Quick Assist does not load on main user profile

tgp1994 96

I do remote support for people, and in the past I've used Team Viewer. I just learned about Quick Assist, and would like to try it.

I first had to enable it as an optional feature since it was not for some reason. After that was done, I tried launching it, and am greeted with a white screen and spinning blue dots. The app sits here and never finishes loading.

I've tried selective startup with System Services only, and resetting Internet Explorer settings to defaults, neither of those options have worked. I did try making another user account on my PC which did work, however this isn't ideal and I'd like to understand why it isn't working on mine without having to do any sort of destructive resets.

I tried watching the process in Process Monitor, and it seems to get stuck directly after sending and receiving some data to a remote IP address. If there are any ideas on how I can troubleshoot this, I'd really appreciate it!

Current system: 20H2 Build 19042.985

References

Andy YOU 3,071 Reputation points

2021-06-04T02:00:24.913+00:00

HI
This is a quick note to let you know that I am currently performing research on this issue and will get back to you as soon as possible. I appreciate your patience.
If you have any updates during this process, please feel free to let me know.
tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-06-04T02:24:35.993+00:00

Thank you!
Andy YOU 3,071 Reputation points

2021-06-04T04:47:11.427+00:00

HI tgp1994-1882,

"After that was done, I tried launching it, and am greeted with a white screen and spinning blue dots."
1.When this symptom happen?
after you click “assist another person” option like below picture?
after you just click "quick assist" in start menu?

2."white screen and spinning blue dots"
Is the symptom like below picture?

3.Did your current issue account in local administrators group of problematical win10?

4.Is current local issue computer and remote computer joined to the same AD domain?
tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-06-04T04:52:00.083+00:00

1.When this symptom happen?

After opening the app, and a brief blue screen with spinning white dots. I'm not able to get the app to load at all.

Is the symptom like below picture?

Something like that. The spinning dots on my end have a fancier look that goes along with the more modern design style, maybe the screenshot here is a little older.

3.Did your current issue account in local administrators group of problematical win10?

The current issue occurs in an account that belongs to the Local Administrators. When I created a new Standard User, that one works ok.

4.Is current local issue computer and remote computer joined to the same AD domain?

Active Directory is not deployed in my network.
Roy Beaulieu 21 Reputation points

2021-08-04T04:26:11.263+00:00

I'm working this very issue with Quick Assist and security for internet zones. I've collected a list of sites to place in the Trusted sites list so scripts (guessing JavaScript) can be permitted. However, there is some script running (maybe locally?) that's still producing a dialog box to allow scripts to run.

What I've learned is, if you adjust your Internet zone to high, this disables scripts. For testing, I've used the Custom level... button to change scripts (7th from the bottom) to either allow or prompt. If allowed, it just works. If prompt, I get the box as expected and if I say yes, Quick Assist works.

HOWEVER! I've done as much scouring with GlassWire and ipconfig /displaydns as I can to reveal sites Quick Assist needs to run scripts for so they can be added to the list of Trusted sites where scripts are just allowed. I still get 1 script prompt when QA is launched to receive assistance and 6 more if I sign in to provide assistance totaling 7 prompts. Without these sites in Trusted, I can't even remember how many prompts I get but, IT'S A LOT! I can't for the life of me track down whatever it takes to make them all stop.
My list:
*.akadns.net
*.akamaiedge.net
*.akamaitechnologies.com
*.azure-api.net
*.azureedge.net
*.edgekey.net
*.gammacdn.net
*.live.com
*.lync.com
*.microsoft.com
*.microsoftonline.com
*.msauth.net
*.msecdn.net
*.msidentity.com
*.nsatc.net
*.onestore.ms
*.trafficmanager.net
tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-08-04T18:01:03.043+00:00

Roy,

Thank you for posting that! My Internet zone defaults to medium-high, and when I checked the specific configuration items, all script options were set to either enabled or prompt. I tried going through the list and setting everything else to enabled or prompt, and later I just lowered the internet zone to it's lowest security level, "medium". Unfortunately none of these things changed the behavior of Quick Assist. It does look like, in my case, that there's something wrong with my user profile.
Roy Beaulieu 21 Reputation points

2021-08-04T18:06:12.97+00:00

Do you have any sites in the Restricted sites list? If QA can't contact some of the sites I posted, you'll get this behavior. Also, many of these settings are Windows profile specific so another profile might not have the setting that's breaking QA.
tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-08-04T18:07:20.24+00:00

No, nothing in restricted. I've reset my Internet Properties recently too, so that part should at least be as close to default as possible.
Roy Beaulieu 21 Reputation points

2021-08-04T18:38:01.737+00:00

OK. Just so you know, resetting the properties doesn't change sites the registry dumps in there. It only changes the radio options selected. Sites in the zones list are unaffected by the reset.
Roy Beaulieu 21 Reputation points

2021-08-04T18:46:15.667+00:00

Maybe see if you can ping all the domains in that list for the broken profile?
tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-08-04T19:10:03.297+00:00

Good point about the site lists. I actually had to wipe some from my registry because I couldn't remove them myself from the Internet Properties window. Otherwise I just double checked that they're both empty.

Also great idea about pinging the names. I couldn't get most of them to resolve though, I think I might need a list of individual hosts that it attempts to contact. I capture the process operation and did a comparison of a good result vs. bad result in some other posts I made in this topic. I'm trying to find where it is but I'm not seeing it. To summarize, during a bad start, QA would try to reach out to a few different IPs over TCP then give up. I verified that they were reachable, so it almost seemed like there was something on my end confusing QA. Still a mystery to me - I've been pouring over the capture logs from ProcMon trying to figure out what's triggering this bug, but nothing has really jumped out at me. I can see QA querying different registry keys in my hive, but for the most part the results seem to be identical to the good profile. I wish I had access to the source of QA, unfortunately it looks like it's built in C/C++ so my usual .Net reverse engineering won't work here.
KH 1 Reputation point

2022-01-13T19:15:48.893+00:00

]1

Accepted answer

tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-10-09T21:05:14.683+00:00

I want to just post an update here. At some point, the Quick Assist app has started working. I can't see any program versions so I don't know when it changed, but at any rate I can now use it on my main user account. Thank you @Andy YOU for all of your help!
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9 additional answers

Andy YOU 3,071 Reputation points

2021-06-09T04:32:39.867+00:00

HI tgp1994-1882,

Thanks for your reply.

Sorry, I can't see this picture clearly.

If we use network monitor and follow my step 2, will it find the key thread?
Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 (archive)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4865

If we still can not find the key thread, please do below steps:
(1)backup the issue account profile data (include desktop file, Favorites etc ) to another disk.
(2)delete the issue account and delete his profile registry key
(3)reboot the computer and create a new account with the same name for this issue user
(4)copy the original data of issue account profile to new created profile folder.

How To Delete User Profile in Windows 10
https://winaero.com/delete-user-profile-windows-10/

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tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-06-09T19:36:06.773+00:00

Hi,

I know the picture is not very large - the point I was trying to get across with the picture is that you can see a point where program execution diverges between the good profile and bad profile. It seemed to be around where it was querying Internet Explorer registry keys, no idea what this has to do with my profile.

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what we're looking for with Network Monitor specifically that hasn't already been found with Process Monitor? I'm in a place right now where I can risk having to spend a day or two setting up my user account again if something goes wrong with this copy and delete process, so I think I'm going to have to wait until either a fix is released or someone has another idea.

Thank you for all of your help!
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Andy YOU 3,071 Reputation points

2021-06-10T04:37:37.36+00:00

HI tgp1994-1882,

Please add "assist" key word filter in procmon for both normal log and issue log, then compare which difference between them.
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tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-06-11T21:23:11.463+00:00

JiaYou,

I thought this was what we were last doing in your answer here. I've gone back and attempted to improve the matching/differentiation of the two process captures, and I think I may have cleaned it up a little more:

What we're looking at here is a graphical representation of the differences between the good and bad process captures. Good is on the left, bad on the right. White space indicates that the two captures are exactly the same, green means a similarity, orange means an identical operation that's in a different location, violet/purple the operation is not matched on the other side, and dark grey indicates blank space compared to the other side.

We can still see how about one third of the way through, program execution diverges severely. I still can't make heads or tails of why.

Andy YOU 3,071 Reputation points

2021-06-12T15:06:10.067+00:00

HI tgp1994-1882,

I think we can need to forcus on one third of the way like picture and find key thread.

If it is possible, we can capture the procmon on anther computer with the same OS as issue one, then check the "quick assist" correct start process.

tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-06-13T18:24:43.19+00:00

Exactly, that's what I've been saying. I just don't know what to take away from it. I'm not sure how doing this on another computer would help me find the root cause.
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Gary Nebbett 5,721 Reputation points

2021-06-13T18:46:55.187+00:00

Hello @tgp1994 ,

I think that you have probably already checked this, but what do your security settings for the Internet zone look like?

If I set the level to High, I get stuck on this screen:

Lower levels, especially the default Medium-High, allow Quick Assist to work for me.

Gary
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tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-06-13T18:49:49.797+00:00

Hi Gary,

I've reset my Internet Options to defaults several times, so currently the Internet zone is set to Medium-high with protected mode on. I just noticed that my Trusted Sites had several microsoft domains added to it, that the new user account did not (probably some windows update troubleshooting I did years ago). I also noticed that when I tried to delete these entries, they would be added back. I've manually removed the registry keys in my user account referring to these sites, which has cleared the list. However this did not fix my application issue. :(

Thank you for posting your experience!
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Andy YOU 3,071 Reputation points

2021-07-06T08:25:32.863+00:00

HI tgp1994-1882,

1.Please create a system restore point first
Create a system restore point
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-a-system-restore-point-77e02e2a-3298-c869-9974-ef5658ea3be9

2.We can try to uninstall "quick assist" and "internet explorer 11" in optional feature then reinstall "quick assist" and "internet explorer 11" by clicking "add a feature" on issue user account, will the same issue happen on this account?

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tgp1994 96 Reputation points

2021-07-17T23:49:15.573+00:00

Hi JiaYou,

Unfortunately removing IE11 and Quick Support then reinstalling it didn't work. Thank you for continuing to come back to this and provide suggestions!
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