priority                    : Foreground
SourceURL                   : https://clientupdates.dropboxstatic.com/dbx-releng/dropbox_passwords/win/DropboxPasswords_beta.appinstaller
DownloadDuration            : 10:14:42.1920000
TotalBytesDownloaded        : 50549400

Status                      : Paused
Priority                    : Background
SourceURL                   :
DownloadDuration            : 00:00:00
TotalBytesDownloaded        : 0

Status                      : Downloading
Priority                    : Foreground
SourceURL                   : https://clientupdates.dropboxstatic.com/dbx-releng/dropbox_passwords/win/DropboxPasswords_1.1.27.appx
DownloadDuration            : 16:13:46.5660000
TotalBytesDownloaded        : 70817815424



PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>

I expected to see something related to Microsoft, not entries solely related to Dropbox Passwords, one of which being a download that's lasted 16+ hours and downloaded 65.95 GB! The entire app is only supposed to be 161 MB!

Dropbox Passwords aligns with the timeline as I installed it on the day of announcement (2020/08/12) or the day after (2020/08/13) which I roughly recall is when this problem started.

I uninstalled the app via Settings → Apps → Apps & features but the issue didn't subside and Get-DeliveryOptimizationStatus still reported the same.

I rebooted my PC and found that:

1. The problem had almost entirely subsided. The process is still running but it's now only consuming ~12 % of the CPU which may well be normal.
2. For the first few minutes, Get-DeliveryOptimizationStatus reported no activities.
3. After a few minutes, Get-DeliveryOptimizationStatus reported two activities, both Dropbox Passwords but both paused.
4. Settings → Apps → Apps & features reported that Dropbox Passwords was installed again so I uninstalled it again.
5. Get-DeliveryOptimizationStatus is still reporting all activites paused.