Solved After a while, no icons in Explorer, and right-click hangs the window

vilrockerdefer

New Member
Messages
5
Hello,

Well, the title is pretty much self-explanatory.

I use 8 Pro Build 9200. When I boot, everything is normal. Then, after a while, usually a dozen minutes, whenever I open a folder in Explorer, no file icons will be shown, whatever the file type : I only get a blank generic rectangle instead of the proprer icon.

When this happens, I can be totally sure that any right-clicking on a file or a folder will result in the windows hanging indefinately. The only way out of this is to end the task through Task Manager.

The layout and folder options become unavailable as well.

Any help would be greatly appeciated !

Thanks a lot.

Fred
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8
Hello Fred, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Where did you get your copy of Windows 8 from? If it started doing this after a clean install, then you may have a bad copy.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
Hello,

The problem was not there just after install, or at least I didn't notice it.

I forgot to mention that if I close the explorer windows through task manager, if I open a new explorer window, the problem will still be there. I will be able to browse files and left-click but nothing else.

I have Adobe Master Collection CS6 installed, Pot Player x64, Nikon Raw Codec... Office 2010 as well.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8
You might see if you may be able to do a system restore using a restore point (if available) dated before this started to hopefully undo and fix this.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
Does the problem go away if you log off, or do you have to reboot to resolve the issue? The behavior sounds an awful lot like a memory leak, but the question is, is it kernel pool or is it desktop heap? Knowing what the problem resolution is will help in determining where the issue might be.

It could be something else too, but something with that sort of problem description sounds an awful lot like a memory leak.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.5GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus Maximus Hero VII
    Memory
    32GB DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce GTX970
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Hard Drives
    1x Samsung 250GB SSD
    4x WD RE 2TB (RAIDZ)
    PSU
    Corsair AX760i
    Case
    Fractal Design Define R4
    Cooling
    Noctua NH-D15
Hello again,

I took my time to answer because I thaught the issue had disappeared and I wanted to be completely sure before answering. In fact, it had not.

Just to clear it out, a logout/login is enough to resolve the issue.

A bit short of ideas, I decided to change my theme from "high contrast" to a more standard one. For two days, the problem didn't happen.

Then, today, I launched Premiere pro, navigated through folders inside the software, with lots of thumbnails, accessed folders through explorer, and... same problem again.

During the two days when this problem didn't happen, I had some "com surrogate stopped working" errors, which I always regularly have but with no apparent consequences. Usually I don't give them importance and just close the window. But I noticed that, before closing those windows, my main problem happens as well : no effective right-clicking in explorer, only hourglass pointer. But when I closed the "com surrogate" error window, everything was back to normal.

The main problem has happened only once, this time without "com surrogate", with no cure except login off/on, in the last two days. But it is still there !

Thanks a lot.
Fred
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8
I also have to state that in the event viewer I noticed I had quite a lot of these errors with ntdll :

Faulting application name: DllHost.exe, version: 6.2.9200.16384, time stamp: 0x5010888a
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.2.9200.16384, time stamp: 0x5010ae7a
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x000da947
Faulting process id: 0x814
Faulting application start time: 0x01cd967653eefbc8
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\DllHost.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 91afa9cf-0269-11e2-beaa-50e549cee030
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8
Error code 0xc0000374 is indicative of heap corruption, so you do have something corrupting at least the dllhost.exe's process heap memory (likely), and it's likely related to your problem. I'd start by removing (uninstalling) any applications you may have installed that would have added shell extensions or right-click menu options, and seeing if that helped. Note you can see installed shell extensions pretty easily with ShellExView. This does appear to be a memory (well, virtual address space, not RAM) issue ;).
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.5GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus Maximus Hero VII
    Memory
    32GB DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce GTX970
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Hard Drives
    1x Samsung 250GB SSD
    4x WD RE 2TB (RAIDZ)
    PSU
    Corsair AX760i
    Case
    Fractal Design Define R4
    Cooling
    Noctua NH-D15
Icons in my VM installation before my HDD install did disappear, at least the libraries icons. A re-install was all that was needed!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro, iOS 7.1, Elementary OS
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Apple
    Memory
    1 GB
    Screen Resolution
    2048x1536
    Other Info
    iPad Air
After installing Shellexview and discovering that while Winamp had modified shell shortcuts it did not appear in shellexview, I thought maybe it was faulty. But it didn't solve my problem, so I proceeded with uninstalling other applications that had modified the shell.

My next try was to uninstall Acronis True Image 2013, and that did the trick !

Now my Windows 8 doesn't feel like pre-alpha anymore !

Thanks to all.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8
After installing Shellexview and discovering that while Winamp had modified shell shortcuts it did not appear in shellexview, I thought maybe it was faulty. But it didn't solve my problem, so I proceeded with uninstalling other applications that had modified the shell.

My next try was to uninstall Acronis True Image 2013, and that did the trick !

Now my Windows 8 doesn't feel like pre-alpha anymore !

Thanks to all.

I had the same problem and had to reboot each time. I also had Acronis 2013 installed in my system so I hope your finding will really fix the problem. Thanks
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
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