Windows Explorer Crashing a Lot

Thanks, Callender. I have to admit I screwed up a little. When you said to disable "ShadowPlayOnSystemStart" I turned it off in nVidia's control panel so it would not start on start up. I also went into Task Manager services and looked for it, and CCleaner and didn't see it. So I figured it was Off. And things were good for a few days.

Somehow I missed the fine print of going into msconfig in one of your prior posts. Ops... I'm embarrassed and I apologize. I did find it in msconfig today, turned it off, and rebooted.

I'll give it a try for a week or so and hopefully it's fixed. I'll let you know.

Again, thanks for your help.

Thanks for the link, Callender. I skimmed it and can tell I'll be using some of the tips. I've got a couple days off coming up soon so I'll be able to read it in full and apply it.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

Before I forget: what is that green bar that goes across the top of Windows Explorer?? I thought it was for indexing, but I've turned that off on all partitions/drives except for 'C' drive. But yet, it sometimes still just creeps along as I switch drives/directories.

Is there some kind of buffer or cache I can increase to help prevent this slowdown?

I've been keeping a couple of Windows Explorer windows open at all time for testing and things have been a lot better in the crash department. One crash happened while the green bar was slowly moving across. I deleted a large 22GB file, and while the green bar was about 1/3 the way across, I deleted a second large file, and it crashed.

I followed some tips in your link above and got rid of nVidia stuff I don't use/need. Out of habit, I installed the latest drivers the other day, using the installer option of a clean install. And I used the 'advanced' option to not reinstall all the junk I just got rid of. I checked in MSCONFIG and Shadow Play is still disabled. No crashes since this install.

It's crashed "only" four times; the dumps are attached. Their dates:

4968 - 1/20/16
4404 - 1/24/16
4876 - 1/31/16
1968 - 2/3/16

Callender said:

...The green bar means that Windows is collecting information. It can be tricky to pin down the cause of a slow green bar. Do you see dllhost.exe COM Surrogate appear in Task Manager when this issue occurs?

I will look at your crash dumps and post a reply.

First, I followed part of your suggestion in your second post: I cleared the thumbnail cache.

I then opened Task Manager and sorted by name. dllhost... was not visible. I then switched to an open Windows Explorer window (one of two), arranging things so I could see the Task Manager list. I went to a couple of drives (partitions, actually) and no green bar and things were snappy as they should be. Then on the 3rd or 4th try, Windows Explorer crashed, and dllhost.exe 'magically' appeared in Task Manager.

Crash dump attached.

Callender said:

I get the same error:

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: NULL_CLASS_PTR_WRITE_c0000005_nvspcap64.dll!Unknown

However I also notice:

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for msmpeg2vdec.dll
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for msmpeg2vdec.dll

You could try disabling thumbnail previews as a test:

...snip...

Maybe a corrupt video thumbnail exists somewhere.

Once thumbnails are disabled try clearing the thumbnail cache:

Thumbnail Cache - Clear and Reset

Live and learn... I wasn't logged in so I didn't see your attachment, which is why I only cleared the cache. I was going to mention I couldn't see the attachment...

Maybe I'm thinking of XP, but I thought you could keep thumbnail viewing intact (I have many thousands of photos scattered all over), but not cache them. I'm sure I turned the cache off once in the past but could still see thumbnails in Windows Explorer... Am I remembering wrong?

.

I'll try your tips and hope for the best. I do have some time off right now, but I'm booked solid with the Honey Do list. Plus I'm trying to put together a new build I got parts for last year. It's giving me fits and problems so I'm eager to get to that, too.

I'll keep you posted.