Win 10 Pro (PC): Explorer.exe keeps crashing / freezing while playing games.

[fatalframe]

I do not know what exactly causes it but after playing certain games the screen remains black (without a mouse cursor) and the only solution at first appeared to be to reboot the system. So this truly seemed to be a black screen of death. Sadly there is no log file for this (despite a critical error message in the Event viewer stating that the OS was restarted unexpectedly..... which comes as little surprise considering I had to reboot the PC manually to get the screen back). Sadly there are no entries of the explorer.exe crashing (or freezing) itself so I'm absolutely in the dark regarding what causes it.

I had similar issues under Windows 8.1 where the explorer.exe (the executable for the file explorer) was to blame as well. As a matter of fact this is a reason why I switched to Windows 10 as I had hoped it would solve the issue (after I had scanned the system files while still using Win 8.1. and having been informed that some system files were corrupted). Sadly switching to Windows 10 did not fix this. I even did a clean install after first upgrading (i.e. formatting the hard drive and then installing the OS) so at least at that point there can't have been any corrupted system files there (and I've also done a scan in the meantime which came up with no file integrity issues).

I have meanwhile discovered that manually disconnecting the display from the graphics card and then re-attaching it gives me the mouse cursor back which in turn enables me to re-enable explorer.exe which is indeed the culprit here - as I had suspected

As this is no classical BSOD I have sadly no memory dump file to provide additional information. I have an i7 4770K and a MSI GTX 980 Twin Frozr with 4GB Ram and 8 GB RAM. To the best of my knowledge I have updated drivers for all peripherals. What strikes me as odd is that it doesn't happen for every game and sometimes the mouse cursor will vanish ingame preceding the blackout (the game continues to run, I just don't have a mouse cursor anymore and when I exit the game the screen is black).

Also I found it pretty much shocking when a tech support guy from microsoft today suggested that I should ask the community as they - and I am quoting now - did not have enough experience with Windows 10 yet. I really find this shocking coming from a tech support guy working for the very company who developed this masterpiece. So here I am hoping that one of you might have an idea. The only "solution" he could offer was to send me an outdated link from 2014 for one of the beta builds that did not even contain a viable download link. So here I am hoping that one of ya might have an idea.. If you need additional information I might actually be able to provide (as I said: there is no memory dump as the PC doesn't technically "crash" please do let me know. The explorer.exe simply "freezes up"

 

[fatalframe]

updated with a hopefully more helpful informational post at the bottom of this thread

 

[fatalframe]

Ok so noone else with this problem. Thanks for nothing I suppose. Sorry if I sound a bit agitated but I was led to believe (when signing up) that ppl would actually try to help. And with more than 150 reads and zero responses this is kind of disappointing. Not even the usual "this has already been discussed in thread xyz" which you most commonly get on these forums.

 

[6029KingStephen]

I guess it means no one has a solution to the problem, and probably no one here has come across the same thing. It's a good community, and at least 150 people have thought to try and help you, but I guess now you're waiting on a bug fix from Microsoft. If you haven't done so, report it via their feedback site. Then it should get looked at and escalated.

 

[fatalframe]

I could point you to another thread where a user reported the exact same issue (on this forum) and if you look up the term "explorer.exe windows 10" on google you will get numerous hits as well so rest assured that I'm not alone in this. My personal theory is that my initial post was simply too long (and that ppl lost interest and that is why I got no response). At least the other thread where another user basically posted the same problem was much shorter and received 5 replies (even though there was no solution among them).

In any event, thanks for taking the time to respond 6029KingStephen

 

[jmshub]

Attitude will not help. We have a lot of smart and enthusiastic users on this message board, but it is still a fan community. I am an IT support admin, and I would like to help, but I don't have any insight on this matter, I'm sorry to say.

For the record, lengthy posts with a lot of detail is much prefered to "Windows crashes, please help" post. The variety of configurations for a Windows PC is vast, even Microsoft cannot even scratch the surface of possible software and hardware configurations for a system.

The only possible thing I would think to try at this point is a clean install of Windows 10. That may fix the problem, or you may find the cause of the error if a driver bombs during installation.

 

[NaNoo123]

It's not that surprising MS support doesn't know, they made win10, but the amount of different configurations, multiplied by the amount of different games, only so much they are going to know couple days after release.
I probably didn't see it, but did you mention which games work and which didn't, searching on game and win 10 may help to see if its the game that has compatibility problems, and if any one had found a fix yet.

 

[fatalframe]

Thx for the input. I believe everyone will understand my agitation as far as this issue is concerned. I did a clean install (as I wrote in my first post) which obviously did exactly nothing. But I've been working on obtaining more information all day. I'm not sure if this will help after some lengthy struggle with the debugger I could glean the following information (probably far more usable than the file I posted further above (from the explorer.exe dump file created before manually restarting it):


User Mini Dump File with Full Memory: Only application data is available

WARNING: Minidump contains unknown stream type 0x15
WARNING: Minidump contains unknown stream type 0x16

************* Symbol Path validation summary **************
Response Time (ms) Location
Deferred srv*

************* Symbol Path validation summary **************
Response Time (ms) Location
Deferred srv*
Symbol search path is: srv*
Executable search path is: srv*
Windows 10 Version 10240 MP (8 procs) Free x64
Product: WinNt, suite: SingleUserTS
Built by: 10.0.10240.16384 (th1.150709-1700)
Machine Name:
Debug session time: Fri Jul 31 22:56:11.000 2015 (UTC + 2:00)
System Uptime: 0 days 1:23:30.735
Process Uptime: 0 days 1:23:11.000
FAULTING_IP:
+0
00000000`00000000 ?? ???

EXCEPTION_RECORD: (.exr -1)
ExceptionAddress: 0000000000000000
ExceptionCode: 80000003 (Break instruction exception)
ExceptionFlags: 00000000
NumberParameters: 0

FAULTING_THREAD: 000010dc

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: STATUS_BREAKPOINT

PROCESS_NAME: explorer.exe

ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0x80000003 - {EXCEPTION} Breakpoint A breakpoint has been reached.

EXCEPTION_CODE: (HRESULT) 0x80000003 (2147483651) - One or more arguments are invalid

NTGLOBALFLAG: 0

APPLICATION_VERIFIER_FLAGS: 0

APP: explorer.exe

ANALYSIS_VERSION: 10.0.10240.9 x86fre

BUGCHECK_STR: STATUS_BREAKPOINT

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 00007ffe4be3fe44 to 00007ffe4b77fd1a

STACK_TEXT:
00000000`007ff7b8 00007ffe`4be3fe44 : 00000000`00a5c350 00000000`007ff830 00000000`00000000 00000000`00a5c350 : user32!NtUserWaitMessage+0xa
00000000`007ff7c0 00007ffe`4be5e739 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00a46370 00000000`00a46370 00000000`00000001 : shell32!CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop+0x74
00000000`007ff860 00007ff7`1d6c6724 : 00000000`00002000 00000000`00000626 00007ffe`30c3d1d0 00000000`00a46370 : shell32!SHDesktopMessageLoop+0x39
00000000`007ff890 00007ff7`1d6ff3f6 : 00007ff7`1d829260 00007ff7`1d829260 00000000`0000001f 00000000`00000001 : explorer!wWinMain+0x6d8
00000000`007ffbb0 00007ffe`4bc72d92 : 00007ff7`1d6ff4a0 00007ff7`1cfe8000 00007ff7`1cfe8000 00000000`00000000 : explorer!std::_Xout_of_range+0x33a
00000000`007ffc80 00007ffe`4d839f64 : 00007ffe`4bc72d70 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0x22
00000000`007ffcb0 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+0x34


STACK_COMMAND: ~0s; .ecxr ; kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
shell32!CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop+74
00007ffe`4be3fe44 ebda jmp shell32!CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop+0x50 (00007ffe`4be3fe20)

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 1

SYMBOL_NAME: shell32!CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop+74

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: shell32

IMAGE_NAME: shell32.dll

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 55b45c44

BUCKET_ID: STATUS_BREAKPOINT_shell32!CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop+74

PRIMARY_PROBLEM_CLASS: STATUS_BREAKPOINT_shell32!CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop+74

FAILURE_PROBLEM_CLASS: STATUS_BREAKPOINT

FAILURE_EXCEPTION_CODE: 80000003

FAILURE_IMAGE_NAME: shell32.dll

FAILURE_FUNCTION_NAME: CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop

FAILURE_SYMBOL_NAME: shell32.dll!CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: STATUS_BREAKPOINT_80000003_shell32.dll!CDesktopBrowser::_MessageLoop

ANALYSIS_SOURCE: UM

FAILURE_ID_HASH_STRING: um:status_breakpoint_80000003_shell32.dll!cdesktopbrowser::_messageloop

FAILURE_ID_HASH: {b4729fe5-4bd8-cefc-0fc2-c7f1764c9f16}

Followup: MachineOwner
---------



Any programmers around?

 

[Joel Robinett]

I was able to resolve this.
Right click on start and go to system
Then go to advanced tab
Then click on settings under performance
Select adjust for best performance.
apply, ok

 

[StaticXCC]

I was able to resolve this.
Right click on start and go to system
Then go to advanced tab
Then click on settings under performance
Select adjust for best performance.
apply, ok

Are you the OP?

For the record, I smell a hardware fault somewhere, perhaps bad Ram. I would run a Memtest and a Motherboard stress tester to find a fault somewhere. Almost always weird problems like that that occur even directly after a clean install/reformat have a hardware basis for the problem.

 

[Maxime Robinson]

I do not know what exactly causes it but after playing certain games the screen remains black (without a mouse cursor) and the only solution at first appeared to be to reboot the system. So this truly seemed to be a black screen of death. Sadly there is no log file for this (despite a critical error message in the Event viewer stating that the OS was restarted unexpectedly..... which comes as little surprise considering I had to reboot the PC manually to get the screen back). Sadly there are no entries of the explorer.exe crashing (or freezing) itself so I'm absolutely in the dark regarding what causes it.

I had similar issues under Windows 8.1 where the explorer.exe (the executable for the file explorer) was to blame as well. As a matter of fact this is a reason why I switched to Windows 10 as I had hoped it would solve the issue (after I had scanned the system files while still using Win 8.1. and having been informed that some system files were corrupted). Sadly switching to Windows 10 did not fix this. I even did a clean install after first upgrading (i.e. formatting the hard drive and then installing the OS) so at least at that point there can't have been any corrupted system files there (and I've also done a scan in the meantime which came up with no file integrity issues).

I have meanwhile discovered that manually disconnecting the display from the graphics card and then re-attaching it gives me the mouse cursor back which in turn enables me to re-enable explorer.exe which is indeed the culprit here - as I had suspected

As this is no classical BSOD I have sadly no memory dump file to provide additional information. I have an i7 4770K and a MSI GTX 980 Twin Frozr with 4GB Ram and 8 GB RAM. To the best of my knowledge I have updated drivers for all peripherals. What strikes me as odd is that it doesn't happen for every game and sometimes the mouse cursor will vanish ingame preceding the blackout (the game continues to run, I just don't have a mouse cursor anymore and when I exit the game the screen is black).

Also I found it pretty much shocking when a tech support guy from microsoft today suggested that I should ask the community as they - and I am quoting now - did not have enough experience with Windows 10 yet. I really find this shocking coming from a tech support guy working for the very company who developed this masterpiece. So here I am hoping that one of you might have an idea. The only "solution" he could offer was to send me an outdated link from 2014 for one of the beta builds that did not even contain a viable download link. So here I am hoping that one of ya might have an idea.. If you need additional information I might actually be able to provide (as I said: there is no memory dump as the PC doesn't technically "crash" please do let me know. The explorer.exe simply "freezes up"

 

[Maxime Robinson]

I do not know what exactly causes it but after playing certain games the screen remains black (without a mouse cursor) and the only solution at first appeared to be to reboot the system. So this truly seemed to be a black screen of death. Sadly there is no log file for this (despite a critical error message in the Event viewer stating that the OS was restarted unexpectedly..... which comes as little surprise considering I had to reboot the PC manually to get the screen back). Sadly there are no entries of the explorer.exe crashing (or freezing) itself so I'm absolutely in the dark regarding what causes it.

I had similar issues under Windows 8.1 where the explorer.exe (the executable for the file explorer) was to blame as well. As a matter of fact this is a reason why I switched to Windows 10 as I had hoped it would solve the issue (after I had scanned the system files while still using Win 8.1. and having been informed that some system files were corrupted). Sadly switching to Windows 10 did not fix this. I even did a clean install after first upgrading (i.e. formatting the hard drive and then installing the OS) so at least at that point there can't have been any corrupted system files there (and I've also done a scan in the meantime which came up with no file integrity issues).

I have meanwhile discovered that manually disconnecting the display from the graphics card and then re-attaching it gives me the mouse cursor back which in turn enables me to re-enable explorer.exe which is indeed the culprit here - as I had suspected

As this is no classical BSOD I have sadly no memory dump file to provide additional information. I have an i7 4770K and a MSI GTX 980 Twin Frozr with 4GB Ram and 8 GB RAM. To the best of my knowledge I have updated drivers for all peripherals. What strikes me as odd is that it doesn't happen for every game and sometimes the mouse cursor will vanish ingame preceding the blackout (the game continues to run, I just don't have a mouse cursor anymore and when I exit the game the screen is black).

Also I found it pretty much shocking when a tech support guy from microsoft today suggested that I should ask the community as they - and I am quoting now - did not have enough experience with Windows 10 yet. I really find this shocking coming from a tech support guy working for the very company who developed this masterpiece. So here I am hoping that one of you might have an idea. The only "solution" he could offer was to send me an outdated link from 2014 for one of the beta builds that did not even contain a viable download link. So here I am hoping that one of ya might have an idea.. If you need additional information I might actually be able to provide (as I said: there is no memory dump as the PC doesn't technically "crash" please do let me know. The explorer.exe simply "freezes up"

Im having a similar problem, explorer keep crashing for no reasons and its corrupting some files .. Im wondering if its a hard drive default cuz i did a clean install a few weeks ago