Win 10 Task Scheduler keeps disabling tasks

Question

I use Task Scheduler to run a .bat file that zips and encrypts files and does a nightly backup of them to an external drive. I have used this for years and it has worked just fine. Starting a couple of months ago, the task is getting disabled in Task Scheduler and I cannot figure out why. I can enable it, and it will run again, but then gets disabled again the same day or in the next day or two. Then I noticed that it is not just this task, but other scheduled tasks (that I did not write) that are also getting disabled, all at the same time. Things like Google software update are getting disabled too.

I have been looking at the task history to see when tasks are disabled, and there is no common denominator that I can think of.

When I restart, all tasks are enabled. But what causes them to be disabled?????

Answer 1

Wow, thanks for this post. Would never have found out why my scheduled tasks are being disabled. I thought i was being hacked ! Ironically it is Avast's "Do not disturb feature". I had an app to auto-restart, and when this app restarted at the same clock time, all of my scheduled tasks would be disabled. Avast automatically decides to set multiple apps to "Do not disturb = True".

More details: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=249063.0

Answer 2

I had this for months before I narrowed it down; with the help of posts from the likes of Paul above. Every task kept getting disabled, sometimes several times a day. In my case it was AVG anti-virus. In AVG settings there is a tools menu, in there is a series of check boxes called "Do Not Disturb Mode". It seems AVG is trying to 'help' the user by not disturbing him if he is running a program full screen by turning off notifications, but it's over zealous and turns off all tasks too. I unchecked all those tick boxes and didn't have the problem for two months. Then as a test I turned them on again and the tasks got disabled in just an hour or so. I have had several AVG updates over the period and it's still present, so I don't think it's a bug as much as a feature.

Answer 3

I had this problem last year. I believe if my memory serves me right that it happens when the Win 10 clock doesn't synchronise and the W32time service has stopped for some reason. If you go into task manager and select services, look for W32time and see if it is running. If it isn't right click and restart it "Maintains date and time synchronization on all clients and servers in the network. If this service is stopped, date and time synchronization will be unavailable. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start." Also check on Windows services for Windows Time to see if it is in manual or Automatic and change it to auto start (W32time)

Answer 4

I had this problem last year. I believe if my memory serves me right that it happens when the Win 10 clock doesn't synchronise and the W32time service has stopped for some reason. If you go into task manager and select services, look for W32time and see if it is running. If it isn't right click and restart it

Answer 5

I had the same problem that started in the last few weeks.

If you are running Avast anti-virus, there is bug [feature] that disables scheduled tasks and apparently never re-enables them. See this link: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=249063.0