Samsung Magician Application Fails to Work

[Pib]

Samsung Magician software is used to monitor/manage a Samsung SSD.  For those of you with Samsung SSDs I expect many of  you have the application on your computer.   

This morning when firing-up one of my Lenovo laptops that has a Samsung SSD the Samsung Magician application/software would not initialize....I got a pop-up message about 30 seconds after computer boot-up saying such...and the pop-up message also said reinstalling the software might help. 

I closed the pop-up message and then tried to open the Magician software directly...but it would either just start looping trying to get drive info which it couldn't get....or it would open but not show any info for the drive.   Even tried a computer Restart...same result.

I have another Lenovo laptop (different model) also with a Samsung SSD (different model).  I fired it up and the exact same problem as the other laptop so that made me feel better it's not a failing drive on the other laptop.

I thought to myself what has changed since yesterday when I lasted booted up/used the two computers and both worked fine before turning them off for the night.  Well, I had installed hot-off-the-press Win 10 optional update  KB5001567 that appeared in Windows Update which MS released yesterday to fix a blue screen of death problem some people were getting after a recent Windows update....you know....a MS update to fix another MS update.....a blue screen of death problem caused with "certain" printer drivers.  I had been reading about the blue screen of death problem for a few days.  I hadn't experienced this problem (at least not yet) but went ahead and installed the optional MS KB5001567 update on both my Lenovo computers last night.  After installing the updates no problem appeared last night but I will admitted I had not yet started either computer from a cold boot since the update.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/march-15-2021-kb5001567-os-builds-19041-868-and-19042-868-out-of-band-6e0844a2-7551-4b2d-9c4b-4274a5949bf3

 

So, I decided to try reinstalling the Samsung Magician software.  First went to the Samsung website to download the software but couldn't do a download since the site said it had reached its daily limit for downloads...try again in 24 hours.   That inferred to me many other folks were having the same problem as me, had been downloading the software from the Samsung website to try a reinstall....o many downloads that it reached Samsung's daily limit for downloads.   I've seen this same download limit over the years at the Samsung site when new versions of software came out and lots of people went to download. 

So, I just go to another website (the one beloww) to download the software.....the latest version is 6.3.0.  https://www.techpowerup.com/download/samsung-magician-ssd-management-utility/

Reinstalled the Magician software on both computers and problem fixed....computers now boot without an error message....the Magician software now works properly like before, etc.  

Yeap, just something with the MS KB5001567 update that didn't agree with the Samsung Magician software until reinstalling the Magician software.

[Stocky]

I got a notification yesterday of a new version of Samsung Magician, I installed the update, I have regular windows updates on a 7 day delay, so hopefully I'll have avoided this.

 

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Edited March 20, 2021 by Stocky

[Pib]

The latest version is 6.3.0. as of right now/20 March 2021 according to the Samsung download support website.  That was the version I was running...the same one I had to reinstall after that MS update....and had been running ver 6.3.0 for a couple of weeks....it was released on/about 6 March 2021.   

Do you show a different version number other than 6.3.0?   Maybe a brand new version was just released with notification thru the app itself only,  but just hasn't made it to the Samsung support website yet for manual download.

As I mentioned earlier I wasn't able to initially download it from the Samsung site as the site said it's daily limit had been reached....said try again in 24 hours.  Instead, I downloaded and installed from another site.  However yesterday, I was able to download the file from the Samsung site (and again a few minutes ago just as a test)....and I reinstalled that file just to play it safe although the byte size of the file matched exactly the file I downloaded from that other site that I trust.  

and that was 

[ThailandRyan]

Rolled Back the driver to the previous version is what I did today.  Working now, but there is an update now sitting in que which I have put on hold.

[Pib]

21 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

Rolled Back the driver to the previous version is what I did today.  Working now, but there is an update now sitting in que which I have put on hold.

Rolled back a Windows update/driver.....or rolled back to the previous version of Magician?

[ThailandRyan]

47 minutes ago, Pib said:

Rolled back a Windows update/driver.....or rolled back to the previous version of Magician?

Both.  Checking on Reddit to see if anyone has an update.  Talked with my son who also works on computers just now and he said the Samsung SSD's have an endemic problem with failures and then not all drivers when they update have compatibilities with the other drivers programs.  Hoping by tomorrow someone has an idea and or a workaround fix.

[Pib]

The Samsung Magician app is working fine on both of my laptops after I reinstalled it which only takes a minute or two.   And this is with the very latest MS Win 10 updates installed to include the update that seemed to cause Magician to stop working....but as mentioned, once I reinstalled Magician it's working fine again on both computers.

[ThailandRyan]

Thanks Pib, I will uninstall it, and after I run the Windows update I will then reinstall it, and see if that works.

[KeeTua]

14 hours ago, Pib said:

I was able to download the file from the Samsung site (and again a few minutes ago just as a test)....and I reinstalled that file just to play it safe although the byte size of the file matched exactly the file I downloaded from that other site that I trust.

Byte size is not an accurate way to compare the exe(s). To be certain they are exactly the same exe you need to use a utility to compare the checksums for the downloaded exe from each site.

[Pib]

I've been Magician for many years with my Samsung SSD drives....never had a problem with Samsung SSDs or Magician until Windows 10 Update KB5001567 released 15 March 2021.   As mentioned earlier that update required me to reinstall Magician...I reinstalled their latest version 6.3.0 which was the version I had been running.

However, when googling the issue I found quite a few post of people who have previously run into the same problem of Magician not working at a windows update or after a Magician update.    Like the Samsung community blog below where apparently a lot of people had issues with Magician with version 6.2 when it came out last year. 

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Monitors-and-Memory/New-Samsung-Magician-won-t-open/td-p/1428296

So, although this is the first time ever I've experienced the problem it definitely not a new problem.  And the fix for different people ranged from just reinstalling the latest version, reinstalling an earlier version, changing a setting in their firewall/virus protection program, etc.  Different fixes for different folks.

AND, just before posting this I googled one more time and came up with this TenForums thread which is dedicated to Magician issues.  Starting at the very bottom of page 116 of the long running thread a poster said o/a 15 Mar 2021 that Magician version 6.3.0 has been released....starting to be rolled out to folks via automatic update.  This update is thru the app itself or a person can manually download.  The thread had been quite since Oct 2020, but in mid Mar 2021 people started posting problems again with version 6.3.0 hitting their machines.  Mine apparently automatically updated thru the app because I don't remember Magician notifying me an update was available, do you want to update, if so click yes to update.   But hey, may it did offer the update and I clicked yes....or maybe it updated automatically....I don't remember.  I just know Magician version 6.3 stopped working "right after above mentioned MS update installed" a few days ago which required me to reinstall Magician 6.3.0 to get it working again.

https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/6091-samsung-magician-post2175334.html#post2175334

 

 

[Pib]

6 minutes ago, KeeTua said:

Byte size is not an accurate way to compare the exe(s). To be certain they are exactly the same exe you need to use a utility to compare the checksums for the downloaded exe from each site.

Yea...I know....I just did the byte size comparison for a quick check and also ran a virus can on it. I rarely download/install from from sites other than the manufacturers website....and when I do use a third party website I use one with a good reputation.

[Stocky]

On 3/20/2021 at 7:51 PM, Pib said:

Do you show a different version number other than 6.3.0? 

No, the update was for 6.3.0 - must have taken my laptop a while to tell me there was an update available. The latest windows updates have now installed but I've not had any problems with Samsung Magician, all working fine.

[ThailandRyan]

Latest issue I found yesterday for a few other apps and programs seems to have been from a backend app problem that has now been sorted by a Google update as well.