XPS 9520 Are constant BSODs caused by updated SupportAssist?

Looks like this has been an ongoing problem for at least a few weeks, even though yesterday was the first time I got aware of it through the sudden crashes.

After I posted the above yesterday eventually I tried out a clean boot, looked a bit around, couldn't find anything that I could change and didn't want to sit and wait for another 90 minutes to test, if it would crash in this mode as well, so I just rebooted normally and then eventually switched it off and went to bed (way too late of course).

As you can see in the picture, the last malfunction of Dell software happened at 5:22am, that must have been very shortly before or maybe while I was shutting down. Since then the laptop has been on for about 2 hours and hasn't had any crash yet.

Is there a chance that things got fixed by simply having done a clean boot once?

Hi aporocactus:

What is your Windows OS [if Win 10 or Win 11, please include the edition (Home or Professional), version, and OS build number], antivirus, and current BIOS version?  To find your BIOS version open a Run dialog box, enter msinfo32 to view your System Information, and look for the field named "BIOS Date/Version".

Has the service warranty for your XPS 15 9520 expired yet?  If not, have you opened a support request with Dell?

Further to your Reliability Monitor image, two users have reported those same Dell.CoreServices.Client.exe APPCRASHs in their 03-Dec-2024 topic supportassist issue.  Their problem seems to be associated with the current SupportAssist v4.6.2, and so far Dell customer support has been unable to provide the original poster Rockface wit a solution and suggested they uninstall SupportAssist v4.6.2 and wait to se if the next release has the same problem. 

If your BSODs are generating mini-dump files you can run a utility like Nirsoft's BlueScreenView and/or Resplendence's Who Crashed to see if it can analyze the Bug Check (BC) codes. These utilities only list basic details (filename, product name, file description, and file version) of the suspected driver / module that was loaded in the crash stack at the time of the crash so they aren't as accurate as a detailed Windows Debugger (WinDbg) analysis of your full dump files, but I've used these utilities to successfully diagnose BSODs caused by outdated graphics drivers and other common issues. See the last section of my 08-Jul-2022 post in  Bradp1779's Inspiron 5570 blue screen for instructions on how to use BlueScrenView.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5131 * Firefox v133.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24090.11-1.1.24090.11 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.2.3.156-1.0.5108 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Dell Update for Windows Universal v5.4.0 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0 * BlueScreenView Portable 64-bit v1.55

@lmacri​ 

Hello Imacri,
thank you for your answer.

I had already put the OS information in the original Post. It's
Win11 Home, Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.4460)

The BIOS version is Dell Inc. 1.27.1, 11/09/2024

My service warranty has just expired in November.

Yes, I have collected dump files.
Do these two tools that you recommend do anything else than WinDbg? I have used the latter since yesterday and let it analyse each dump file so far.

I've got zero experience with dump files, so I don't quite know what to do with the information I get from them. They basically always look the same.

I had quoted this line from one of yesterday's dump files in the original post.

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  0xEF_DellSupportAss_BUGCHECK_CRITICAL_PROCESS_9c249080_SDSSnapshotProcess.dll!_IMAGE_SDSSnapshotProcess.dll


The following line is from the newest dump file from just 40 minutes ago. It's nearly the same.
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0xEF_DellSupportAss_BUGCHECK_CRITICAL_PROCESS_17d4e080_SDSSnapshotProcess.dll!_IMAGE_SDSSnapshotProcess.dll

I understand, 0xEF means "critical process died" and, well, it names "DellSupportAss_" and "SDSSnapshotProcess.dll" apparently is also part of SupportAssist.

I didn't dare to uninstall SupportAssist yet, because I read, you have to do it in a very particular way. I'm no expert, I feel like I'm meddling with a lot of things here, that I know nothing about. The last Operating system that I felt like I was in control of was Win2000.

... Do these two tools that you recommend do anything else than WinDbg? I have used the latter since yesterday and let it analyse each dump file so far.

I've got zero experience with dump files, so I don't quite know what to do with the information I get from them ...

Hi aporocactus:

No, utilities like BlueScreenView and WhoCrashed just allow non-experts like you and I to quickly extract basic information about their BSODs from mini-dump files.  They aren't meant to replace a proper Windows Debugger (WinDbg) analysis of your full dump files.

Since your Dell service warranty has expired and you cannot submit a formal support request I'd suggest you post your dump files in BleepeingComputer's free Windows Crashes and Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Help and Support board and have one of the trained volunteers there do a proper analysis with WinDbg.  Posting instructions are pinned <here> at the top of that forum board.

Other users who have updated to SupportAssist v4.6.x have also reported similar Dell.CoreServices.Client.exe APPCRASHs (see Rockface's 03-Dec-2024 topic supportassist issue) so at this point my best guess is that your BSODs are also associated with SupportAssist v4.6.2, but we won't know this for sure until your dump files are analyzed, or until you uninstall SupportAssist.

Have you checked the History page of SupportAssist to see if any of the automatic background tasks performed by SupportAssist are failing?

Also, is Dell SupportAssist Remediation (also known Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery and System Repair) installed on your computer, and if so is System Repair enabled in your SupportAssist settings (see the instructions <here> in the SupportAssist v4 User Guide)?  When that System Repair setting is enabled Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery creates a new Dell system repair point (snapshot) in the hidden, protected C:\ProgramData\Dell\SARemediation\Snapshots folder approx. 30 minutes after each system restart and Windows login.  I know very little about the inner workings of Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery and its integration with SupportAssist, but it's always possible that the SDSSnapshotProcess.dll file logged in your BSOD dump files as something to do with the creation of your Dell system repair points.

...  I didn't dare to uninstall SupportAssist yet, because I read, you have to do it in a very particular way ...

FYI, I uninstalled all SupportAssist-related software from my Inspiron 5584 after my service warranty expired because I found they were too too buggy and consumed too much RAM and CPU.  I used Revo Uninstaller Free to remove these programs (see my 22-Mar-2023 post in my topic Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery Plugin for Dell Update Rolled Back to v5.5.4.16189 about how I manage hardware diagnostics and emergency recovery now), but the support article Dell SupportAssist for PCs and Tablets Installation Issue states that in most cases SupportAssist can simply be uninstalled at Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features and that "There is no further cleanup that is required when you follow the normal uninstall procedure".

When I did use SupportAssist I always disabled all background update and system optimization scans in my SupportAssist settings as instructed <here> in the SupportAssist v4 User Guide and only ran manual update checks and hardware diagnostics from the SupportAssist Home tab. I never allowed SupportAssist to run "system optimization" scans (Clean Files / Tune Performance / Optimize Network) because I felt they were too aggressive and had the potential to do more harm than good.  For example, see my 12-Jul-2021 comment in ex-jedi's Prevent Automatic Recycle Bin Emptying about the overly-aggressive registry cleaner included with the Tune Performance (now called Boost Performance in SupportAssist v4.x) optimization scan.

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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5131 * Firefox v133.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24090.11-1.1.24090.11 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.2.3.156-1.0.5108 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Dell Update for Windows Universal v5.4.0 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0 * Revo Uninstaller Free Portable v2.5.6

@lmacri​ 
Hi Imacri,
thank you for taking the time to write all this information down for me. I very much appreciate that.

Last night I seem to have managed to stop the BSODs by simply deactivating the Support Assist Remediation Service (So that seems to confirm our suspicion of that service being the culprit). That's a temporary fix of course. I won't have time to try out your suggestions until later tonight though.

This is all very time consuming and I'm wondering, if the time spent on it justifies what I'm learning. I'm also in the very lucky position of having a brand new XPS 16 sitting here already, that just needs me to finish setting it up, so I could move all productive work over to that quite quickly. That would give me the freedom to think of more radical solutions for the "old" XPS 15, like just formatting it and setting up a clean Win11.

... Last night I seem to have managed to stop the BSODs by simply deactivating the Support Assist Remediation Service...That's a temporary fix of course.

Hi aporocactus:

Glad to hear you're making progress with your BSODs.

Whatever you decide, be sure to post back if you have any questions or just need to bounce ideas off someone.  Your idea to eventually wipe your "old" XPS 9520 and restart with a clean Win 11 OS after your new XPS machine is up and running sounds like a good idea to me (as long as you have some sort of emergency recovery plan *** in place for the old machine if it's still going to be used), but that's just my own opinion - you're in a better position to know what works best for you. 

If you do decide to remove the all SupportAssist-related software from your problem XPS 9520 machine you might want to read employee DELL-Chris M's 03-Apr-2018 SA uninstall/reinstall.  These are old instructions I followed when I needed to perform a clean reinstall of SupportAssist v3.x.  I don't know if these instructions still apply to SupportAssist v4.x but DELL-Chris M does suggest uninstalling Dell SupportAssist from Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features first before uninstalling any other SupportAssist-related software like Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery Plugin for Dell Update, Dell SupportAssist Remediation, etc.

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*** NOTE:  I installed Macrium Reflect Free v8.0 disk imaging software after uninstalling Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery,  and I use this software to create emergency recovery media (a bootable USB stick) and save the occasional full disk image of my hard drive to an external USB backup drive in case it's ever needed for an emergency recovery.  The Free edition of Macrium Reflect has not been officially supported since Jan 2024 (but is still fully functional) but there are many other good choices - see the June 2023 Tech Republic article Top 5 Free & Reliable Hard Disk Drive Cloning Software.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5131 * Firefox v133.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24090.11-1.1.24090.11 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.2.3.156-1.0.5108 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Dell Update for Windows Universal v5.4.0 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0