ep_taskbar crashes Explorer when receiving notifications

[1kartafal4]

Good day to the developers,

thanks a lot for this good program.

I use it together with TranslucentTB (both latest version) and on Windows 11 23H2 it worked fine.
After now installing the latest Release Preview build 26100.15xx (new clean install, no windows-insider program), the program keeps crashing the windows explorer, which then automatically restarts.
As you can see in the screenshot, 3 times in 5 minutes.
I can send a copy of the .evtx file of the windows event viewer if needed, and/or are there log files from ExplorerPatcher itself that can be send?

Can you fix it, or is it Windows specific? I'm using the Windows 10 (ExplorerPatcher) taskbar style.

Greetings

[1kartafal4]

I have read this #3398
,but I'm not using the old taskbar and stock Windos 10 taskbar, as written.
"The presence of 42537950 ("DisableWindows10Taskbar") feature flag causes the old taskbar to crash when being loaded. Due to this the stock Windows 10 taskbar is now no longer an option on 26002+."

[pyrates999]

What version of EP are you running?
Please put the exact windows version and build number. You can find out by running winver.

[Amrsatrio]

Thank you for reporting this. I will check soon.

[Amrsatrio]

Would be great if you can send your explorer.exe with its file extension renamed to .txt.

[Amrsatrio]

https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/wiki/ExplorerPatcher's-taskbar-implementation

We have warned for this issue to happen in the 3rd point in its Warning section.

[1kartafal4]

Yes, hello Amrsatrio,
thank you for trying to fix it.

EP is version "22621.3880.66.4" from august 1, "Windows 11 Pro 24H2 26100.1586" and "Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.18.0".
No insider or upgrade version, but a clean installation. Besides the color bug in windows task manager, everything runs fine.

So two days ago the application crashed the explorer 6 times, so I restarted the PC and switched to taskbar style "Windows 11 (default)" (really not liking this one); after that, the whole day nothing crashed.
Now switched back to "Windows 10 (ExplorerPatcher)" and for a couple of hours nothing crashing yet.

Conclusion is, it's random, can't force the crashing, but it's definitely "Windows 10 (ExplorerPatcher)" style crashing it.

Would be great if you can send your explorer.exe with its file extension renamed to .txt.

You mean the one found in "C:\Windows"? Okay, done it, while "Windows 10 (ExplorerPatcher)" was active, nothign crashed yet.
"ep_taskbar.5.dll" too, just in case.
explorer.txt
ep_taskbar.5.txt
Thank you!

[1kartafal4]

ApplicationErrorExplorerPatcher.evtx to txt
Should be openable with windows event viewer.
ApplicationError2ExplorerPatcher.txt
ApplicationError3ExplorerPatcher.txt
ApplicationErrorExplorerPatcher.txt

[1kartafal4]

Update:
Crashed the explorer three more items in the 3 days I used the "Windows 10 (ExplorerPatcher)".
Not a problem for me, since I can switch to the "Windows 11" taskbar (I still not like much).
Just an update :)
If the developers are interested to fix this: Any way I could help out more? Any log data saved somewhere in windows?

Have a nice day

[pyrates999]

if you enabled the option register as shell extension, disable it by opening up the EP properties application, go to File Explorer, and untick Register as shell extension.

Here's why: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/wiki/Using-ExplorerPatcher-as-shell-extension

[Amrsatrio]

Were the crashes happening when you were receiving a flurry of notifications? I know that continuous notifications from Telegram crashes Explorer.

[Amrsatrio]

Yeah just checked it, the error happened in the handler for notifications. I kept getting these crashes too if I have Telegram open and keep getting messages. Seriously I don't know what went wrong in here... but I could compromise the little app icon sliding animation in the notification center button to prevent this from happening altogether.

[1kartafal4]

@Amrsatrio
Hello again,

okay, switched back to "Windows 10 (ExplorerPatcher)" and disabled that "register as shell extension".
Will test now again and tell if something crashes.

Yeah just checked it, the error happened in the handler for notifications. I kept getting these crashes too if I have Telegram open and keep getting messages. Seriously I don't know what went wrong in here... but I could compromise the little app icon sliding animation in the notification center button to prevent this from happening altogether.
... happening when you were receiving a flurry of notifications?

You're the boss. so I won't argue against what you found, but define what you mean with "receiving".
Do you mean

1. the exact moment I receive a notification, displayed in this "notification center", it crashes with the explorer?
2. or do you mean this also/only crashes when I open this "notification center" and view previously saved notifications?

Because I'm very, very sure sure that most of the crashes did not happen when 1) or 2) were occuring.
One of the crashes for example happened two minutes after OS restart, when I was just browsing some local folder.
Most of the other crashes happened during internet web browser - I did not open this "notification center".

Additional information:
In the System > notification center, I disabled "display notification banner" (the small popup in the right corner of the screen) for every program listed in system settings. They're only shown and saved in the "notification center".
Do you mean these saved notifications in the notification-center, when I open the center and display them? I only sometime delete them, mostly they have accumulated there from different programs.

Thanks, Have a nice day

[Amrsatrio]

Investigated further. I noticed that a struct used by the private APIs for notifications grew by 8 bytes in 22621.3296 when compared to 22621.1992. Simply there is no easy way to get around this without making complex code matching patterns.

I may have to axe the app icon sliding thingy from the notification center button for good.

[1kartafal4]

@Amrsatrio
Good day,
alright, enjoy fixing it ;)

Everything worked without crashes for the last 5+ days; now it crashed again for the first time.
The PC was running for 4 hours. Newest WIn 11 24H2 "26100.1742" build.
The explorer.exe is build "10.0.26100.1591" as image shows. Attached as renamed text file.
Explorer patcher latest version "[22621.3880.66.6"

This time the explorer crashed and restarted exactly (00:51) when I switched the proton-vpn server and the notification displayed in the notification-center.

explorer.txt

[1kartafal4]

May it has something to do with this? #3600 (comment)
Greetings

[Amrsatrio]

No, different issue. Anyways I edited the code on my phone to disable the notification gleams feature. The taskbar DLL is building right now and once it's done I'll share you the link.

[perezsam150]

Good day @Amrsatrio

Would it be possible to have a copy of that taskbar DLL as well? I am also on the 22621.3880.66.6 release and ep_taskbar5.dll is crashing as well. I'd like to try it out and report if it alleviates the problem.

Regards

[gwin7ok]

A few days ago, I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and installed Explorer Patcher to display the taskbar at the top and add a toolbar.
It's very useful and very helpful. Thank you.

I have it set up so that desktop notifications are generated via Chrome when live broadcasts start on my subscribed channels on YouTube and Twitch,
but every time that notification occurs, ep_taskbar.5.dll crashes.

Notifications from other applications such as Phone Link do not cause crashes,
and as far as I know, only Chrome notifications cause crashes.

So I tried changing the Chrome notification settings in various ways,
and although I had previously set "Priority of notifications in notification center" to "Top" or "High,"

changing it to "Normal" stopped the crashes.

*I've only been testing it for about an hour at this point,
but I'll continue using it and report if a crash occurs.

Explorer Patcher: ver.22621.388.66.6
Windows 11 Pro: ver.24H2 OS build 26100.2033
Google Chrome: ver.129.0.6668.101

[Amrsatrio]

No it is not a duplicate. Instead it is a sign that I should hurry up with other bug fixes.

[1kartafal4]

@pyrates999
It's not a duplicate; you linked to the same topic #3605 you are in right now and asked it to close, Lol

@Amrsatrio
There problem is still there, I personally have not encountered it for the last two weeks, after I turned off all notifications from the protonVPN program. It made 20+ notifications every day, much more than everything else.
The high amount of notifications, raised the probability of crashes. So I keep the probability low for now ;)
Thanks for the effort.

[pyrates999]

@1kartafal4 lol oh no, sorry :D

[Amrsatrio]

Fixed in 66.7.

[Amrsatrio]

Really sorry for taking this long. 🙇