Solved Windows 11 Laptop Taking 4 Minutes to Connect to Wireless Network

I went ahead and ran the script using Power Shell running under PowerRun. Here is what happened:

PS C:\> C:\Users\g_e_f\Downloads\CapabilityAccessManager\CapabilityAccessManager-Remediation.ps1

Security warning
Run only scripts that you trust. While scripts from the internet can be useful, this script can potentially harm your
computer. If you trust this script, use the Unblock-File cmdlet to allow the script to run without this warning
message. Do you want to run C:\Users\g_e_f\Downloads\CapabilityAccessManager\CapabilityAccessManager-Remediation.ps1?
[D] Do not run [R] Run once Suspend [?] Help (default is "D"): R
Calling for path creation: C:\Windows\AzureToTheMax
Calling for path creation: C:\Windows\AzureToTheMax\CapabilityAccessManager
VERBOSE: Performing the operation "Stop-Process" on target "svchost (7804)".
C:\Windows\AzureToTheMax\CapabilityAccessManager\CapabilityAccessManager-Cleanup.log 06/13/2026 17:41:47: Initial CapabilityAccessManager.DB-wal size: 7,273.26 MB. Final CapabilityAccessManager.DB-wal size: 0.00 MB. Space reclaimed: 7273 MB

Notice that the file size reported by the script was just over 7 gigs, which is too high, but the previous dir command I did listed the size at 183 gigs. I'm confused now, but my computer is running, so I'll just keep moving along...

I can also report that, on reboot, my wifi connected immediately, before I logged on using my fingerprint.

The difference between the two reported sizes is because DB files can be sparse, or "holey". Meaning you ask Windows to reserve a specific amount of disk space (which can't be used by another process or user), but don't actually fill in every byte in that size range. This allows the database to grow without running out of room, but not take up more space that is minimally needed.

Great job. If your PC starts slowing down again, just re-run the script. It's not clear how fast the database file grows, but I don't think you need to do this more than once or twice a month.

I think I've got a better explanation of the difference between the two sizes: The larger size (report 197+ gigs) was dated 5/6/26, which is the date I reset Windows. If you scan down the output of my recent dir command, the size reported today is 7.585 gigs (reported), which does correspond to what the remediation script found today.

This seems to confirm a couple things: First, my problem was almost certainly due to the file size issue from the start, but that cause escaped our diagnostic analyses. Second, the Windows reset "fixed" the problem (temporarily) by deleting that file (and starting with a clean directory, I assume). Now, over the course of a little better than a month, the file size stood at 7.585 gigs (reported). So, that seems to be the growth, per month, in the size of the file for me.

I'll keep my eyes open for a "fix" from MS, but I'll also hang on to this script in case I need it.

Thanks to all for the help on this topic.

tao said:

Do not permanently disable `camsvc`.

Click to expand...

Stopping the Capability Access Management Service is possible, it doesn't affect other services and will not break current OS functionality. It has a sense to stop this service before cleaning up the content of CapabilityAccessManager folder. However, disabling it may have severe consequences like inability to discover Wi-Fi access points after OS startup and, as a result, loss of network connection (none of this is mentioned in the service description).
It's better to keep the default automatic startup of this service and stop it temporarily only when need.

garlin said:

There's actually a long, deep dive on the out of control size of the CapabilityAccessManager DB, but it's not written from the perspective of a "Wi-Fi" problem.

Out of Control Capability Access Manager.db-Wal File Size

TLDR: It's believed MS knows there's a bug, and maybe it'll get fixed by the June 2026 Preview (?)

Click to expand...

I just made an account to say THANK YOU to @Jim Rockford and everyone who helped him to go through this process. I had the identical issue with slow-to-appear network connection/Wifi adapter on startup on an ASUS laptop. After reading this extremely helpful thread, I've convinced myself that the issue may stem from the Windows bug @garlin linked to info on above. I'm extra suspicious here because my computer, roughly the same time as the wifi issue, started occasionally experiencing complete freezes (not a crash, just complete nonresponsive) and also would randomly have the wifi drop out and then reconnect. The usual suspects of driver reinstalls, clearing startup apps, etc didn't fix it, and I was feeling perplexed about how there seemed to be several unrelated issues popping up simultaneously. The wifi was the good test case becasue it was repeatable on every startup.

So just wanted to comment to reiterate my gratitude to everyone writing in this thread for all your time. And for anyone else who is having this issue, while I have no data to back it up, I am personally going to hold off trying to dig deeper/take more drastic measures like fresh OS install until this Windows bug is patched, hopefully in the next month or so, and see if that sorts it out. Cheers!

First, many thanks for the issue root cause and fix. My CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal was over 224 GB and time to wifi was 4 - 5 minutes. Started growing again after the fix last night, and was over 250 MB this morning (saw file growth several times each minute while watching for a few minutes).

As I was searching the issue, I saw something about location queries driving this. Looked at Recent Activity under Location, and saw mostly Windows Web Experience Pack, then PowerENGAGE, and a few Adobe AcroCEF.

I disabled Location Services, and file growth has stopped.

I don't know if that will break anything, but I use one of the cell tower based internet providers which has websites defaulting my location to other cities anyway, so I suspect not.

At the least, this may be a simple diagnostic for people trying to confirm this is what they are seeing - observe CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal growing in small increments frequently, disable Location Services, if the growth stops, this is the issue. Also worth noting which apps are driving recent Location access activity to see if one of those breaks.

Also fwiw, there was another thread pointing to SmartBytes. I disabled that first, but it didn't seem to slow the DB file growth.

I just tried turning location services off via settings, and the settings app crashed. In particular, when I went to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location, Camera, or Microphone, the settings app crashed. Other selections seemed to work properly.

I tried repairing and resetting the settings app, but no joy.

I've been to @Brink 's thread on location services here, and I know there are other ways to turn location services off, and I'll try doing one of those later. I thought I'd report the settings issue here in case it may be related to why location services is causing the file growth under discussion in this thread. I don't mean to go off topic here.