Error: 'Fences has detected that Explorer was not closed properly'

sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+674

Error: 'Fences has detected that Explorer was not closed properly'

EDIT 08/02/2022
Seeing that all known crash issues have been addressed within Fences 4, we are closing this thread. If you are still using Fences 3 and experiencing crashes, please install the trial for Fences 4 to see if you still see them:

https://www.stardock.com/products/fences/download-trial

Should your issues be resolved, there is a substantial discount to upgrade to Fences 4:

https://www.stardock.com/products/fences/download

EDIT 05/19/2022

We think we might have a fix for one crash that is possible with Fences and folder portals. Please see if the just-released beta does indeed resolve it for you and report back here either way, please.

https://forums.stardock.com/512519/fences-4059-beta-feedback-thead

Special thanks to k3nny5 for working with us in Teams to help resolve it.

EDIT 05/12/2020
Changed the process for collecting data \ crash dumps in the instructions below.

EDIT 12/23/2021
Thanks to help from user altae here, we have confirmed that if DisplayFusion is running, this can cause the issue. If you have DisplayFusion installed, or other 3rd party multimonitor software (Actual Multiple Monitors, UltraMon, etc), please try uninstalling and a reboot.

EDIT 12/21/2021
If you are seeing this issue on Windows 11, and have WindowBlinds installed as well, it will very likely crash. Please uninstall WindowBlinds to see if you still have the issue.

EDIT 11/01/2021
Any post that does not directly contribute to finding the cause will likely be removed. Also, to find said cause, the data asked for above is crucial. If it is absent, the post will likely be removed.

EDIT 10/25/2021
We are seeing that many PC \ OS related issues are clouding the data \ feedback received on this issue.

Prior to doing any of the below, we ask that you have 1st don't the following.

Done a purge and reinstall of Fences
https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#reinstalling
Performed an SFC \ Restore health scan:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e

If nothing is resolved from it, please proceed with the below.

For some, when enabling Fences, they are seeing:

'Fences has detected that Explorer was not closed properly'

Specifically for them, we need more data to find the cause.

Manually Collecting Crash Dump

We are now asking for the manual collection of crash dumps. instructions on how to do this has been posted here:

https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#CrashDumps

To help see if Fences is the cause of any crash, Fences has the capability to capture more data when there are crashes. To enable it, the Fences registry needs to be changed. One can do so by downloading and running this registry edit file:

https://cdn.stardock.us/support/uploads/FencesAllCrashesNew.zip

We are continuing to look into the crashing reports but we believe the number of users impacted is small at this time. That said, we take this very seriously and want to try and triage specific cases to see if there is a common denominator.

MS Teams Collaboration

As one would suspect, this cant be done in the forums for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is we need data (startups, running services, sysinfo, etc). To best accomplish this, we are going to set up a Microsoft Teams 'Team' \ Channel and invite clients having this issue to it. The requirements for participation would be:

English speaking and preferably in the Western Hemisphere (for real-time chat)
Able to reproduce crashes at will with the latest version of Fences 4 (not Fences 3)
Are ok to submit data (startups, running services, sysinfo, etc) upon request
Are willing to stick with the troubleshooting process for (potentially) weeks.

If you can meet these requirements, please post as much here and I will send out invitations and instructions to you directly.

We thank you very much for your feedback and patience.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

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ok im getting the error now. is there any fix for it? I suspect my network folder portals, but i have chance to disable them becouse fences krashing in a loop... Sigh

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After experiencing this problem I uninstalled Fences for good and went back to the conventional unorganized desktop. Today, I decided to give it another try on Windows 11 and I must say it worked for an entire day until 30 mins ago when it fell into a explorer crash-loop again.

I experienced 2 crashes today and I noticed that both of them occurred whilst in a folder portal. In both cases they occurred when navigating "back" to the previous folder whilst in a folder portal:

The first crash occurred when I pressed the "backspace" button to go to the previous folder.
The second crash occurred when I clicked the back button icon in the fence title bar.

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sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+674

Quoting nnars3,

reply 152

I experienced 2 crashes today and I noticed that both of them occurred whilst in a folder portal. In both cases they occurred when navigating "back" to the previous folder whilst in a folder portal:

The first crash occurred when I pressed the "backspace" button to go to the previous folder.
The second crash occurred when I clicked the back button icon in the fence title bar.

Where do the folder portals terminate - local, SSD second drive, Network, OneDrive...?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

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For example:

Start: C:\Business\REF\Research\

Terminate: C:\Business\REF\

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I've been using Fences for years and it started crashing explorer.exe for me on the latest Windows 11 update from March 2022.

I think Microsoft has changed something internally, would be great if Stardock can push an update to fix this.

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I am giving up on Fences and Stardock.

I am not a computer genius that completely understand where things terminate. Too much technical language.

I used this software because it was easy, simple, clear cut on what to do. Now you are asking me to provide things I don't even understand.

I keep loosing my fences and now I have to go back to the old way because there is absolutely no solution to a problem.

I invite you to jump into my system and make the fixes.

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sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+674

Quoting michaelc4,

reply 156

I am not a computer genius that completely understand where things terminate. Too much technical language.

'Terminate' just means where any Fences Folder Portals you may be using point to. Example:

The effort it to see if the location is what is problematic (network drive, SSD, OneDirve folder that has sync turned on).

If you still have questions about this, don't hesitate to ask.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

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I am sorry, that does not solve my issue.

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Hi,

I've been following the posts sometime now, and the only thing I have to ask is if the latest Fences is working or not.

I had to reinstall an image and revert to version 3.1.3.3 to rollback the nightmare I had about 2 months ago. I dare not try the new version.

Please advise.

Arturo

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sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+674

Quoting ameneses,

reply 159

Hi,

I've been following the posts sometime now, and the only thing I have to ask is if the latest Fences is working or not.

I had to reinstall an image and revert to version 3.1.3.3 to rollback the nightmare I had about 2 months ago. I dare not try the new version.

Please advise.

Arturo

The effort is still being made to see if Fences 4 is (in any way) responsible for Windows Explorer crashing issue for a relative few.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

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I'm having this issue as well, but unfortunately, it is sporadic and I'm not able to reproduce it at will.

Here's the basic situation:

1. I have Fences 4.0 installed and use it as a standard for my account on our Windows 11 desktop

2. My wife has an account on the PC as well, but does not use Fences

3. On sporadic occasions, after my wife switches to her account and I then return to my account, Fences will go into an infinite loop throwing this error message.

The only way I'm able to break the cycle is to use the "Windows" key to jump in and log out of my account. After logging back in, the error goes away.

The utilities of note that I have installed are WIndows 11 PowerToys and AquaSnap.

I'm happy to help find the issue, but as I mentioned, the failure is sporadic and doesn't appear to occur every time I return to my account.

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Several parts of your statement here show that you don't believe your program crashing is your fault or happening to many people. Maybe you should just rewrite the program instead of this thing you are doing.

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While mine did crash again, I managed this time to further simplify the process of getting it re-enabled again without too much work this time, compared to my other posts. This time, I simply deleted specific keys and re-enabling Fences again - at least this way the folder portals will still work as well!

From HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Fences\ViewStates (This registry folder stores some stuff for Folder Portals - make sure you back up this folder/registry branch before trying the following as what may have worked for me doesn't mean it would work for you until you try), delete the key names ending in 'SortMode' for all keys that have them allowed me to re-enable Fences again. Note that these keys do get regenerated after Fences actually starts up again (usually on fences startup/re-enabled or when the mouse has gone over / performed some action while on those folder portals). At least this way you'll have a working Fences until restart, explorer crashes/restarts or display/resolution adjustments.

As a sidenote, at least on my machine currently, creating a snapshot and then restoring that snapshot causes Fences to do the startup loop. Once it has disabled itself, I went in to the registry and deleted those 'SortMode' keys again. Re-enabling Fences again by either killing and restarting explorer.exe or using the 'Enable Fences' context menu item by right-clicking the desktop seems to work after that.

As for recent display adjustments, it would be updating one of my monitor resolutions to its recommended 1152x2048 (portrait) from 1080x1920 (portrait) as well as updating to the latest Windows DisplayLink drivers. Part of the reason why I kept my 3rd monitor at 1920x1080 was that my other two monitors were also 1920x1080 (albeit in landscape mode), but moving forward I'll keep this monitor at this recommended resolution.

Maybe this may work for others... Maybe sacrificing your current sort order on those folder portals but at least you'll have your Fences back. In relation to my sort order, it was simply sort by Type ascending.

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sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+674

Quoting ULTRA1,

reply 162

That is not how my message should be read nor does the message that Fences presents when Windows Explorer crashes is phrased. That is not to say that Fences is not the cause but since the overwhelming majority of installs work without the issue, logic demands that the issue is - at the very least - a common combination of settings and\or 3rd party apps that are the cause. Since Windows Explorer is a virtual hotel of such things, it is very difficult to identify.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

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Win 10, Fences 3

I'm still encountering this error. Today, I tried to delete a folder, using Windows File Explorer, to which a portal pointed. Understandably, it refused stating that the folder was open by another process (which it clearly was). When I tried to subsequently delete the portal using the Fences UI, Fences went into the classic failure cycle.

Removed Fences, rebooted, purged iaw the instruction here and reinstalled.

Sigh, this is getting tiresome.

Edit 1: On re-installation, I attempted to restore the Fences layout from the backups. It failed. I re-removed Fences, re-purged and re-re-installed, this time selecting the auto layout option instead of choosing my own. Fences worked although not with my layout. Great, I thought, at least it works! So, I tried to restore my layout and, guess what? Fences crashed again.

I'm suspecting that something with folder portals is unstable and isn't playing well with Windows File Explorer, but what do I know? 🤣

What I will be avoiding in the future is portals.

Edit 2: Is there a way of removing a portal without running Fences? Is there a config file or registry entry that I can modify to remove the portal but still use the rest of the layout?

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sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+674

Quoting ddminnl,

reply 165

Edit 2: Is there a way of removing a portal without running Fences? Is there a config file or registry entry that I can modify to remove the portal but still use the rest of the layout?

Yes but you would have to be comfortable with working with the Registry (and backing it up) and XML files (the snapshots).

Fences registry entries are here:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Fences\Groups

You can find the one you want to remove and just nuke it:

From the respective snapshot found:
https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#backupsnapshots

I hope that helps but can offer more assistance should you run into trouble.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

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Quoting sdRohan,

reply 166

I hope that helps but can offer more assistance should you run into trouble.

Thanks, Sean. That probably would have helped had I waited for your reply. I didn't - I was impatient to get back to "normal" - and I reverted to a stock Fences layout and moved on. Good to have the info though.

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It's definitely a portal issue, and it's not related to other software, but a Fences/Windows conflict. Why I am saying this? Because I am redoing Windows on one of my PCs and I tried multiple fresh Windows installations but Fences still goes awol when I do Folder Portals. As a note, I am not importing old Fences settings, each time I am building the layout myself.

I mean it can be a conflict between Fences and Chrome, cause I do install that as a first.

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I concur, kept running into the same issue but when I removed the Folder Portals using the registry I had no issues

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Also, using the desktop fences seems to mess up with the explorer when restarting, small glitches, nothing major, a desktop refresh or using the PC for a few seconds fixes it. So there are issues everywhere, not only with the portals. Windows 10 by the way, I tried 11 and it absolutely sucks.

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sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+674

Quoting Stefan00183,

reply 168

Is it ANY folder portal you create that has Windows Explorer flip out or one to a specific destination or with a unique set of files (unique is vague, I understand)?

If it is a specific one \ destination \ file group, can you tell us more about it?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

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I triple checked again, and there is no special character, no awkward file, no nothing. I tried to isolate the naughty folder, removing them one by one, but that doesn't work either, if I remove them all it works fine, else most of them (I might have missed one or two) give the same error. They are all in the same Location d:/b..../d..../01name 02name 03name 04name. Folder names are short English alphabet characters, file names too. Due to work and privacy related issues I can't share the exact details, folder and files.

There is one thing I changed in all tests. Windows Settings. Maybe it's a setting I used that conflicts with Fences. I am done with the OS setup, maybe in the weekend I will install a new one and see if I don't change Windows Settings it works fine. I don't use any script to alter the windows settings, I just edit most privacy ones that are available in Settings. And some UI ones.

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Hello

This exact issue was happening on version 3 also so its confined to version 4. Strange think is its Random so it may be another app causing it as just now my Desktop switching started to work again

Wayne

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I'd say it's some tweaked Windows setting since I tried it multiple times on a brand new installation, WITH Windows settings tweaked. Too complicated to test which settings, I have to ghost the partition with my current installation on one of the PCs, then reinstall a fresh windows, then trim, then at the end reinstall the partition ghost. Way too many hours.

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Go to the. WinCustomize page forum and do it from there. To remove the yellow star not the Statdock forum page.

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