Start11 and Windows Explorer crash every time I click on the Documents icon in Start 11's left menu

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. But, I can't reproduce your issue. refer screenshot below. Only thing I would suggest, as a test, move your document folder back to your local drive and retest it.

Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

basj, thanks, but it is on my local drive at the location specified in my post, which I believe is the default location. Also, the files are all set to by available locally. 

Is there perhaps a recommended way to reset the Start 11 data to try to fix this?

Hello,
I have forward your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

If temporarily turn of OneDrive syncing, does it work then?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

That doesn't seem to make any difference. It's a little tough to tell, because it seems to work alternately now. It will work once then fail, Explorer crashes and reloads, then it works once, then fails the next time. This sequence seems to sustain regardless whether my OneDrive folders are syncing or not. 

I also tried this with both OneDrive Personal and OneDrive for Business folders, which seem to work/crash the same.

Just checking if there's any update on this issue?

It's been quite a while with no update. What did you learn?

The error continues. As far as I can tell, Start 11 doesn't work. Way too buggy to be considered safe for sale. Whenever I try to use the folders in Start 11, Start11 causes all of Windows Explorer to crash and restart (nearly every time -- incredibly unstable), but the Event Viewer doesn't show Start11 as the failing application. But the problem is absolutely with Start 11. No problems before install, and constant crashes and Explorer restarting most times I open the Start menu (Start 11), and every time if I try to expand the folder trees in the Start menu. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Start 11, but no change. If I uninstall Start11, the problem goes away. 

The Update option on Start 11 says I have the latest version, but I don't see a Version #.  The Start11 Menu is set to Windows 10 Style. The Shortcuts list are mostly set to Display as a menu, except Pictures, Personal folder, Settings, and Run... are set to Display as a link. Under Advanced options, Show recently added apps and Show app list in start menu are on, the rest are off.

Here are 2 from the last few minutes:

Faulting application name: Explorer.EXE, version: 10.0.22000.120, time stamp: 0xe846e749

Faulting module name: windows.storage.dll, version: 10.0.22000.348, time stamp: 0xf44b9048

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x000000000019335d

Faulting process id: 0x2aa8

Faulting application start time: 0x01d818d8540aebbc

Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE

Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\windows.storage.dll

Report Id: 235d7560-732c-455b-964a-a1e0be2c5380

Faulting package full name: 

Faulting package-relative application ID: 

****

Faulting application name: explorer.exe, version: 10.0.22000.120, time stamp: 0xe846e749

Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.22000.434, time stamp: 0xe4fbcaba

Exception code: 0xc0000409

Fault offset: 0x00000000000930bf

Faulting process id: 0x25c

Faulting application start time: 0x01d81bc9f784c8d4

Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe

Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll

Report Id: 3a4258db-2eff-4980-b7d6-eb813495531c

Faulting package full name: 

Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. But, don't agree with you. If Start11 don't really work, we will have tonnes of other people reporting issue in this forum. Yes, there are few issues posted but far far less than satisfied user. Those issues usually unique to curtain system that we need to work out why its happen in that system. As for your issue, I believe Support, Sean, already appear on this thread, I believe he already aware of your specific issue. I will remind him again about your issue internally. Appreciate your patience.

Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

While I get the frustration, clearly something else is wrong and unique to your set up.  Not that this is bad or not something we need to account for, its just not at all what the vast majority of people are seeing with their Start11 installs.

Let's start with this:

https://forums.stardock.com/505872/start11-support-faq#cleanboot

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Sean, thanks. I'm willing to do that to see if it does work properly on a new account. But I'd like to understand the implications. Let's say that does work. How do you use that information diagnostically to fix Start 11 in my current account? What would be the next steps?

I don't have issues with any other applications on this computer, so I'm not going to start over everything with a new account. It would take me many, many hours to reconfigure everything for a new account. I just want to be sure your answer isn't to use that new test account beyond this test.

Also, mine is clearly not an isolated case. I see several other posts here about crashes on performing various activities in Start 11, and in general, only a small fraction of people having problems actually go through the hassle of posting, so we probably represent thousands of users with the same issue.

Thanks,
Colin

I should add a bit more. Following guidance from basj on one of the other posts by users experiencing crashes, I tried installing the newer beta version of Start 11 (1.11). It does seem more stable and comes much closer to working properly than 1.1 (see screen shot below, I can now drill down through the folders properly), but there is still one core action that 100% of the time causes the crash:

If I have folders on Start set to appear as menus rather than links, left click on one to display the menu (ideally, they would display the tree view on hover, but seems to require a click), then click in any blank part of the Start menu, 100% Explorer crash. I have confirmed this happens for various folders when set to Menu and any style of Start menu. 

If I instead navigate the menu or click on an application icon in the Start menu, and don't click on a blank part of the Start 11 Start menu, that seems to always work, but after the app finally launches, within a few seconds, Explorer often (not always) crashes. Maybe it's something do with those menu trees losing focus?

I have also tried getting it to crash using the default Windows 11 Start menu (instead of Start 11) and I could not. Problem only occurs from Start 11.

And other expandable menus, like the app groups natively in Start, don't cause the crash. ONLY the menu tree views, shortly after they close. Bang. Down it goes.

E.g., opening the CorelDRAW folder here will never cause a problem, but the Documents or Personal folder tree folders (from "Show as menu") just to the left of it kill Explorer after closing them 100% of the time.

I'm guessing either not everyone has this problem, or just no one cares about showing those folders as navigable menus/trees on the Start menu? Any news on a fix for this from Stardock?

Your first guess is right, I can't reproduce your issue on my system. And, nobody else has report similar issue as yours as far as I can remember. And how can the Dev do a fix if they can't reproduce the issue on their system. Btw, have you tried the cleanboot?

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

What would help us the most would be getting a dump from the crash.  To best do that, you need something to capture it - Windbg Preview is perfect:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windbg-preview/9pgjgd53tn86?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

After installation, you need to set it to the default postmortem debugger:

After, when it crashes, WinDbg will catch it...  In this spot:

type:

.dump /ma c:\users\sdrohan\downloads\YourNameStart11Dump.dmp

Yes, you need the period at the beginning, use your Windows account name where 
I have sdrohan, and have the file name structured like this one but with your name.

This very well cold slow your PC to a crawl while doing it. 
After the dump is saved, you can stop the debugging and your PC performance will return:


Post a shared link to a cloud service where you uploaded the dump to and we will look at it.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

I realized I never responded to the last post: one of the updates around the time of my last post (end of Feb or early Mar) fixed the problem. Stardock fixed the bug. Thanks, guys!

Thanks for the update.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager