Forum Discussion
Wifi not working after deleting capability access manager db
Hello everyone:
I did the same procedure (you might be referring to a post in learn.microsoft.com on this subject
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5815087/capabilityaccessmanager-is-devouring-my-hard-drive
My experience suggested me that in order for the process to restart and rebuild the files, the permissions and ownership that step 4 of the post redefined with ICACLS
icacls "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\CapabilityAccessManager" /grant administrators:F /t
had to be restored to their previous status, which I accomplished by resetting the permisions to default
icacls "C:\Path\To\Folder" /reset /T /C
Once I accomplished this, I opened the services with Win+R and typed "services.msc", made sure that the CapabilityAccessManager service was up and running (or made sure to start it by right clicking on it and starting).
ONLY IF the service started successfully I would restart the computer normally and complete the solution.
If you see in services.msc that CapabilityAccessManager is down and won't start, and you performed a file delete procedure such as the one in the link, it's very possible that by restoring the original permissions to the folder you'll get the service back and you'll see your wi-fi networks after a reset.
I was troubleshooting a similar issue where the CapabilityAccessManager (camsvc) was failing to initialize. I had previously manually altered the directory ownership to force-delete some bloated files and reclaim C drive space. I didn't realize at the time that stripping those default Access Control Lists (ACLs) would completely break the service and cascade into a total loss of Wi-Fi functionality.
The root cause was exactly what you pointed out broken permissions on that specific ProgramData directory. Because the service account lacked the necessary rights to access or rebuild its database, it simply hung on startup.
Running your
icacls "C:\Path\To\Folder" /reset /T /C
command immediately pushed the inherited permissions back down the directory tree. Once the DACLs were restored, the service started up perfectly via services.msc, and my network adapters initialized without a hitch. Thanks for documenting this.
You saved me from a completely unnecessary OS reinstall.