Cannot end Windows 7 process, even tried pskill

Question

I am having a problem where processes are hanging and absolutely refuse to die. I have tried using the task manager and pskill from the console (with admin rights) and while the program will state that it has killed the process it still remains and I cannot open a second process. This has happened with Opera and Truecrypt.

Operating system is Windows 7 Professional (64-bit). Rebooting the computer clears the hung process.

I also tried using a program called Ultimate Process Detail & Killer, which didn't help either.

@Chris Have a look at the related links [over here](http://superuser.com/questions/125293/killing-an-unresponsive-process) — Sathyajith Bhat, Feb 03 '11 at 17:17
Have you scanned for malware?, have you run a System File Checker?, have you run a chkdsk /f? — Moab, Feb 03 '11 at 18:52
@Moab Tried all that too. Highly annoying to have to reboot everytime this happens. I finally let Truecrypt sit, after about 20 minutes it finally closed on its own. — Chris, Feb 03 '11 at 19:58
Do you have the latest version of Truecrypt? I have had this happen with other applications, I do what you did after terminating the process, just wait, sometimes that is the best solution. — Moab, Feb 03 '11 at 20:14
@Moab: Yes, I have the latest version of Truecypt. I don't want to point at Truecrypt as the culprit as I've experienced it with Opera too. It's like the memory for said application goes into limbo for 20+ minutes before coming out. Opera never came out. — Chris, Feb 03 '11 at 21:15
That is unusual for W7, Might be some sort of driver conflict. You might try using Reliability Monitor to see if anything got logged...http://www.msigeek.com/5518/measure-hardware-and-software-problems-using-reliability-monitor-in-windows-7 — Moab, Feb 03 '11 at 22:05

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 14 '22 at 11:17

7

Try the debugger:
```
 ntsd -p <pid> -c q
```
Processes can be unkillable if they are waiting for an I/O or similar operation to finish ("uninterruptible sleep") (see also [1])
or if they are already dead¹ (aka "zombie processes" in Unix).

¹The Old New Thing: Why do some process stay in Task Manager after they've been killed?

edited Aug 14 '22 at 11:17

Glorfindel

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answered Feb 03 '11 at 21:42

u1686_grawity

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what exactly is the ntsd command? any links to the uses, thanks. – Moab Feb 03 '11 at 22:00
2

@Moab: `ntsd` is _Windows NT Symbolic Debugger_, part of Windows XP and later. (The `q` command means just "quit".) There's some information at [MSDN](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff551063%28v=VS.85%29.aspx). – u1686_grawity Feb 03 '11 at 22:14
Thanks grawity, So that command tells the process to quit? what does -p and -c mean, thanks for your patience. – Moab Feb 03 '11 at 22:30
1

@Moab: They're *options*: `-p` tells the program that the following argument is a numeric process ID to attach to; similarly, `-c` precedes a single command - without it, you would get ntsd's interactive mode. – u1686_grawity Feb 03 '11 at 22:54
Is there any chance to see what does it wait for? Because Miranda and Skype both hang like this and I can't see what may be the core problem, that I need to solve :( – Tomáš Fejfar May 09 '13 at 16:16
@TomášFejfar: in Process Explorer or Process Hacker, open process properties → threads → thread stack; it *might* give some clues – u1686_grawity May 09 '13 at 16:24
Ah, nice. I'll try it next time it happens – Tomáš Fejfar May 09 '13 at 19:42
The feed back I got, trying to kill a Visual Studio debuggee is: Cannot debug pid 4580, NTSTATUS 0xC0000048 "An attempt to set a process's DebugPort or ExceptionPort was made, but a port already exists in the process or an attempt to set a file's CompletionPort made, but a port was already set in the file or an attempt to set an ALPC port's associated completion port was made, but it is already set." Debuggee initialization failed, NTSTATUS 0xC0000048 (continues on next comment) – sergiol Jun 20 '16 at 16:35
(continuation) An attempt to set a process's DebugPort or ExceptionPort was made, but a port already exists in the process or an attempt to set a file's CompletionPort made, but a port was already set in the file or an attempt to set an ALPC port's associated completion port was made, but it is already set. – sergiol Jun 20 '16 at 16:35
Cannot debug pid 41236, NTSTATUS 0xC000010A "已尝试访问正在退出的过程。" Debuggee initialization failed, NTSTATUS 0xC000010A 已尝试访问正在退出的过程。 ntsd: exiting - press enter --- – zhaorufei Apr 28 '18 at 01:12

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 21 '12 at 15:41

2

Use the following command:

Taskkill /IM **.exe /F

edited Dec 21 '12 at 15:41

Indrek

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answered Dec 21 '12 at 15:21

JMM

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`ERROR: The process "GitHub.exe" with PID 11112 could not be terminated. Reason: There is no running instance of the task.` – Mateen Ulhaq Mar 26 '16 at 00:43
This does not work. – Anixx Nov 12 '16 at 14:33

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 21 '12 at 15:39

Space Tornado Killer might do the trick, as I have it installed on my PC.

Space Tornado Killer is a free Windows utility that allows you to end/kill multiple running Windows processes at once, with one click of a button. Hold down Ctrl and click to select one, two, three or any number of processes. Then simply click Kill Selected or hit F4 to end all the selected processes at once.

This utility is designed to complement Task Manager, not replace it.

For further details & to download

http://www.spacetornado.com/killer/

Cannot end Windows 7 process, even tried pskill

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