[SOLVED] Multiple programs crash on file browser dialogues

Question

Edit: Comodo's Internet Security Essentials was the culprit. That's why you shouldn't do program updates late at night; those evil little programs always slip by if you don't guard your installers with eagle eyes.

Hello,

since this is my first post here I hope I sorted everything correctly. If not, I'm sorry.

For a few (two?) days I have the following problem: Opening the file browser via the Save As or Open File dialogue in some programs (Firefox, Internet Explorer) instantly freezes the file browser and the program has to be terminated. Other programs (Edge, Notepad++, Word) work completely as usual.

I've searched high and low for this problem and found quite a few reports though unfortunately none of the mentioned solutions worked with my system.

Things I've tried:

• Checked a lot of stuff with Firefox. Since the problem also appears on IE I'm guessing that was the wrong direction though.
• Booted via Safe Mode. Everything worked fine there; no problems.
• Booted via Clean Boot (msconfig: disabling all non-Windows services and all the Autostart things in the Task Manager). Firefox took about a minute to start and the problem in the Save As dialogue persisted.
• sfc /scannow. It didn't find any problems.
• Reset all options in the Explorer folder options. The problem persisted.
• Deactivated all shell extensions that were modified this month (via ShellMenuViewer, ShellExView). The problem persisted.
• Changed the Advances Sharing Settings to Turn Off Network Discovery. The problem persisted.
• Tried System Restore to the 12. July (before the latest Windows updates). The problem persisted. I unfortunately am not entirely sure the problem didn't exist on 12.07. so maybe I should've tried an older system restore point. Unfortunately the other ones are much, much older. I can definitely say there was no problem on 07.07. and I'm reasonably sure it also worked on 11.07..

The event monitor thankfully does spit out error reports (see below). For some reason the error reports are in German (my OS language) when I copy them though they're being displayed in English. It basically runs down to the ntdll.dll module being faulty when the IE crashes and an unknown module being faulty when Firefox crashes.

What I've changed the last days that maybe could've done something:

• installed OriginPro. Because of university deadlines I won't be able to deinstall this program for the next two weeks. I'm seriously swamped with work. Sorry.
• installed the latest Windows updates. Since System Restore to the previous day didn't change anything, I'm not sure that's relevant.
• installed the latest Comodo updates after the Windows updates. Since the problem persists in Clean Boot mode and after System Restore I'm not sure that's relevant.
• deinstalled and reinstalled Firefox multiple times, including deleting the profile and everything Mozilla from %APPDATA%.
• System Restore to before the Windows updates.
• installed the Firefox. Interestingly enough I had to restore my profile even though the System Restore point was from before I did all the deinstalling and deleting. System Restore did confirm that it successfully restored the system. I'm not sure if it's supposed to work like that since the profile is saved in %APPDATA% and I'd expect that to be restored during System Restore.

I did check the system for malware (nothing found) and I'm rather confident that it didn't have any malware before (though I guess everybody says that).

I hope someone finds a solution. Thank you in advance.

Now for the error reports:

Protokollname: Application

Quelle:        Application Error

Datum:         15.07.2017 10:53:19

Ereignis-ID:   1000

Aufgabenkategorie:(100)

Ebene:         Fehler

Schlüsselwörter:Klassisch

Benutzer:      Nicht zutreffend

Computer:      Glumski8

Beschreibung:

Name der fehlerhaften Anwendung: iexplore.exe, Version: 11.0.15063.0, Zeitstempel: 0x7e29c811

Name des fehlerhaften Moduls: ntdll.dll, Version: 10.0.15063.0, Zeitstempel: 0xb79b6ddb

Ausnahmecode: 0xc0000409

Fehleroffset: 0x000000000009627f

ID des fehlerhaften Prozesses: 0x325c

Startzeit der fehlerhaften Anwendung: 0x01d2fd47c95f00a5

Pfad der fehlerhaften Anwendung: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe

Pfad des fehlerhaften Moduls: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll

Berichtskennung: 93dd42b4-ee78-4843-b189-aef6fea3e31c

Vollständiger Name des fehlerhaften Pakets:

Anwendungs-ID, die relativ zum fehlerhaften Paket ist:

Ereignis-XML:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">

  <System>

    <Provider Name="Application Error" />

    <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>

    <Level>2</Level>

    <Task>100</Task>

    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>

    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2017-07-15T08:53:19.995618600Z" />

    <EventRecordID>522668</EventRecordID>

    <Channel>Application</Channel>

    <Computer>Glumski8</Computer>

    <Security />

  </System>

  <EventData>

    <Data>iexplore.exe</Data>

    <Data>11.0.15063.0</Data>

    <Data>7e29c811</Data>

    <Data>ntdll.dll</Data>

    <Data>10.0.15063.0</Data>

    <Data>b79b6ddb</Data>

    <Data>c0000409</Data>

    <Data>000000000009627f</Data>

    <Data>325c</Data>

    <Data>01d2fd47c95f00a5</Data>

    <Data>C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe</Data>

    <Data>C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll</Data>

    <Data>93dd42b4-ee78-4843-b189-aef6fea3e31c</Data>

    <Data>

    </Data>

    <Data>

    </Data>

  </EventData>

</Event>

Ans another one for Firefox:

Protokollname: Application

Quelle:        Application Error

Datum:         15.07.2017 10:06:32

Ereignis-ID:   1000

Aufgabenkategorie:(100)

Ebene:         Fehler

Schlüsselwörter:Klassisch

Benutzer:      Nicht zutreffend

Computer:      Glumski8

Beschreibung:

Name der fehlerhaften Anwendung: firefox.exe, Version: 54.0.1.6388, Zeitstempel: 0x5953d2cc

Name des fehlerhaften Moduls: unknown, Version: 0.0.0.0, Zeitstempel: 0x00000000

Ausnahmecode: 0xc0000005

Fehleroffset: 0x0000000000000000

ID des fehlerhaften Prozesses: 0x331c

Startzeit der fehlerhaften Anwendung: 0x01d2fd413bfbec10

Pfad der fehlerhaften Anwendung: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe

Pfad des fehlerhaften Moduls: unknown

Berichtskennung: 4d5ef1f5-01ce-481e-a094-258543864bbb

Vollständiger Name des fehlerhaften Pakets:

Anwendungs-ID, die relativ zum fehlerhaften Paket ist:

Ereignis-XML:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">

  <System>

    <Provider Name="Application Error" />

    <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>

    <Level>2</Level>

    <Task>100</Task>

    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>

    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2017-07-15T08:06:32.908598600Z" />

    <EventRecordID>522629</EventRecordID>

    <Channel>Application</Channel>

    <Computer>Glumski8</Computer>

    <Security />

  </System>

  <EventData>

    <Data>firefox.exe</Data>

    <Data>54.0.1.6388</Data>

    <Data>5953d2cc</Data>

    <Data>unknown</Data>

    <Data>0.0.0.0</Data>

    <Data>00000000</Data>

    <Data>c0000005</Data>

    <Data>0000000000000000</Data>

    <Data>331c</Data>

    <Data>01d2fd413bfbec10</Data>

    <Data>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe</Data>

    <Data>unknown</Data>

    <Data>4d5ef1f5-01ce-481e-a094-258543864bbb</Data>

    <Data>

    </Data>

    <Data>

    </Data>

  </EventData>

</Event>

Answer 1

Ah, it seems I managed to solve the problem myself. Apparently when doing the update of my Comodo firewall it included some nifty program called Internet Security Essentials. Deinstalling the culprit immediately solved the problem.

Still, I'm not reassured by System Restore not restoring my system. I guess I'll just ignore that things don't work like I assume they should work...