how frequently does the letter e appear in:
q: windows server 2016 tried to install very old cus in september 2022 i have a few windows server 2016 machines running. all of them are configured for automatic windows updates, which worked fine so far. we regularly monitor whether they are up to date, so there are no old updates missing.
tonight (2022-09-08), two of these machines filled up their system drive continuously trying (and failing) to install very old cumulative updates.
on one of them:

update history
2020-03 cumulative update for windows server 2016 for x64-based systems (kb4541329)
failed to install on 08.09.2022
[repeats 20-30 times]
2019-09 cumulative update for windows server 2016 for x64-based systems (kb4516061)
failed to install on 08.09.2022
[repeats 8 times]
2019-08 cumulative update for windows server 2016 for x64-based systems (kb4512495)
failed to install on 08.09.2022
[repeats 3 times]
2019-10 cumulative update for windows server 2016 for x64-based systems (kb4519979)
failed to install on 08.09.2022
[repeats a lot, same for the 2020-04 and 2020-01 cus]

its the same problem, but with completely different cus (2018-03 and 2018-04), on the other server.
the two servers are unrelated, at different physical locations (one an on-premise vm, the other one an azure vm) and in different environments (one is domain-joined, the other one isnt), which makes me suspect a problem on microsofts windows update servers.
is this a known issue? if yes, whats the recommended course of action to free up resources (tiworker.exe is still consuming lots of cpu and ram) and system drive space again?
nb: update status just shows your device is up to date. last checked: yesterday, ‏‎22:10 (which is strange, since the cus were installed today).

user
I counted 156 "e"s in that text.
assistant