Fences 5 caused windows explorer crash

from Stardock Forums

Can someone explain why fences intermittently causes crashes in windows explorer.exe?  It's definitely a fences issue as once its uninstalled the problem goes away.  The "fix" is to uninstall fences and remove its setting.  Then reinstall fences.  This is o windows 11 23H2 with all up to date patches.  I have seen this problem before even in windows 10 and with older fences versions.  Does fences just corrupt it's settings now and then.  Can anything be done to make sure it's more stable?  It is an explorer plugin so if it's unstable your desktop becomes unstable.  Just saying ... this really should be fixed.

fences
15,919 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Need to know more on your system.

  1. Windows 11 23H2 full version number please. Use Winver.
  2. Fences 5 version number.
  3. Do you have Forcepoint/Websence or any other similar security software installed.

Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Windows 11 23H2 22631.2861

Fences 5.04

Norton 360

It's a highly intermittent problem.  I am sure I seen it with Fences version 4 as well. 

Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

With all due respect, what setting are you talking about?  Norton 360 is set to mainly defaults.  I am sure I never did anything to seting particular to explorer.exe.  In fact, the person in the thread makes the valid point that you would not want to alter explorer.exe settings as it opens your PC up to hackers  So what is th Stardock recommended fix?  This sort of issue obviously happens to other users?  Crippling aantivirus does not seem like a good fix.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

I don't think, if Fences causing the issue on basic security setting lot of reports from others would have surface here in the forum. However, please try purge and reinstall steps as mention here : [Link]. Just make sure to redownload the latest version from your account page. Reboot after the purge. Reinstall and reboot again after the installation. Retest and report back here.

Thank you,
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

That us exactly what I did and it works find now.  Let me make a few points and then you can close this if you want:

1) yes I am using nothing but basic settings including changing next to nothing in fences.  I turn off the option to always show fence groups at boot and I sort the three default fence groups by name.

2) my Norton 360 settings are the basic settings.  I would not know what to change for explorer.exe.  

3) This has been going on a long time with Frnces.

4) The bug or design flaw is highly intermittent.  I can not possibly say what triggers it.

5) Clearly if the fix is to remove fences settings the bug or design flaw is in fences.

You can what you want with my report. But  I doubt my situation is unique because I really am not doing anything all that unique.

.

 

 

 

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

I don't remember a single report of Explorer crashing with Norton 360 due to Fences.

I would suggest doing an

sfc /scannow

from an elevated command prompt, as system file corruption happens often, and doing the scan doesn't require any great effort and just might solve the problem. In the first article, it's listed first as a cause.

I found this for you: https://iboysoft.com/howto/windows-11-file-explorer-crashing.html

And this:

https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/solved-windows-10-file-explorer-crash-ea

At least those articles will give you a wider approach to the problem you're having...which is very annoying one.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

You don't seem to be listening to me.  It works 99.99 percent of the time and then goes nuts.  It has nothing to do with windows 11. scans run clean.  Up to you whether you want to take an obvious bug in your product seriously or not.  Right now this is not helpful.  Close the thread.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Also, it has nothing to do with the file explorer.  Explorer.exe is the windows shell.  Fences is a shell extension.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting supitcha, reply 10

Hi, I found the problem about Fence3.13 after my office installed "Forcepoint DLP Endpoint". How can I basic fix.
End of supitcha's quote

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. But, its known issue between Fences and Forcepoint. Nothing can be done on Fences side. What you can do is try to setup Forcepoint to whitelist Fences to do its job.

Thank you.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

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Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

I am having the same problem. Windows 11 Version 23H2 ( compilation  22635, 4660) and Microsft 365. Frequently task bar ceases response and I have to restart explorer.exe to function again.
Fences version 5.86 (Revision 8)

sfc responses all ok. No corrupted files.

I will have to discard this software.

Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting jaguirre7465, reply 13

I am having the same problem. Windows 11 Version 23H2 ( compilation  22635, 4660) and Microsft 365. Frequently task bar ceases response and I have to restart explorer.exe to function again.
Fences version 5.86 (Revision 8)

sfc responses all ok. No corrupted files.

I will have to discard this software.
End of jaguirre7465's quote

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. But, look like you on Insider Preview Build (Os Build 22635.4660). Do know that Stardock does not support Windows Insider Preview/Beta build. Please revert to Windows 11 stable release and see if the issue still there. Do report back.

Thank you.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.