Solved Windows 8.1 explorer.exe suddenly crashing about every 2hr

eric7166

New Member
Messages
7
Ever since March 12th, 6pm, explorer.exe on my Windows 8.1 computer has been crashing about every 2 hours (or occasionally longer). I first explored the event logs, and found that every crash has (approximately) the same crash log. Here is the first:

Code:
Log Name:      Application
Source:        Application Hang
Date:          3/12/2015 6:05:59 PM
Event ID:      1002
Task Category: (101)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Eric-PC
Description:
The program Explorer.EXE version 6.3.9600.17667 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Action Center control panel.
 Process ID: 1624
 Start Time: 01d05cde63b1f5e1
 Termination Time: 0
 Application Path: C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
 Report Id: 897de8e2-c914-11e4-8277-74d435e7fd44
 Faulting package full name: 
 Faulting package-relative application ID: 


Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Application Hang" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">1002</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>101</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2015-03-13T00:05:59.000000000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>20872</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>Eric-PC</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>Explorer.EXE</Data>
    <Data>6.3.9600.17667</Data>
    <Data>1624</Data>
    <Data>01d05cde63b1f5e1</Data>
    <Data>0</Data>
    <Data>C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE</Data>
    <Data>897de8e2-c914-11e4-8277-74d435e7fd44</Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Binary>55006E006B006E006F0077006E0000000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
</Event>

A few of the <Data> fields change, as well as the timestamps, and the <Binary> field maps to "U.n.k.n.o.w.n.....". Also, sometimes "explorer.exe" is in all lowercase, sometimes not.

Prior to each crash, explorer.exe's CPU usage will go up to about 15% every time I interact with the taskbar, then go back down to zero if I do nothing (and back up to 15% on the next click, etc.), until eventually it hangs. It's worth noting that even when the taskbar hangs, I can still use any open Explorer windows just fine, until the actual crash.

I went back through my installed programs to see if anything had been installed recently. My previous restore point was for March 8th, so nothing major had been installed after that. I installed the game Cities: Skylines on the 10th of March (and didn't use my computer on the 11th). I hardly think this is related, though.

I also noticed that CCleaner listed "Microsoft OneDrive" as being installed on the 12th, probably via some Windows Update package. I thought this might be related after some Googling which told me that Explorer crashes are usually caused by shell scripts. I attempted to perform an uninstall via CCleaner, but it seems that it just removed it from the list. It didn't give me an uninstall prompt, but the OneDrive entry is now missing from the list of installed programs.

None of my storage drives are full, and I haven't been over 50% memory usage or anything to cause that kind of crash.

Is it possible that OneDrive is causing this? How can I check for sure? And if not, how do I figure out what is causing this so I can fix it?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Memory
    32 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2x nVidia GTX 760 SLI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    3
I think there is a whole range of things that could be causing your problem. Have you tried running any diagnostics like the sfc /scannow file checker? If not I would do so with Adm. Cmd. Prompt.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1 64, LT -Windows 10 Home 64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP 500-075 Desktop + HP 15-f018dx Laptop
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2 GHz Quad Core/ LT - i3-4030U 1.9 GHz
    Motherboard
    Foxcon Joshua-H61-uATX
    Memory
    8 GB/ LT - 6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD (DX10.1)
    Sound Card
    Integrated IDT 92HD73E
    Hard Drives
    1T HDD, 16G Sandisk Cache Drive, 2T Seagate 3.0 External
    Keyboard
    Wireless
    Mouse
    Wireless
    Browser
    IE11
    Antivirus
    Norton 360
    Other Info
    CyberPower UPS, Macrium Backup, Revo Pro, Malwarebytes Premium
I think there is a whole range of things that could be causing your problem. Have you tried running any diagnostics like the sfc /scannow file checker? If not I would do so with Adm. Cmd. Prompt.

Thanks for the suggestion, gator. I also forgot to mention that I ran chkdsk on all my discs (even an external), and found nothing.

When I went to run sfc, it told me that there was a repair pending, and to reboot. I did so, then ran it again, and it says:

Code:
C:\Windows\system32>sfc /scannow


Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.


Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.


Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

However, I just had another hang/crash. (That's why it took so long to get back to you, had to get home and wait for it to happen again.)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Memory
    32 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2x nVidia GTX 760 SLI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    3
I am still experiencing this issue.

I attempted to use ShellExView to see if any shell extensions had been added or updated around the time the crashing started (March 10-12). There were no non-Microsoft extensions, but several (maybe 30?) Microsoft extensions were updated at this time.

I have been using ProcMon to attempt to get some verbose data on the issue, but with little luck. I ran it last night prior to a crash at 11:11:49pm. There were no explorer.exe events, however, between 11:11:43 and 11:11:49.6. The ones prior to :43 seem benign enough (very similar to other events that occur during non-crashy periods). I have made a truncated version of the logs and put it on Pastebin: ProcMon listing for 1min before Explorer.EXE hang - Pastebin.com

Barring any major suggestions or developments, I will run ProcMon again tonight on all events (not just explorer.exe), especially since occasionally other applications will crash with it (but not always). I will also possibly try to get a crash/hang dump from ProcExplorer if possible.

I am still open to any suggestions or insights anyone might have.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Memory
    32 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2x nVidia GTX 760 SLI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    3
Tick this option to see, if it helps.
 

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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1.1 Pro x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo E525
    CPU
    AMD A4-3300M @ 2,0GHz
    Memory
    6GB DDR3 1333MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon HD 6480G 512MB shared
    Sound Card
    Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    WD 465GB
    Cooling
    Fusion Tweaker
    Keyboard
    Logitech K360
    Mouse
    Logitech M705
    Internet Speed
    50/50 MBps
    Browser
    Yandex
    Antivirus
    No AV & No Firewall
    Other Info
    Headphones: Sennheiser RS170
Tick this option to see, if it helps.
Thanks for the suggestion!

This does nicely keep my file browser open when the crash happens, so I thank you for that. However, it has not stopped the crash from actually happening.

Other developments:
I did try disabling all non-Microsoft shell extensions, but to no avail.

Based on the details in the dumps (provided below), I tried disabling AnyDVD on startup. This did not work, either.

I was able to get a WER report, crash dump, and a list of ProcMon events that happened during the crash, but I don't know how useful these are. WER, Crashdump, ProcMon events - Explorer.EXE crash - Pastebin.com (Raw version on a wide screen is easiest to read.)

It might be worth noting that the most reliable way to reproduce the crash is by waiting about at least an hour, then opening the system tray and right clicking on various icons repeatedly. With each click, Explorer gets slower and slower, raising CPU usage (though the menus do come up initially), and eventually it just gets overwhelmed and hangs. (Perhaps caused by some slow shell process that Explorer is calling?)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Memory
    32 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2x nVidia GTX 760 SLI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    3
Do you use a Japanese or Korean IME by any chance?

I had the exact same problem you are describing. In my case, it was caused by a side effect of the KB3033889 security update released March 10, 2015. The explorer crash only seems to affect computers with Japanese/Korean IMEs.

The issue is fixed by uninstalling
KB3033889 (not recommended), or using the following hotfix: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3048778

More information (Japanese): 2015å¹´3æ

I hope this helps. This issue drove me crazy for the past week.

Thanks for the update, Microsoft.
kNNSu.gif
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 64-bit
Do you use a Japanese or Korean IME by any chance?

I do, yes. The Google Japanese IME. This could easily be the problem; it would explain why I found few threads about this--I was searching in English only, and not many people using those IMEs would post their issue in English.

I have applied the hotfix you provided and will see soon enough whether it worked or not.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Memory
    32 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2x nVidia GTX 760 SLI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    3
Unfortunately, as much as I wish that had fixed it (it really seemed to be the right answer...) I just experienced another crash with the same symptoms (after installing the hotfix and later rebooting manually).

I may attempt uninstalling KB3033889 in lieu of any other suggestions, or perhaps just uninstalling my IME temporarily.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Memory
    32 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2x nVidia GTX 760 SLI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    3
I'm surpised that didn't work.

Just to be certain: you extracted the hotfix and executed Windows8.1-KB3048778-x64.msu, correct?
You might also try disabling fast startup in Power Options, and perform a full, complete shutdown and restart.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 64-bit
I'm surpised that didn't work.

Just to be certain: you extracted the hotfix and executed Windows8.1-KB3048778-x64.msu, correct?
You might also try disabling fast startup in Power Options, and perform a full, complete shutdown and restart.

Yup, that's what I did.

I may try the fast boot disabling to see if the hot fix worked, but, in the end, uninstalling the Google Japanese IME worked. I didn't experience any crashing yesterday after doing so. Perhaps the hotfix doesn't work for the Google IME?

Either way, this is solved now. Big thanks to @WeakTea! I may post back here if I ever get the IME and Explorer working in harmony again.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Memory
    32 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2x nVidia GTX 760 SLI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    3
Perhaps the hotfix doesn't work for the Google IME?
For what it's worth, I also use the Google Japanese IME extensively, but I've had zero crashes since applying the hotfix. So it should be possible to get them working together again.

At any rate, I'm glad you found a workable solution. This was a nasty issue, very difficult to diagnose.

それじゃ、またね。
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 64-bit
Hi our company had same problem and there are like 30 PCs util today I noticed all have chinese(sogou) input installed, I'm testing if this hotfix works for chinese IME. My pc has also chinese input (google pinyin), but it is not affected, seems the KB3033889 only affect certain input methods softwares
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    win8.1 pro
The current hotfix only mentions Japanese and Korean IMEs, so if it doesn't work, you should probably ask Microsoft for a new fix. If this problem affects Japanese, Korean, and Chinese IMEs, that's potentially millions of affected PCs.

Good luck!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 64-bit
The current hotfix only mentions Japanese and Korean IMEs, so if it doesn't work, you should probably ask Microsoft for a new fix. If this problem affects Japanese, Korean, and Chinese IMEs, that's potentially millions of affected PCs.

Good luck!

logic behind Chinese/korean/Japanese input are the same, I tested the hotfix, indeed fixed the problem, it's been 48 hours withou a crash!

thanks
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    win8.1 pro
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