Explorer.exe Crashes

Question

_{Friday, March 31, 2017 10:01 AM}

Recently on a number of computers within my company we have been experiencing Explorer.exe crashing. This happens when they do multiple tasks e.g. opening a folder, opening a file within a folder, creating a folder. As you might imagine this is very frustrating for them.

I have run the standard sfc & DISM scans, disabled any and all third party file explorer addons through ShellExView. It still crashes from a clean boot and from safe mode. 

Upon looking at event viewer the crashes seem to be due to "windows.storage.dll" and occasionally "ntdll.dll"

**e.g. **

Description
Faulting Application Path: C:\Windows\explorer.exe

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: explorer.exe
Application Version: 10.0.14393.479
Application Timestamp: 58258a90
Fault Module Name: windows.storage.dll
Fault Module Version: 10.0.14393.479
Fault Module Timestamp: 58258b70
Exception Code: c000041d
Exception Offset: 00000000001c6267
OS Version: 10.0.14393.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: 7cb2
Additional Information 2: 7cb2c72c4ec5a461b48431651d5275a2
Additional Information 3: 665e
Additional Information 4: 665e89f85ff8ad5f8318694d125d0615

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 9b2cc6a425d76d0715b99b8f0dea5132 (120631408236)

It is possible to mitigate the crashes somewhat by turning on "Launch folder windows in a separate process", by doing this explorer.exe still crashes however the folder you are on at the time does not crash.

The crash is happening on almost all W10 PC's on the network regardless of make/model.

I can "fix" the crash by recreating the users profile but it seems to come back after a week or so. Also if I copy the appdata folder from old profile into the new profile the crash seems to come back instantly.

I have taken some logs of the crash across three different PC's which can be found on this onedrive link ->https://1drv.ms/f/s!AkAorrLDdSyxaVus9-PfC3CHVYs

I did wonder if this was caused by a GPO on the network, however the crash comes back even on a PC/user account placed into a OU with no gpo's on AD.

Any advice would be very much appreciated. And any extra information I can provide please ask.

All replies (9)

_{Sunday, April 2, 2017 2:06 PM | 2 votes}

"PC 1 explorer.exe.13052.dmp" was a STATUS_FATAL_USER_CALLBACK_EXCEPTION with some kind of loop.
I still suspect a Shell extension, although no 3rd party code is in the call stack.
Additionally, this might have something to do with what is on your desktop / the recent folders
This is a shell Extension:
C:\Users\packerm\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\17.3.6798.0207\amd64\FileSyncShell64.dll
and 3rd party antivirus:
C:\Program Files\McAfee\Endpoint Security\Threat Prevention\IPS\EpMPThe.dll Mon Dec 12 20:35:02 2016
additionally, you have some old Apple dll loaded:
C:\Program Files\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll Thu Aug 13 00:47:01 2015

EXCEPTION_RECORD:  (.exr -1)
ExceptionAddress: 00007ff93ef7c49f (windows_storage!_SHCoCreateInstance+0x000000000000003f)
   ExceptionCode: c000041d
  ExceptionFlags: 00000001
NumberParameters: 0

 # Child-SP          RetAddr           Call Site
00 00000000`063c3e90 00007ff9`3efaf12d windows_storage!_SHCoCreateInstance+0x3f
01 00000000`063c48a0 00007ff9`3efb9ff8 windows_storage!CFSFolder::_Bind+0x114d
02 00000000`063c50d0 00007ff9`3ef9b094 windows_storage!CFSFolder::BindToObject+0x4a8
03 00000000`063c5640 00007ff9`3f1caa5e windows_storage!CRegFolder::BindToObject+0xa04
04 00000000`063c5de0 00007ff9`3f0b9be9 windows_storage!CDesktopRootedStub::BindToObject+0x6e
05 00000000`063c5e50 00007ff9`3ef9b3bc windows_storage!`OpenWithLogging::Instance'::`2'::`dynamic atexit destructor for 'wrapper''+0x3bfe9
06 00000000`063c5ee0 00007ff9`3ef95d74 windows_storage!CRegFolder::BindToObject+0xd2c
07 00000000`063c6680 00007ff9`3f25dfad windows_storage!SHBindToObject+0x84
08 00000000`063c66f0 00007ff9`3f0bb7e7 windows_storage!CRecentDocumentsFolder::Initialize+0x9d
09 00000000`063c6780 00007ff9`3efaf169 windows_storage!`OpenWithLogging::Instance'::`2'::`dynamic atexit destructor for 'wrapper''+0x3dbe7
0a 00000000`063c7810 00007ff9`3efb9ff8 windows_storage!CFSFolder::_Bind+0x1189
0b 00000000`063c8040 00007ff9`3ef9b094 windows_storage!CFSFolder::BindToObject+0x4a8
0c 00000000`063c85b0 00007ff9`3f1caa5e windows_storage!CRegFolder::BindToObject+0xa04
0d 00000000`063c8d50 00007ff9`3f0b9be9 windows_storage!CDesktopRootedStub::BindToObject+0x6e
0e 00000000`063c8dc0 00007ff9`3ef9b3bc windows_storage!`OpenWithLogging::Instance'::`2'::`dynamic atexit destructor for 'wrapper''+0x3bfe9
0f 00000000`063c8e50 00007ff9`3ef95d74 windows_storage!CRegFolder::BindToObject+0xd2c
...

_{Wednesday, April 5, 2017 8:57 AM}

Hi, many thanks for the reply.

I'm really not sure that it is a shell extension as we have had this crash on a brand new PC that had solely been turned on added to the domain and then when my college browsed to a folder the crash happened.

Interestingly you mentioned it could have something to do with the recent documents folder. When I browse to appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows and try to open the recent documents folder the folder instantly crashes and I'm unable to browse into it.

Does this give anymore clues as to the cause?

_{Wednesday, April 5, 2017 2:36 PM}

The crash I looked at was no clean install (McAffee, Office 14, bonjour),
but if you have a dump file from a clean system I can take a look.

As this is a domain system: are these roaming profiles?
Can you try to login with a local account?

_{Friday, April 7, 2017 3:06 PM | 1 vote}

You're right the logs were for other PC's not the clean install PC. Annoyingly I created a new profile on this machine deleting the old one to fix the issue and therefore can no longer take a log of this machine.

They are not roaming profiles no. I can log in with a local account yes, the bug only applies to one account rather than all accounts on the PC.

I've found a way to fix this that doesn't involve deleting the user profile over the last few days, this is the process:

-Clear recent files
-Delete reg keys current_user -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Explorer -> Mountpoints & Modules -> Nav pane
-Then log into another profile and delete files under "userWithBug"\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent Files\AutomaticDestinations

This seems to fix it, however I would guess it will come back over the next week or so. The question really remains what on our network could cause this corruption of the Recent Files\AutomaticDestinations folder. I really am out of ideas. 

_{Tuesday, April 11, 2017 8:40 AM}

Hi,

How about the issue, is there anything to update?

Best regards

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
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_{Saturday, June 3, 2017 2:08 AM | 3 votes}

As a home user, I did a workaround by turning off the "Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar" in Windows 10 Settings > Personalization > Start. And now it is solved for me.

_{Thursday, February 1, 2018 9:04 PM}

Thank you thousand times that fixed it for me :)

_{Wednesday, June 6, 2018 2:18 PM}

I know this is an older thread, but this is something I've been combating in our office since 2017. Has anyone had any solutions?

I have the exact same thing happen on multiple PC's, with the same symptoms. Occasionally there's an additional symptom where copying and pasting will also cause a crash.

Disabling recent items being shown seems to actually work as a temporary work around, but there are still other weird bugs that come from it. When clicking quick launch icons, it opens a new window. Sometimes when clicking folders, a new window will open instead of opening in the current window. Various Microsoft features can cause it to crash, like viewing photos.

So far all of our PC's in the office have been affected by this at least once, creating a new user seems to only fix it for a few days. The only real solution I've found seems to be reinstalling Windows. To do this, as well as reinstall all applications can take a full work day or more depending on the speed of the computer.

When I originally upgraded all of our PC's to Windows 10 two years ago, I immediately regretted it due to compatibility issues. Two years later I wasn't expecting to still have problems with it...

_{Wednesday, June 6, 2018 2:59 PM}

so do you have a dump file?
any 3rd party antivirus installed?
did you disable all 3rd party shell extensions?