True Image 10 - Explorer.exe Errors

True Image 10 - Explorer.exe Errors

I've read through the forums and have seen similar issues but not one that happens exactly like mine. I have True Image 10 on 2 PC's, Windows XP SP-2, both get intermittant explorer.exe shutdowns when I copy copy files. One machine I get a DEP error first then the explorer failure, the other I just get the notice that explorer choked and must be shut down. I de-install True Image and the probelm goes away.... I'll try disabling DEP or changing it's config to not check when explorer runs but that can't be the final fix... Anyone have some suggesions ?

 

Please look in the event log for applications and tell what it says about explorer. Explorer.exe shuts down for reasons yet unknown, to me, but I'd like to compare notes. I haven't attributed it to TI. Why do you think it's TI?

My messages are invariably about explorer.exe, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0., fault address zero usually, but sometimes other values such as 0x02a032dc, 20932dc, 23d32dc, 022932dc, 024132dc...
With it is often, but not always, paired a Fault bucket with varying numbers, all over the place, 321876764, 00000009, 318097235 and others.

My image backups work fine, except one I did from Windows just the other day stopped with 2minutes to go with 70020 error which in the event log says
<indent>Image corrupted (0x70020)
Tag = 0x82DB9339B70C3AFC</indent>.

Usually Windows backup works, as does the one made using the Linux CD. I suspect this as an isolated failure, but maybe not.

 

Explorer shut downs:
Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.2180, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x0236a5b0.

Another at: 0x0243a5b0
Another at: 0x013ea5b0

Only a few paired with fault bucket, one was 146208958.

I remove TI and problems go away. Something else may have started the problem but it sure is very frequent with TI installed.....

 

I'm still testing things but I may have been hasty in thinking True Image was the major culprit. However, when TI is installed I am more likely to have the problem. I de-install TI and the occurence of problems diminishes (on two different machines). I restored my systems from backups I made with my original imaging software (before TI). Then cleaned up some things, reinstalled TI and the systems are behaving normaly. My conclusion is: A few corrupt files + frequent use of a portable USB HardDrive = an occasional problem with explorer.exe errors / shutting down. Add TI-10 and I was experiencing many explorer.exe issues. One of these days, Microsoft will create error messages that actualy tell you what went wrong or not tell you "explorer had to shut down, but don't worry about it".....).

 

Splendid. Thanks. The reason I wasn't too quick to fault TI was quite simple.
Those errors started before I got TI.
It's an interesting experiment you did about how those things add up.

I didn't want to lead you on, so I did not write about my mental connection to "frequent use of portable USB drive". I frequently use flash USB, and for backups, a hard drive USB, normally disconnected.

Unquestionably, when USB flash comes in I see increase in frequency.
I also see more frequent error when I close several explorer windows quickly and hop into something other such as Outlook or IE. Opposite is true as well. Close Outlook or IE, Word or Excel, hop into explorer, booom!

I would think that a message "module unknown" implies some transient state - something already closed or something hasn't yet started, never-never land.

My reading of Bill Gates' message is "Explorer encountered an error, has to shut down, do not worry a bit, but give us permission to get a complete memory dump so we can see what you're doing and when we feel like it we might try to debug and issue a patch to a previous patch and a previous one as well ..."

Yes, I have restored computer, all patched etc. Yes, 8 hour MEMTEST of 1gig RAM shows ZERO errors.

I suspect this thread is now off-topic. Somewhat.
But I also think it would be nice if Acronis (or experts of this site) could contribute any knowledge they have, as your observation of some frequency increase is an interesting one.

 

have a look at this thread still awaiting reply from ACRONIS

Code:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=156001

 

You guys have hit several nails on the head.... My latest conclusion is that things get worse with IE7, DEP, USB swapping, fast movement between explorer activities or long / complicated file / folder copies, CTFMon with advanced text services, True Image, toss a few corrupt files around and bang........ Start removing some of those things and the frequncy of explorer crashes diminishes. TI is in the mix but I cannot point my finger at it and say it's a major culprit. I think MS made the OS a little more mushy with the intro of IE7 and all the gazillion security (duct tape) fixes in the last six months.

 

I see the moderators haven't thrown this thread out yet
For me it's from before IE7,
Perhaps indexing of NTFS drives is a possible culprit.
Copy, Paste, close, file activities in several windows and use of flash just might be connected. My next experiment will be to shut off indexing on the system C drive and watch it for a week or so. I don't really need fast searches that much so that'll be an easy thing to follow up.

DEP is on by default, I believe, and not supposed to conflict with the firewall or AV which I use.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/xpInfoCenter/faq.jsp
But the plot could thicken on things like spyware watchers, etc. Boy, it's all connected and convoluted

 

My problems started around IE7 upgrade. I have an open ticket with Acronis. I can duplicate problem most everytime on several computers. Here's what I do:

1. Open C:\My Documents & copy several folders using explorer
2. Open D:\Temp & paste the folders from My Documents using explorer
3. Close both explorer windows
4. Open C:\My Documents & explorer shuts down with an error

If I do steps 1-3, then open True Image and do an image backup or data backup (My Documents) then True Image gets an error and says it has to shut down. Usualy when explorer shuts down after the error, all is OK except maybe a missing icon or two in the systray. Every once in a while the taskbar will not come back and I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del to Task Manager to shut down / restart.

As far as I'm concerned Acronis has a problem with Trtue Image working with Windows XP-SP2 with IE7. May not be their code causing it but they cannot handle it either......

I have Indexing Service off, DEP off (via boot.ini modification) and system restore off. Problems before turning them off, problems still with them off.

 

I'm now convinced the problem is IE7. I can reproduce my occurance of the problem pretty much whnever I want and I've found a way to work around it about 90% of the time. True Image and other pplications hit the problem as they use Windows XP browsing code to accomplish a lot of their work. The ultimate fix is to de-install IE7 (can be an ugly process) or wait and hope MS fixes their buggy software. So much for automatic updates. You can be assured that feature is now OFFFFFFFFF on my systems.

 

Have you tried a repair of windows?

 

I didnt have IE7 installed so you can rule that out

 

I did not try a windows repair but I recovered my system image from a backup taken a week before the nasty IE7 update. The backup was taken and restored using PowerQuest Drive Image 7. I cannot re-create the explorer.exe problem with file / folder copies while running that image... Said differently, the problem started after the IE7 update. I've never had much luck and have little faith in doing automated OS or application repairs. That's why I create and restore system images.

I also follow a routine of doing system updates:

1. Restore from the last image backup.
2. Apply changes accumulated and tested over a period of time.
3. Create a new image backup and archive it on a seperate hard drive.

When I installed TI, I broke my process of aging major changes befor moving on to others. I had to many things piling up on the "change plate" so I did a bunch of things all in one update, created that backup, then moved on to lots of other changes and a couple backups. before I knew it I was having more and more of the errors....

 

Well, I've been at it as well, but differently.
It still seems to be related to several open windows and, what we've already discussed, copy and paste from/to USB flash or external drives. It can also occur after copy/past window to window. No errors (can we prove the negative? NO!) on drag and drop.

1. I turned off indexing on the system drive. It's not needed. It's a resource hog anyway. Errors diminished, but did not go away completely.

2. After watching Process Explorer from Sysinternals (now at M$), I realized that there is a explorer.exe as a shell, and that new windows weren't adding an instance of explorer. So closing windows was, I think for a moment, creating a situation without the explorer. Hmm! All theory. But a week ago, in Tools > Folder options I turned on "Launch folder windows in a separate process". I thought that this setting would create a mess of multiple instances of explorer. Note "s" in windows. Well, once again, Process explorer negated that theory. It appears just once more, besides the shell.
I haven't seen an error since. but I'll be watching, as it's difficult to prove that something does not happen.

Three TI services continue to run, ZoneAlarm Suite is running, I continue to use IE7, I haven't changed anything other than these two items.

 

Well, I am pretty certain I found my system problems (4 seperate PC's with the same problem). Keep in mind this all started after I installed the IE7 update. Never had the Explorer.exe crash before then....

I downloaded ShellExView from http://www.nirsoft.net/. Turned off all the non-MS shell extensions, restarted system and no problems.... Went back and turned them back on one at a time, each follwed by a system restart and tests. Found one that was causing problems pretty consistantly - Ace utillities. Another sporadic one was Microangelo's Icon editor. For grins, I restored a machine to pre-IE7 update and verified that those shell extensions were on, they were and I had no problems.

I got so fired up after finding this that I went through all the programs with shell extensions loaded (identified them with ShellExView) and found almost all of them had a setup / configuration option to turn on their context menu item via right mouse click in explorer, recycle bin, etc...

I turned them all off, even Winzip. I never use most of the right click menu items anyway...... Now, not only has the explorer crash gone away but explorer is running faster (or am I just projecting that?) and wow I can now read the right click menu in less than an hour because it's so trim....

I got started on this forum because my TI installation put my tollerance for the problem frequency over my frazzle limit. TI was just one of several things that incrementaly made the problem worse. The exercise of finding the root cause of the problem (individual 3rd party shell extensions worked fine for many moons then along came IE7) led me down a trail of performance enhancements that have my machines running like they were when I first configured them...... I found so many ugly little quirks along the way that were pretty easy to resolve. Cumulative tweaks did it.....

I think I'm gonna go play with my dog for a while and not change anything on a computer for a few weeks....

PS: I still have DEP off, will turn that back on in a few days and monitor it. I'm not sure if it's that beneficial with all the Anti-virus, hardware and software firewall protection I have. If it behaves it may be worth having on.... Other resource hogs like MS Office advanced text services, indexing (what a slug), etc. are still off and will remain off....

 

I'm into day 2 without any explorer.exe problems and machines are running well, Computer Management Event Viewer entries are all normal, no cautionary or failure or error notices of any kind for all categories. I did have an error 2 days ago whenever I started one of my systems, Microsoft posted an online update yesterday for Root Certificates, that fixed that problem......

 

Still running without problems on any of my machines. I've also used True Image many times to do drive image backups for all and have begun to trust the program as much as I had PowerQuest Drive Image for 7 years.... No burps, quirks, or issues yet....

 

No issues here either.
I decided, after seeing your post, to NOT use the shellex thing, just as an experiment. Things are looking good on my end. So it could well be that some of these solutions work. Running explorer as a second session cured all those problems for me. Report back in a month or so, I'll do the same. And then we'll tell Microsoft how to fix their errors