Fences is disabled at startup

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. 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.

Hi, possible to upload a debug log?

You can use "Create error report package" from the Troubleshooting menu in About

I created the report and uploaded it to: Dropbox?

Hi, yes and I can confirm we received it. However, I don't see any crash data in there.

Perhaps let's try again, checking the option "Enable advanced logging" from the menu first, rebooting, then causing the crashing issue to occur. Then, unload another report package.

We're looking for a file in the folder

%appdata%\Stardock\Fences\TroubleshootingLog

named

fences_debug_snapshot.dat

And so far, not seeing it. Hopefully the advanced logging can capture it.

When did this problem begin? Just after installing this update?

So, I have been experimenting with Fences all evening and have figured out what triggers it to shut down:

I purged the installation, and then reinstalled. 

As I was starting to organize my desktop icons in folders again, it all seemed to work fine.

Then I added some folder portals from dropbox folders I use to sync files and links between my personal and my work computer.

That worked fine too - until I added one specific dropbox folder.

I then had to purge and reinstall again.

I then created and empty dropbox folder and added that folder to my desktop.

And I started to move links from the original folder that broke it, one by one, until it happened again.

Once I move a pdf file into a sub folder on that folder it broke!

Come to find out that the shortcut link was broken - the file had been moved

That should be fairly easy to replicate and see what the issue is.

Wow, this is some precision, thank you. So please clarify – was that shortcut on the desktop, or within a folder portal?

The problem occurs when there's a shortcut pointing to an invalid location. The invalid location happens to be, from the sound of it, within your Dropbox folder, which is something like c:\users\username\Dropbox\somethingsomething

Does this sound about right?

Though it did sound like perhaps the problem began and only occurred when you added Dropbox Folder Portal to desktop, and perhaps the invalid shortcut was in there?

So far: I've tried creating a shortcut, removing the file rendering it invalid, and putting that both on the desktop and in a folder portal, but no luck reproducing so far.

Thanks for the help clarifying.

The shortcut itself was pointing to a location on my home NAS, but the shortcut was saved to a dropbox folder that was a subfolder to a folder that placed on the desktop as a portal folder.

Hope that helps.

Hrm. So far I have now created a shortcut to an invalidated location on an unmapped network share, and done a whole bunch of combinations related to what you've put there. Unfortunately nothing.

Could you try turning on "Enable advanced logging" from this menu here, and then after the crash, seeing if it generated a crash dump?

The dump would be located in

%appdata%\Stardock\Fences\TroubleshootingLog

and will be named

fences_debug_snapshot.dat

Off course - now I can't replicate it.

I deleted the original shortcut file.

I just tried to create a shortcut to another pdf file, and then copy the shortcut to the same folder as before.

I then deleted the actual file.

And now Fences does not crash.

I will continue to keep an eye out.

Aye, ok sounds good! Hope you can and if so use that option to increase odds of capturing the crash dump. Appreciate it.