Fences just dissapeard on Win 10

I'm having exactly the same problem. When I look in the Windows application log I see a ton of Sharpshell error using Event ID 0 that say the following:

LockedIconOverlay: An exception occured when trying to create the overlay icon.

I'm just guessing, but since Sharpshell is a .NET framework for extending the Windows 10 shell it looks like Fences uses it to do its thing... No idea how to fix it unfortunately.

I have been having what sounds like a similar problem. The fences suddenly vanish and some of the icons spill out onto the desktop. If I try to run fences I get the message shown above3 about it not being loaded. Fortunately, a restart fixes the problem and all the icons go back to their proper fences. This just started a few days ago. Perhaps a problem with a recent Windows update?

I thought I had re-started my Win10 computer before I posted this issue, but yesterday I did re-start the machine and my fences returned, except one of the 6 fences has a 100% transparent look and is not effected when I adjust the transparency slider when set to "all fences" mode, the other 5 fences are controlled by the transparency slider.

Have the same issue:

• Windows 10 Home - build 1607
• Fences 3.0.3   (fresh install, after upgrading from Fences 2, which never work reliably on win10)

Observations:

• crashes explorer at startup (i.e. it being unresponsive)
• explorer works fine after a restart from the task manager
• not able to create any fences
• starting up the Fences app, it says Fences is not properly loaded and might need to be reinstalled
• uninstall and reinstall doesn't fix the issue

Hello,

I have the same problem.

• Windows 10 Pro Version 1511
• Fences 3.0.3 (activated version)

Exactly the same observations like bertpluymers reported.

If you have not contacted the support team so they can gather data and see what you all have in common, please do so.

https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit

A test...

The following tool will purge the application (your settings an layout will be preserved).

**IMPORTANT** Please save any open documents/work and close out all of your applications including browsers. Your PC may restart after running this .bat file.

Please follow this link:

http://sd.stardock.com/zubaz/apps/Purge_Fences.bat

Save the file to your desktop, right click it and select "Run as Administrator" if you're on Vista/7/8/8.1/10

http://screencast.com/t/Zv5LzdG8W8

Just run it if you're on XP as the Administrator option is not available for that OS.

If you are running Windows 8/10, you may be notified that Windows is protecting your PC. Select "More info" and then "Run anyway".

Reboot the computer and reinstall the application. Note: It is important to get the most recent version of the application.

For getting your product and key, please see the following:

https://www.stardock.com/support/productkeyretrieval

Please DO NOT change any of the default settings until you verify that the application is running as expected in its default state.

If Fences is as it should be, please try restoring a previous snapshot to see if that helps the situation any.

To restore Fences to a previous snapshot:

-Right click on the desktop and select "Configure Fences..."
-Click on "Layout and snapping" on the left hand side of the configuration window that appears.
-Select a snapshot you wish to revert to. A preview window will appear showing you what the desktop will look like.
-Click Restore Snapshot to revert the desktop to this preview.

Please let me know whether this resolves your problem or if you have any additional questions.

Hello sdRohan,

thank you for your reply.

I tried the Purge_Fences.bat like you described. It does not solve the problem.

After using the batch file the system restarted automaticly. I installed Fences 3.0.3 and activate it. After the installation I restarted the system again.

After login the system starts normal. The program Fences is disapled. When I try to enable Fences (pressing right mouse button on the desktop and select "Enable Fences"), it takes some secounds then the screen is getting for 1 secound black and thats it.

After that the switch option in the pulldown menu isn't shown anymore.

After a while (in most cases after opening an File Explorer) the fences option apears again in the pulldown menu.

But still doesn't work.

During the time when the option disapear the system slows down.

Any other suggestion? Or any question which can help to solve this?

Regards,

Urkel_

Well, Fences 3.03 installed on windows 10 build 14986 after running the above batch file, and it set up initial fences. But I cannot make a new fence, nor can I move an icon from one existing fence to another (the icon moves to the end of the batch). And I cannot drag the trash can into a Fencer area. Help. And Fences setup will not open.

I think I may have solved the issue although I have been hesitant to post since my train of logic takes a few intuitive leaps that I can't 100% say are right.

If I look in my Application event log I see the following errors which I believe are related to the problem:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        SharpShell
Date:          11/30/2016 10:19:20 PM
Event ID:      0
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      ******
Description:
System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file 'D:\Users\******\AppData\Local\Temp\LockedByOtherIconOverlay.ico' because it is being used by another process.
   at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.File.InternalDelete(String path, Boolean checkHost)
   at SharpShell.SharpIconOverlayHandler.SharpIconOverlayHandler.CreateTemporaryIconFilePath()
   at SharpShell.SharpIconOverlayHandler.SharpIconOverlayHandler.GetIconFilePath()
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="SharpShell" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">0</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-12-01T03:19:20.218324100Z" />
    <EventRecordID>6228</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>******</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file 'D:\Users\******\AppData\Local\Temp\LockedByOtherIconOverlay.ico' because it is being used by another process.
   at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.File.InternalDelete(String path, Boolean checkHost)
   at SharpShell.SharpIconOverlayHandler.SharpIconOverlayHandler.CreateTemporaryIconFilePath()
   at SharpShell.SharpIconOverlayHandler.SharpIconOverlayHandler.GetIconFilePath()</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Log Name:      Application
Source:        SharpShell
Date:          11/30/2016 10:19:20 PM
Event ID:      0
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:    ******
Description:
LockedByOtherIconOverlay: An exception occured when trying to create the overlay icon.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="SharpShell" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">0</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-12-01T03:19:20.214822100Z" />
    <EventRecordID>6227</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>******</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>LockedByOtherIconOverlay: An exception occured when trying to create the overlay icon.</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Log Name:      Application
Source:        SharpShell
Date:          11/30/2016 10:19:20 PM
Event ID:      0
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      ******
Description:
LockedIconOverlay: Cannot create the overlay icon path.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="SharpShell" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">0</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-12-01T03:19:20.121260900Z" />
    <EventRecordID>6226</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>******</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>LockedIconOverlay: Cannot create the overlay icon path.</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

So this clues me in that there is a problem with Sharpshell a programming framework used to do things on the desktop. If I look at the next earlier error in the same log I see this:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-EFS
Date:          11/30/2016 10:18:49 PM
Event ID:      4401
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      
User:          ******
Computer:      ******
Description:
7.488: EFS service failed to provision a user for EDP. Error code: 0x80070005.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-EFS" Guid="{3663A992-84BE-40EA-BBA9-90C7ED544222}" />
    <EventID>4401</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-12-01T03:18:49.673203100Z" />
    <EventRecordID>6213</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="708" ThreadID="744" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>******</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-1718568706-243744021-1236795852-12983" />
  </System>
  <UserData>
    <EfsLogStringError xmlns="http://manifests.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/windows/eventlog">
      <FileNumber>7</FileNumber>
      <LineNumber>488</LineNumber>
      <ErrorCode>0x80070005</ErrorCode>
    </EfsLogStringError>
  </UserData>
</Event>

A search on "efs  0x80070005" reveals https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-security/event-4401-efs-service-failed-to-provision-a-user/4ea56f31-928e-488f-82c3-7347bc6e862c which is a Microsoft community post talking about a problem with the encrypted file service. I wouldn't think that this was related except the Sharpshell problem seems to be a problem with accessing files and folders.

So after reading more at

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-hardware/cryptographic-services-failed-while-processing-the/c4274af3-79fb-4412-8ca5-cee721bda112?page=13 , I ran the following from an elevated command prompt:

sc sdset MSLLDP D:(D;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BG)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SO)(A;;LCRPWP;;;S-1-5-80-3141615172-2057878085-1754447212-2405740020-3916490453)(A;;CC;;;S-1-5-80-242729624-280608522-2219052887-3187409060-2225943459)

I rebooted my system, and have had no more issues with Fences since then. I checked my application logs again and while I still see errors with both Sharpshell and EFS, they are not as frequent (maybe once in a week).

My final conclusion is that I haven't fixed the problem, but I may have bandaided it. I hope this helps.

I´m having the same problem.

Fences loads and runs at startup, but will crash/dissappear within a few hours.

No more fences settings in the right click menue and the "Fences does not appear to be loaded you may need to re install Fences".- message.

At least the icons/ folders stay in place...

Normally fences will run again after a restart, but that´s not an acceptable solution.

Specs:

Windows 10 Pro

Version 1607

Build 14393.576

running the full ( paid) version of fences

I would say this problem started in October/November 2016. Before that it ran well.

Funny enough, i run an older version of fences ( 2) on my home pc with win 10 without any issues...

Please contact support so we can assist further.

https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit

I'm having this same issue. Windows 10, Fences 3, crashes explorer.exe. I have just opened a case with Stardock support and included text from event logs. 

Looking forward to getting it resolved so I can use the product (I just bought it two days ago, and haven't been able to use it at all so far.) With a 1 year subscription, every day that goes by is money lost.

I will share any updates as I have them. 

I am also having this same issue and would like to be included in the fix.  I have Windows 10 64-bit with the latest version of Fences.

Here is the response I got back after providing logs and running a utility on my computer: 

I have forwarded your report to our Development Team for their review and recommendations.

I cannot, however, provide a timeline for a response or resolution. You will be notified when one is available.

We really do appreciate your feedback, thanks.

My interpretation of this message is there is no solution and we we don't have a timeline for a solution. While there may (and probably will be) a fix for this one day, it could be a while. I replied to the email to confirm this assumption and, if so, I'll be requesting a refund.

I did purchase the entire Object Dock suite because it was on sale, all I wanted was fences though. If that doesn't work, I'm out. 

Firstly, Fences and Object Dock are two entirely separate programs....you are probably referring to 'Object Desktop'.

Secondly, Fences DOES work with Windows 10.  I for one have Fences functioning flawlessly on 3 separate computers.

What Support is asking for is a debugging log to determine WHY a few people are having problems in order to resolve the issue for you specifically....;)

Not just for cch1504. I and a number of others have the same problem although my problem comes and goes. Working at the moment for some reason.

I'm having similar problems with Fences running on a Dell desktop (Windows 10 pro). 

After logging into my computer from the Windows login prompt I get a completely blank screen with no icons displayed at all, only the icons shown on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. 

If I reboot the computer and log in again I usually will get Fences running with my icons all in their appropriate fence (sometimes I have to restart the computer a couple of times).  It may run for hours after that with no more issues.  However, at some point as I'm doing various things, in particular using Explorer, my display will flash and Explorer will shutdown and Fences crashes with it leaving icons on screen with no boxes surrounding them and those that were rolled up are left jumbled up with some icons on top of others.  I usually can just reboot at that point and things will return to normal until the next time this happens. 

If this persists, I'm going to uninstall Fences until a fix is provided since this is an undesirable distraction to some very important work that I'm presently doing. 

I love the product and the convenience that it offers and I hope that a fix will quickly be provided so that I can continue to use it.

Please contact support.