Saved Wi-Fi information deleted after running Ccleaner

[Miguel Armas]

Hi all,

Every time I execute Ccleaner all my saved Wi-Fi networks get deleted, so I have to add them back manually. I have unselected the option "Network passwords" but this still happens.

Can anyone tell me which options could be causing this?

 

Thanks

Edited April 12 by Miguel Armas

[nukecad]

Sorry, but your question is unclear.

Are you on Windows, Mac, Android?

Which part or parts of CCleaner are you running?

Exactly what do you mean by "all my saved Wi-Fi networks get deleted, so I have to add them back manually. "?
These are wifi networks, is this what you are meaning or something else?

[Miguel Armas]

I am using Windows 10. I am running both Registry and Custom Clean. It is what you showed on your picture: to connect to any of my previously saved networks, I need to input the network password again.

[nukecad]

Thanks,

I have not seen that reported before. Let's see if you can narrow it down.

Try  doing a Custom Clean without running the Reg Cleaner, close CCleaner. - are your network passwords still there?

If they are still there then do a Reg Clean without a Custom Clean, close CCleaner. - are your network passwords still there?

PS. We advise against running reg cleaner as a regular thing, it will not speed up your computer, and can even break it. (There are plenty of posts about that happening on this forum).
Registry Cleaning is a specific tool for fixing things, it is not a regular cleaning tool.
For the official Piriform advice on using the CCleaner Registry Cleaner see this: https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/59952-i-get-a-registry-error-on-ccleaner-on-windows-10-i-have-scanned-5-times/?tab=comments#comment-326804

[Miguel Armas]

I executed the Custom Clean and the saved wifi networks are missing again. I have not executed the Registry Clean yet.

The list of known networks has only one network now, the network to which I am connected (in the past, I have tried running Ccleaner with the wifi adapter turned off and not a single known network is seen after).

[nukecad]

That is interesting, - because the network passwords themselves are saved in registry entries.

Just to note that the 'Manage Known networks' that you screenshot should show the networks that you have previously saved a password for, whether they are currently available or not.
Mine is still showing ones I haven't connected to for a couple of years, (some of which no longer exist), and I run Custom Clean multiple times a day.

However; to enter (set up) a password for a network it has to be in range and you have to connect to it, when you connect is when it asks for the password.
If at some time you have told Windows to 'Forget' a Network (or cleared not-in-range-networks out some other way) then it won't show in that 'known network' list again unless/until you connect to it again and enter the password again.

So the question has to be - are there any other saved networks showing in your 'Manage know networks' list before you run Custom Clean?
ie, Have you been in range of and reconnected to the 'missing' networks and re-entered their passwords? They won't be there unless/until you have done that.

Edit- I do note that you say your are adding the the networks back manually.
But as far as I am aware the network still has to be within range for you to do that, otherwise you just get a "Couldn't add the new network" error:

 

[Miguel Armas]

are there any other saved networks showing in your 'Manage know networks' list before you run Custom Clean?

R: Yes, before I execute the Custom Clean there are other networks on the list. Since your last reply I have executed the tool twice and the result is the same: all saved networks are deleted, except the network to which I am connected.

 

But as far as I am aware the network still has to be within range for you to do that, otherwise you just get a "Couldn't add the new network" error:

R: I have 2 routers at home, one of them with both 5.8 and 2.4 GHz networks, the other one with only 2.4 GHz. Besides those network, it is common for me to work on the go, so I had added the hotpost information for my 2 mobile phones, besides all the networks that I had used before (my laptop is about 6 years old) and all of this was deleted since the some time I executed the Custom Clean a couple of months ago (I have used Ccleaner for over 10 years and I never had this issue before).

 

Best regards

[nukecad]

Curious, like I say I have never seen or heard of this happening.

Can you screenshot all your ticks/unticks for custom clean, both for the Windows and the Applications tabs?
It will take a few screenshots to show them all.
That might help identify which one may be causing this for you.

[Miguel Armas]

On 22/04/2024 at 05:38, nukecad said:

Curious, like I say I have never seen or heard of this happening.

Can you screenshot all your ticks/unticks for custom clean, both for the Windows and the Applications tabs?
It will take a few screenshots to show them all.
That might help identify which one may be causing this for you.

These are the screenshots. One thing I noticed is that sometimes a pop-up window from Ccleaner shows up, like a MS-DOS type, and it closes quickly. After this happens, the saved networks also disappear. I have checked and the Smart Cleaning is disabled.

[nukecad]

Thanks, I'll look through those later to see If I can spot anything obvious.
There are a few there that I don't use so will need to think about.

However what you say about the flashing up command window also clearing the network list is very interesting, and it points to there being an error elsewhere rather than with the cleaning, because that window popping open/closed doesn't clean anything.

The flash-up command window is the CCleaner error reporting tool, it opens up once a day at a set time to check if there are any CCleaner errors to be reported, if there aren't any to report  then it doesn't do anything else, if there are some error logs then it sends them to CCleaner - but it doesn't clean anything.
If you don't know what it is then it can be puzzling/annoying.
You can prevent seeing that flash window by going into Windows Task Scheduler and setting the trigger to 'Startup' rather than a set time each day.
For how to do that see: https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/63929-ccleanercrashreporing-sheduled-task-issue/#comment-341743

I think that you should run some basic Windows checking and repair tools. if you haven't already.
Are you familiar with running the Windows maintenance commands SFC and DISM ?

Backup your data before starting, just in case. (I've used the commands thousands of times and never had them go wrong, but better safe than sorry).

• Restart (not Shutdown) your computer.
• Open an Elevated Command Window. (Run as Administrator).
• Type in (or copy/paste): dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
  It will take a whiile to do it's checking and restoring. (about 15to 20 mins on this laptop)
• When that has finished type in (or copy/paste): sfc /scannow
  Again it takes a while but not as long as DISM. (between 3 and 10 mins on this laptop).
• If SFC reports that it has found and fixed errors then Restart your computer and run just the SFC command again - until it reports no errors found.

Let us know if that process finds and repairs System errors, I suspect that it will do.

PS. There are plenty of articles online about what those two commands do if you want to know more.
Here is one that mainly covers DISM: https://www.minitool.com/news/use-dism-restorehealth-command-windows.html