Whenever I try to update Brave Browser, either using Patch My PC or trying manually using Settings, About Brave, it fails with “An error occurred while checking for updates: Update check failed to start (error code 4: 0X80070005 – system level). This happens every time. I have tried some of the suggestions from others here but it still refuses to work. I would like to use Brave as my default browser but cannot consider it until I have resolved this problem
It’s been a while since I have ever seen that error, but in general it means permissions/ACL are a little not the way they should be.
I never recommend running a web browser as admin, but IF you right-clicked Brave, and select Run as Admin and then try to update, do you get the same error? Or does it update?
If it does update, then you might want to check “services.msc” and look for these. Ensure the options on the right match yours. This service handles the updating (and is what is normally running with elevated privileges so it can be done, without you running Brave as admin).
Thanks very much for this. To test this thoroughly I need to wait until the next Brave update is released. However, I have checked services.msc and Brave Elevation Service was correctly set to manual but Brave Update Service (bravem) was disabled. I’ve now set this to manual. There is no Brave Update Service (brave).
Hey, thanks for responding. So that’s very much likely the issue.
At this point the fact one service was disabled, and another was missing is very much why you’re getting this error. There’s no service to actually do the update.
I want to say, you might be able to re-download Brave and maybe install on top of your existing install (sorta a “repair”), but I don’t know if the installer will restore the missing services.
@Mattches opinions? I knew I had seen this error code before, and it seems my hypothesis was right, but will an installation on top restore it? Or might this require a full uninstall first? (I’m fearing asking anyone to do that unless they back everything up first.)
Once again, thanks very much for your help. I’ve been installing on top of the existing version for over a year now, as it’s the easiest way to do an update. Clearly, that hasn’t repaired the settings. What I’ve not done is to uninstall and reinstall Brave. I’ll give that a try.
I’ve just uninstalled Brave and reinstalled it. In services.msc is shows Brave Elevation Service set to manual start up and Brave Update Service (bravem) set to manual. There is still no Brave Update Service (brave). Setting bravem to manual may solve the update problem but I need to wait until an update is released to test this. I’ll post again when I’ve tried updating.
You’ll still need all three. The fact one’s missing is a major red flag.
Even Edge, another Chrome based browser must have those three (and Google Chrome has its own three as well).
Personally I’m wondering if Patch my PC may be the culprit for removing and disabling services since it wants to be an updater (based on how their website and documentation push it).
Not to mention I found a page on their site talking about 6 years ago about improving their disabling of Google Chrome’s self-updater.
Though, it mentions it as an option. Is such an option still there and enabled?
This is all very interesting. As you say, Edge, on my machine, does have all three. Whilst not wishing to exonerate Patch My PC, I did check services immediately after the uninstall and reinstall of Brave. I’ve been through all of the options on Patch my PC but I can’t find any reference to disabling any services. Of course, it could now be an embedded part of the program which is no longer possible to be disabled. When I get a bit of time, I’ll uninstall Patch My PC and uninstall and reinstall Brave.
Thanks for trying, was hoping their installer would reinstall the missing services, but it might not be even looking (or PmP is that quick to hamper them, but I’m not so sure).
For one it’s odd PmP removed that option, but that page was 6 years ago so things could have changed.
For reference, when I ran into this issue with Google Chrome itself, sadly their .exe installer too didn’t reinstall the service. However, their .msi installer did. Brave does not have an .msi installer currently.
(I think the .msi installer worked, because .msi files are like .deb or .rpm files to Linux, they are installer files and use the OS’s built in mechanism to do the installation, rather than bundling your own installer, aka .exe’s. Windows is smart and sees a service issue and removes the old ones and installs new ones, but if their .exe installer doesn’t check this issue, it never fixes it.)
Since it’s the weekend and a Brave staff ultimately might not be around, if you have the patience, since you’re only missing one service and the other that was “Disabled” is now “Manual” as it should be (so one service was corrected), I might see about exporting the missing one from my machine so you can import it (maybe through the registry).
Ok so this is a long shot, but I hope it’s only missing the registry entry for it, being the screenshot from PmP infers they were tinkering with the registry (though seemingly not the one for services, but the policy).
Here’s the registry entry for “brave” (the one missing). Since I cannot attach a .reg file, you’ll need to copy this into a file in Notepad, and save it as a .reg (which means file extensions will need to be visible, or Windows will do something silly like .reg.txt).
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\brave]
"Type"=dword:00000010
"Start"=dword:00000002
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):22,00,43,00,3a,00,5c,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,\
6d,00,20,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,20,00,28,00,78,00,38,00,36,00,29,\
00,5c,00,42,00,72,00,61,00,76,00,65,00,53,00,6f,00,66,00,74,00,77,00,61,00,\
72,00,65,00,5c,00,55,00,70,00,64,00,61,00,74,00,65,00,5c,00,42,00,72,00,61,\
00,76,00,65,00,55,00,70,00,64,00,61,00,74,00,65,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,\
22,00,20,00,2f,00,73,00,76,00,63,00,00,00
"DisplayName"="Brave Update Service (brave)"
"DependOnService"=hex(7):52,00,50,00,43,00,53,00,53,00,00,00,00,00
"WOW64"=dword:0000014c
"ObjectName"="LocalSystem"
"Description"="Keeps your BraveSoftware software up to date. If this service is disabled or stopped, your BraveSoftware software will not be kept up to date, meaning security vulnerabilities that may arise cannot be fixed and features may not work. This service uninstalls itself when there is no BraveSoftware software using it."
"DelayedAutostart"=dword:00000001
Since the “ImagePath” is in hex, this is what it should look like once imported:
(I do not believe once imported, you need to re-register the service with “sc” from a command line since sc usually stores it here under this registry key.)
This is basically the last thing I can think of to restore the missing service. This however assumes PmP didn’t remove other registry entries as well. Brave Staff should be able to validate the registry key above if you wish to wait as well for security reasons.
Thanks as always. Things have moved on, but not for the better. I tried, as I said I was going to, uninstalling Patch My PC and then reinstalling Brave. I noticed that, after uninstalling Brave, bravem was still in services so I removed that with an sc command line. I then ran sfc and dism, both of which showed no errors. I reinstalled Brave (with Patch My PC still uninstalled and with virus checkers disabled) and now services only shows Brave Elevation Service (which is set to manual) but no Brave Update Service (brave) or Brave Update Service (bravem). I’ve therefore gone from two of the required services to one.
Ok, we might want to hold off then until a developer can come in (especially after my troubleshooting ahead), because the installer ideally should be recreating these, or at least checking their current registered status (not just if one service is there, but all three).
You’ve done amazing checks on your end with sfc and dism, so now we know even with them intentionally removed via sc, it’s not making them on installation.
For a sanity check, I checked a VM of Windows 10 I have which already had Brave installed, but not touched in a couple months, and see the services. So before I launched it so it self-updated, I uninstalled it to see if even the older version, when uninstalled, can remove its own services.
Prior to re-installation, the services were there as expected and configured as they were under Windows 11 for me:
During uninstallation (I did select to remove data as well, not to keep anything), the Elevation service was gone, however “brave” and “bravem” remained. Strange, it didn’t actually fully clean up on uninstallation:
Upon reinstallation, only the Elevation service came back (since the other 2 were already there):
It appears to be during uninstallation and re-installation, only the elevation service was touched. Which lines up with your observation.
So to be 100% sure that these services are all 3 still required, I started with a blank slate, a newly freshly installed Windows 11 VM. No Brave services of any kind (not even the VM’s display driver yet):
Now, after a fresh Brave installation on the new VM:
So those 3 services absolutely are still 3 supposed to be getting generated. I’m not sure why the installer is not doing this. 
Thanks again. Let’s see what Brave developers have to say.
Note to self re Brave Browser installation / update error 0X80070005
‘https://www.perplexity.ai/search/brave-browser-installation-err-G3jFmi.dTKqi._NKrN8uMw’
The instructions you shared didn’t work for me either, but as I mentioned before, this is a Chromium problem, and I don’t know if they’ll ever fix it.
But since Microsoft announced that they’ll be implementing app updates through Windows Update next year, I don’t know if browsers that aren’t in the Microsoft Store, like Brave Nightly, Brave Beta, Chrome Canary, Edge Canary, Firefox Nightly, etc., will be included in this Windows Update rollout.
Yea I’m fairly certain this is a Chrome issue, as Brave is using the same Google Chrome installer it seems, and Google Chrome has the same dang bug with these services.
Chromium on the other hand, I don’t think has these services, because I installed Chromium and it doesn’t auto update, has no option to, has no services, and the only way to update is to download the mini installer for every release.
So that makes me actually wonder, what installer is this if Brave uses the same UI as Google Chrome, but it’s seemingly not a part of Chromium itself? (Or is it and Chromium itself never used it?)
Exactly, because years ago I had Chrome installed on my machine and it had the same update error as Brave, and it still does to this day. And it’s not just the Stable version; all three browsers have the same problem. So that means it has a problem with Chromium. And I have the same problem with the Edge browser: sometimes it updates correctly, and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s like playing cat and mouse.
Moving on to your next question, well, I don’t know. A while ago I installed the Chromium browser, and it was extremely slow. And now I don’t know how the browser behaves. Maybe it doesn’t keep up with Chrome; maybe it deviates from some features. But we’ll have to wait for Microsoft to implement updates through Windows Update and for the browsers to be updated. That way, we can avoid the headache of updates and errors when users update manually and the updates keep failing.
AFAIK/IIRC, Brave still uses the Omaha updater, “the open-source version of Google Update, a program to install requested software and keep it up to date.”
May interest:
Ahh, you are right. So I have a test for anyone that is willing to try it. Since it may simply be an absence of the registry entries for the services, here is a .reg someone can save to try. Just reboot Windows first because since it’s not being done by “sc”, I don’t know how it’ll behave if put back in the registry this way.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\brave]
"Type"=dword:00000010
"Start"=dword:00000002
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):22,00,43,00,3a,00,5c,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,\
6d,00,20,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,20,00,28,00,78,00,38,00,36,00,29,\
00,5c,00,42,00,72,00,61,00,76,00,65,00,53,00,6f,00,66,00,74,00,77,00,61,00,\
72,00,65,00,5c,00,55,00,70,00,64,00,61,00,74,00,65,00,5c,00,42,00,72,00,61,\
00,76,00,65,00,55,00,70,00,64,00,61,00,74,00,65,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,\
22,00,20,00,2f,00,73,00,76,00,63,00,00,00
"DisplayName"="Brave Update Service (brave)"
"DependOnService"=hex(7):52,00,50,00,43,00,53,00,53,00,00,00,00,00
"WOW64"=dword:0000014c
"ObjectName"="LocalSystem"
"Description"="Keeps your BraveSoftware software up to date. If this service is disabled or stopped, your BraveSoftware software will not be kept up to date, meaning security vulnerabilities that may arise cannot be fixed and features may not work. This service uninstalls itself when there is no BraveSoftware software using it."
"DelayedAutostart"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BraveElevationService]
"Type"=dword:00000010
"Start"=dword:00000003
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):22,00,43,00,3a,00,5c,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,\
6d,00,20,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,5c,00,42,00,72,00,61,00,76,00,65,\
00,53,00,6f,00,66,00,74,00,77,00,61,00,72,00,65,00,5c,00,42,00,72,00,61,00,\
76,00,65,00,2d,00,42,00,72,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,65,00,72,00,5c,00,41,00,70,\
00,70,00,6c,00,69,00,63,00,61,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,5c,00,31,00,34,00,\
33,00,2e,00,31,00,2e,00,38,00,35,00,2e,00,31,00,31,00,36,00,5c,00,65,00,6c,\
00,65,00,76,00,61,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,5f,00,73,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,\
69,00,63,00,65,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,22,00,00,00
"DisplayName"="Brave Elevation Service (BraveElevationService)"
"DependOnService"=hex(7):52,00,50,00,43,00,53,00,53,00,00,00,00,00
"ObjectName"="LocalSystem"
"Description"="Provides elevated privileges for Brave."
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\bravem]
"Type"=dword:00000010
"Start"=dword:00000003
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):22,00,43,00,3a,00,5c,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,\
6d,00,20,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,20,00,28,00,78,00,38,00,36,00,29,\
00,5c,00,42,00,72,00,61,00,76,00,65,00,53,00,6f,00,66,00,74,00,77,00,61,00,\
72,00,65,00,5c,00,55,00,70,00,64,00,61,00,74,00,65,00,5c,00,42,00,72,00,61,\
00,76,00,65,00,55,00,70,00,64,00,61,00,74,00,65,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,\
22,00,20,00,2f,00,6d,00,65,00,64,00,73,00,76,00,63,00,00,00
"DisplayName"="Brave Update Service (bravem)"
"DependOnService"=hex(7):52,00,50,00,43,00,53,00,53,00,00,00,00,00
"WOW64"=dword:0000014c
"ObjectName"="LocalSystem"
"Description"="Keeps your BraveSoftware software up to date. If this service is disabled or stopped, your BraveSoftware software will not be kept up to date, meaning security vulnerabilities that may arise cannot be fixed and features may not work. This service uninstalls itself when there is no BraveSoftware software using it."
"DelayedAutostart"=dword:00000001
This would be all of the services that should be present, not just one of them. Do keep in mind, this is from my Brave install on Windows 11 25H2, but I assume it’s the same on all installations, it’s not as if the Windows Services itself changed between 10 and 11.
For those testing this, copy the code into Notepad, and specifically when naming the file, be sure to end it with .reg or Notepad will make it a simple text file.
If done right the icon should look like this where saved:
Remember, reboot, since it’s not being registered through sc, if the service was supposed to automatically start, it will not have been started, so a reboot will be required. If successful, this could be a good hotpatch for anyone with missing updater services (but only for Brave, and as long as the updater itself doesn’t change in the future).
(I’d attach it as a .reg file, but 1, that’s not allowed here, and 2, users should see what’s in the registry key they are creating so users audit them before actually installing them.)
EDIT: It is ok to install the “every service” version here even if some services are still present. Windows is smart, it’ll see that those keys are the same and it won’t really touch them, only if they are “different” than this one (the way they should be).