Task Manager does not restart File Explorer

[yoshikotsushima]

The Problem

Been having this problem for a while, and it varies, which is incredibly annoying. File explorer, when freezing/crashing, can not be restarted with Task Manager. Whenever I right click on the task and click restart, file explorer closes and does not re open.

I am unable to re open the program using run, nor am I able to use windows+e, or command prompt, or powershell. The only way I can get File Explorer to re-open is either by restarting my machine, or logging out of and back into my account.

The cause of the crash varies; oftentimes, however, it's things like:

• Right clicking on files, internal drives & network drives
• Creating new files
• Renaming files

(This doesn't happen every time I try and perform these operations)

I also have to restart File Explorer every time I boot my computer up. My taskbar doesn't populate until I've unlocked all my drives (which are encrypted with Bitlocker). Often enough, Task Manager doesn't relaunch File Explorer.

Steps I've Taken

• Ran SFC /Scannow multiple times. Fixed corruptions the first time, found no more on repeated attempts.
• Ran DISM (CleanupImage, ScanHealth, RestoreHealth)
• Re installed Windows. (This was a while ago now, however the problem existed before and still exists after the re install)
• Ran multiple virus & malware scans, all clean.

Would appreciate some help, if anyone's able to.

[xAcid9]

Try check Event Viewer for error related to Explorer.exe

[DoctorNick]

8 minutes ago, yoshikotsushima said:

The Problem

Been having this problem for a while, and it varies, which is incredibly annoying. File explorer, when freezing/crashing, can not be restarted with Task Manager. Whenever I right click on the task and click restart, file explorer closes and does not re open.

I am unable to re open the program using run, nor am I able to use windows+e, or command prompt, or powershell. The only way I can get File Explorer to re-open is either by restarting my machine, or logging out of and back into my account.

The cause of the crash varies; oftentimes, however, it's things like:

• Right clicking on files, internal drives & network drives
• Creating new files
• Renaming files

(This doesn't happen every time I try and perform these operations)

I also have to restart File Explorer every time I boot my computer up. My taskbar doesn't populate until I've unlocked all my drives (which are encrypted with Bitlocker). Often enough, Task Manager doesn't relaunch File Explorer.

Steps I've Taken

• Ran SFC /Scannow multiple times. Fixed corruptions the first time, found no more on repeated attempts.
• Ran DISM (CleanupImage, ScanHealth, RestoreHealth)
• Re installed Windows. (This was a while ago now, however the problem existed before and still exists after the re install)
• Ran multiple virus & malware scans, all clean.

Would appreciate some help, if anyone's able to.

Do you have any HDD's, external HDD's, SD cards, USB drives connected to the PC? Then next time explorer stops responding, try removing those first. If you got any peripherals that has internal storage, they might act out in the same way.

[Amp9k]

That's an odd error. Maybe try killing and restarting explorer with a batch script. Here's the code:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

 

[yoshikotsushima]

> Try check Event Viewer for error related to Explorer.exe

Forgot to mention, I've done that as well. There's nothing there related to explorer or task manager, from what I can see. Should I be looking in System, or Application logs ?

Thanks for the reply

[yoshikotsushima]

4 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Do you have any HDD's, external HDD's, SD cards, USB drives connected to the PC? Then next time explorer stops responding, try removing those first. If you got any peripherals that has internal storage, they might act out in the same way.

My computer does have quite a few internal storage drives (mostly HDD), however nothing external is plugged in often. None of them have any SMART errors, or anything like that.

[DoctorNick]

3 minutes ago, yoshikotsushima said:

My computer does have quite a few internal storage drives (mostly HDD), however nothing external is plugged in often. None of them have any SMART errors, or anything like that.

Alright, that doesn't really matter. I would still suspect this to be the error. Try removing all drives but the boot drive. And if you don't detect any issues, then connect one drive until you find the bad guy. If you don't want to restart the PC every time, you can enable hot plug in BIOS

[yoshikotsushima]

7 minutes ago, Amp9k said:

That's an odd error. Maybe try killing and restarting explorer with a batch script. Here's the code:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

 

Just tried this, and explorer wasn't re-opened.

[xAcid9]

2 minutes ago, yoshikotsushima said:

> Try check Event Viewer for error related to Explorer.exe

Forgot to mention, I've done that as well. There's nothing there related to explorer or task manager, from what I can see. Should I be looking in System, or Application logs ?

Thanks for the reply

Can you export both System + Application logs and upload them?

[yoshikotsushima]

Just now, DoctorNick said:

Alright, that doesn't really matter. I would still suspect this to be the error. Try removing all drives but the boot drive. And if you don't detect any issues, then connect one drive until you find the bad guy.

Alright, thanks, I'll give this a try.

[DoctorNick]

2 minutes ago, yoshikotsushima said:

Alright, thanks, I'll give this a try.

 If you don't want to restart the PC every time, you can enable hot plug in BIOS under SATA

[yoshikotsushima]

16 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Alright, that doesn't really matter. I would still suspect this to be the error. Try removing all drives but the boot drive. And if you don't detect any issues, then connect one drive until you find the bad guy. If you don't want to restart the PC every time, you can enable hot plug in BIOS

Just had a go with this.

I can still crash Windows Explorer easily, when C (boot drive) is the only device plugged into the machine. Task Manager is able to restart Windows Explorer.

Plugging in any of the other drives stops this from happening. It doesn't matter if the drives are locked, or unlocked, Windows Explorer doesn't want to restart either way.

[yoshikotsushima]

2 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

Can you export both System + Application logs and upload them?

You can ignore the disk errors (as in; surprise removed). Those are from the testing I have just performed.

I have crashed Windows Explorer, and attempted to restart it multiple times during this period, so presumably any errors should show up here.

There's nothing under Windows Logs > Application.

 

[File Deleted]

 

[yoshikotsushima]

I just went flat out nuclear and reinstalled Windows in its entirety. Seems to be fixed for now, hopefully will be fixed forever.