Question Searchapp.exe is filling up my hard drive, wait no, oh, yes...

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C

cgilley

Distinguished
Dec 10, 2003
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Maybe someone out there has dealt with this. For the record, I did a search through the forum and did not see anything specifically relevant. I tried asking out in microsoft land, but what a bunch of tools.

System:
Device name BSW-CG-IRON1
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz 2.80 GHz
Installed RAM 64.0 GB (63.8 GB usable)
Device ID 38E797DD-5ED6-4460-A409-ADB6777D7B68
Product ID 00330-71315-48947-AAOEM
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

This is my venerable but ultra reliable development machine. It has an NVMe ssd (512GB) as the boot/OS device and two SSDs 2TB each for development. Once I got the drivers stable, it has not BSOD'd in years. I'm on the latest version of Windows 10.

-----

Last week, I had a pop up that drive space was very low on the C drive (the NVMe). Sure enough, my normal excess space of 100GB+ was almost down to zero. I tracked down where it was going - and it was in %localappdata%\packages\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy\AC - over 70GB and growing. So, I chased down a few articles, cleared the cache (as the laptop was constipated) and started monitoring the disk space.

Well, Windows 10 went from filling up the search cache to filling up the WebCache. Then, suddenly my available space went to 150GB+. I didn't delete anything. I'm using WizTree for disk operations. Meanwhile, SearchApp.exe continues to run in the background using about 10% of my CPU.

Anyone seen anything like this? Most of the posts I've seen for SearchApp is that it BSODs machines.
 
Ralston18

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Oct 11, 2014
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SearchApp ????

Any idea of the source - I am not convinced that that is a Windows executable per se even though it shows in the path as "Microsoft.Windows...." etc..

Are you able to go into Task Manager > Services to find and then stop or disable "Searchapp"?

Maybe just stop WSearch (Windows Search) to determine if that slows or stops the disk from filling up further - could be buggy or corrupted.

Then look in Startup apps and Task Scheduler to find or otherwise identify how Searchapp is being launched?

Remember if a column header contains a small upward or downward pointing > then that header can be clicked to sort the column alphabetically.

Try to learn more about what is happening.

Take screenshots if possible and post the screenshots here via imgur (www.imgur.com).

= = = =

Is all important data backed up at least 2 x to locations away from the affected system? Be sure to verify that the backups are recoverable and readable.


Another tool that can be used to look is Process Explorer (Microsoft, free)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

The overall objective being to end the disk being filled up. Then identify the culprit(s).
 
C

cgilley

Distinguished
Dec 10, 2003
48
4
18,545
Ralston - I'm certain it's a Windows app - proper certificate and all. It's considered a core part of the OS (right MS, you lying sack of ....). If I kill off the task, it gets re-created immediately.

It lives down in C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy. I did a scan on the hard drive and OS verification - no issues. Based on what I have read out in MS land, this has something to do with Cortana.

"The overall objective being to end the disk being filled up. Then identify the culprit(s)."

Agreed, but this is when things get weird. It's still running at 8% but I'm back up for 140GB free.
 
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