Windows explorer crashes when interacting with sidebar items

Question

I installed an additional HDD in my PC since I was running out of storage space. System seemed to function well at first, but now when I try to right-click-interact (so right-click, then select e.g. "Properties") with any of the sidebar items (e.g. the pinned "Desktop" symbol), the explorer.exe crashes. This happens on all folder links in the sidebar, however, not on drives and not at all if I use the main explorer window.

The error log spits out this message (since this machine is a horrible accident between English and German language options, some items had to be freely translated. Those were marked like this):

Description

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

Problem signature

Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH

Application Name:    explorer.exe

Application Version:    10.0.19041.662

Application Timestamp:    996782f8

Fault Module Name:    shcore.dll

Fault Module Version:    10.0.19041.662

Fault Module Timestamp:    23b8798e

Exception Code:    c0000005

Exception Offset:    000000000002aa07

Operating system version:    10.0.19041.2.0.0.256.48

Gebietsschema-ID:    ****

Additional Information 1:    4a20

Additional Information 2:    4a20a91f4eb1528a871337000c2fc874

Additional Information 3:    3dcf

Additional Information 4:    3dcf8a3c94c9a8a9152456c6dffe42d1

Extra information about the problem

Bucket ID:    b2a5d3c81cc0a1bec036a95fc5774cfc (1168307382149139708)

This may not be related, but Windows Update has also seized to function, simply giving an "Error encountered" message but, as far as I can make out, not showing up in the error log. As is to be expected, the Troubleshooter could not fix the issue.

I scanned all three drives (C, E, F) three times using sfc /scannow from the admin cmd, with no integrity violations found. I am currently running a full scan using Bitdefender Total Security, but since nothing was downloaded in the timeframe, i doubt it will find anything. I will still update the post once it has finished (which will take a while considering 3 TB of 7200 rpm HDD).

Since this may be of interest, the system is split up between a 256 GB NVMe M.2 serving as the C:/ drive and a 1 TB HDD where larger programs are installed. Some user folders like Videos and Pictures were also 'outsourced' there due to the M.2s limited size, though those seem to have reset for some reason.

Answer 1

To read the .dmp files you could try opening them with the WinDbg Preview available from the Windows Store.

Looking at the stack of the error the module most likely causing the crash is the atcuf64.dll :

00000000183ee8b0 0000000000000010 : 00000000183eebd0 0000000000000000 00007ffec1ca6275 0000000000000064 : atcuf64+0x2f944

The atcuf64.dll is a Bitdefender module.

Two other third party modules were also referenced in the crash, the nvwgf2umx_cfg.dll and the log.dll:

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for nvwgf2umx_cfg.dll

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for log.dll

The log.dll is also a Bitdefender module.

The nvwgf2umx_cfg.dll is a component of the NVIDIA graphics driver.

What I might suggest is to uninstall Bitdefender and see if the errors resolve.

Afterwards you could reinstall Bitdefender using the latest version.

Answer 2

Generated the .dmp files, but I can't read them using WhoCrashed (I changed some registry words trying to get it to work, but that's not working). Anyway, ->here<-'s the first file with no modifications yet done.

Answer 3

Hi,

I might suggest to try to obtain a user mode dump to get more information on the crash.

You can configure Windows to create user-mode dumps. Create a System Restore Point first.

If you copy and paste the following in Notepad and save as a .reg file (save with the .reg extension and give it any name such as dump.reg), then right-click the .reg file and select "Merge" to add to the registry, a .dmp file at the time explorer.exe crashes should be created in the C:\CrashDumps folder:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\explorer.exe]

"DumpFolder"=hex(2):43,00,3a,00,5c,00,43,00,72,00,61,00,73,00,68,00,44,00,75,\

00,6d,00,70,00,73,00,00,00

After Explorer (explorer.exe) crashes, can you then make the .dmp file available (provide link) via a public folder on OneDrive or similar site?

Here's a link on using OneDrive:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/onedrive/sha...

More info on collecting user-mode dumps:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb787181(VS.85).aspx

To stop the creation of the user mode dump files run the following registry file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\explorer.exe]

You can delete the C:\CrashDumps folder anytime.