I recently purchased two new Dell Laptops with distinctly different base systems (one is an Intel i7 with NVidia and the other an AMD Ryzen) yet I’ve been seeing some odd behavior from both whereby the mouse cursor freezes or disappears and the system becomes unresponsive for a moment. I saw lots of posts around changing registry permissions but this didn’t solve it for me.
Checking the Windows System event log on both systems shows the same error (some items edited for security):
Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM
Date: 01/06/2020 07:01:07
Event ID: 10016
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
Description:
The machine-default permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {C2F03A33-21F5-47FA-B4BB-156362A2F239} and APPID
{316CDED5-E4AE-4B15-9113-7055D84DCC97} to the user DESKTOP\john.doe SID (S-1-5-21-1234567890-1234567890-1234567890-1001) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC) running in the application container Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_10.0.18362.449_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy SID (S-1-15-2-123457890-123457890-123457890-123457890-123457890-1234567890-1234567890). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.
Solution
I was very surprised to find that I solved the problem on both the AMD and Intel based laptop by updating the Chipset drivers and rebooting.
The process is different but similar for all brands of laptops, go to the drivers and downloads page for your device on the manufacturers support website (for example https://www.dell.com/support/), most manufacturers have a category or class for drivers called “Chipset” or “System”, you are looking for an update similar to “Intel Chipset Device Software” or “AMD Chipset Update”, etc. depending on your device.
Install this and reboot your machine, once rebooted go to Windows key > Settings > Update & Security > Check for Updates to see if this has also triggered any additional updates/drivers (it didn’t for me but still solved the problem).
Interestingly I just resolved an issue with my Corsair M65 RGB Elite gaming mouse that I had been trying to fix for over a week by resolving the DistributedCOM 10016 Warning.
The mouse would stop working sometimes 1 second after plugging it in or sometimes after a couple of hours or any frequency of time in between with no errors or warnings showing in eventviewer. There would occasionally be some “lag” in the mouse cursor position but this symptom was more rare in my case.
The mouse wouldn’t work at all through the onboard USB on my Corsair K95 Platinum gaming keyboard 99% of the time (occasionally it would function for 1 or 2 seconds) but I would get a device malfunction/unrecognised error from Windows and this would trigger the DistributedCOM warning in eventviewer.
After trying multiple USB ports, settings, updates, registry hacks, firmware, drivers (including chipset), etc, etc, etc, I was convinced the random DCOM warning I was receiving must have been related.
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{2593F8B9-4EAF-457C-B68A-50F6B8EA6B54}
and APPID
{15C20B67-12E7-4BB6-92BB-7AFF07997402}
to the user MY-PC\USERNAME SID (S-X-X-XX-XXXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXX-XXXX) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC) running in the application container Unavailable SID (Unavailable). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.
To resolve this warning I added the Administrators group Full Permissions on the CLSID and APPID registry entries then I used the Component Services Administrative tool to modify the permissions also (maybe a step that you missed was adding Local Service here).
I still didn’t know why this DCOM issue was causing mouse problems and your article was the first real source I had found that had linked the DCOM issue to mouse problems and so in a way validated my fix.
Posting this to both say thanks and maybe it can help someone else who is facing the same problem.
Hey Tim,
That’s awesome – thanks for posting this. The next time I get the issue, I’ll try this fix instead (what’s frustrating is I never know when the issue will rear it head again – sometimes it’s months!)
I am not very tech savvy at all but I am having that exact same problem with my M65 mouse. In other words, I didn’t really understand your solution on how to fix the problem to well, I was able to find event viewer and see all the errors, but now I am clueless on where to go from here. Any help would be very appreciated!!
Many Thanks for sharing the solution.
Thanks for commenting Nathan!