Desktop Window Manager Crashing

Question

So my desktop window manager has started to crash recently, since 28/09/22, which causes the whole display to freeze.

There appears to be no pattern that I can see in regards to what causes these crashes - will happen if PC is at load or is not at load.

The display will freeze, but from the sounds of it I can still interact with what was on the screen before - I can still communicate over discord, pause and play videos (obviously without the picture moving).

From reliability monitor, its definitely the desktop manager, and when I had TPM enabled on my motherboard the majoirty of the time after having to manually turn off the PC I would just get a black screen - would not see the motherboard manufacture BIOS options come up on start up - this has been resolved by turning off TPM on the board, but unsure if connected.

Technical details from the crash from reliability monitor:

Faulting Application Path: C:\Windows\System32\dwm.exe

Problem signature Problem Event Name: APPCRASH Application Name: dwm.exe Application Version: 10.0.19041.746 Application Timestamp: 6be51595 Fault Module Name: KERNELBASE.dll Fault Module Version: 10.0.19041.1949 Fault Module Timestamp: cb12e58e Exception Code: e0464645 Exception Offset: 000000000010fb62 OS Version: 10.0.19044.2.0.0.768.101 Locale ID: 2057 Additional Information 1: 0503 Additional Information 2: 05038a8d0f1df7d435a57df411af2cff Additional Information 3: d873 Additional Information 4: d873c6787f272f1f90e329bfd1acc459

Extra information about the problem Bucket ID: bc24927cd232cbc8acbd13b5571050c3 (2070833073230991555)

I have ensured that all drivers are up to date, windows is up to date (Version 10.0.19044 Build 19044)

Is there going to be anything I can do to resolve this short of reinstalling windows in the entirety?

Answer 1

Here is a "summary" of the error:

dwmcore!MilFailFastForHR+69

There are some similarities to the error in the following link;

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/237700/dwm-crashing-randomly-causing-black-screen.html

In that link it was suggested that the weight of modern GPUs can be problematic and that re-seating the GPU may help.

Something you could consider.

Answer 2

That's great. Thanks for the follow-up.

Answer 3

Evening,

dwm crashed again, google drive link to view the crashdump:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1n8l58K148mLAzpaB-B0OkWz3RxYSX6Rb?usp=sharing

Answer 4

Hi,

Thanks for you reply,

Since adding that Registry file touch wood I've not had it crash with the same error - I can see in reliability monitor that there has been a couple of windows updates, and not had the same issue since.

I have had a couple of blue screens around the same time:

Stop code: VIDEO TDR FAILURE.

What failed: nvlddmkm.sys

Unsure if that is related or not?

I also cannot find that C:\CrashDumps folder - I assume this would be created as soon as the same error occurs regarding the dwm.exe crash?

Answer 5

Hi,

I might suggest capturing a user mode dump of the crash which will give the most 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 dwm.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\dwm.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 dwm.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\dwm.exe]

You can delete the C:\CrashDumps folder anytime.