Start11 keeps breaking explorer

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Need to know if you have any other 3rd party software which also change your Start Panel, Taskbar and/or Explorer. Software such as StartAllBack, ExplorerPatcher, etc.

Thank you,
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Hello,

I used aero tweaker for some things but thats the only software I used. (And I used it once 2.5 years ago)

SFC scannow is also didnt fix the problem.

After the 25h2 update + start11 update it broke. (dont know what i first updated)

Also start11 crashes but explorer.exe keeps running fine (file window). 
After some seconds start11 crashes and explorer.exe restarts

Try rolling back from the Preview update to 26200.6901 and see if that fixes it.

If you have Windows 11 Pro, please do Sandbox test and see if the same issue appear while in the Sandbox. Refer here: https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1416855562/Testing+Start+in+Sandbox. Try that and report back.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Hey,

I updated windows to the preview update with the hope that it would fix the bug.. had the same bug in builds before that.

I will try the sandbox! thanks

Oke i am in sandbox and installed start11. Tried to import the backup but doesnt work great.. looks awefull 😅

Anyhow, how do i test? do i need to use the sandbox untill it crashes? 

Yes, you mentioned that it crashed every +/- 5 minutes,yes? Perhaps just see if it crashes around 10-15 minutes etc.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

ah no, works fine on a clean sandbox install. (didnt try for 15 min with al the same windows etc, because of the clean install)

I deinstalled "spicetify" maybe that works. (installed that around the same time the bug started) 

oke tested it and start11 breaks after idling for +/- 5 min. So when I don't use the taskbar for 5 min.
For example I was watching youtube for 10 min and after that I clicked the taksbar and it crashed.

I have the feeling it goes in "sleep mode". Does that exist on windows?

Sleep mode does exist in Windows. But, normally it should not goes to sleep while watching youtube.

I suspect something else is causing this issue. Would like to recommend Clean boot as mention here: https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1334935592/Start11+Clean+Boot. Do not that Clean boot will need to be done with care.

Try it and report back.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

I will just reinstall windows and see if that fixes it. Last time is 2 years ago, so its needed anyways

Edit: Rollbacked the 25H2 update, testing now

Oke looks like the Windows Rollback 25H2 did the trick. problem solved. (but can't update to 25H2)

Great, glad to hear that.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

I have read on several tech sites that  26200.7019 is problematic. Hopefully, by the Patch Tuesday release, these issues will be addressed.   

ah, cheered too early. Start11 just crashed/restarted.

Back to trying stuff... 

If there is anything we can do, we need a dump from the crash.  While laborious, this would help us a lot:

https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1347321935/Manually+Collecting+Start+Crash+Dumps

Sean Drohan
Product Lifecycle Manager

WinDbg doesnt start after crashing but i managed to open explorer.exe debug file.

Here is the export + scan:
https://devtof.nl/Fences_RiverComb_04062022.dmp

Edit:

Found out that Start11 crashes when I drag drop files between Explorer files and Filezilla. (any drag/drop)

ps. I also got Fences 3.1.6.1 installed

Perhaps, it something got to do with your Fences v3, since Fences 3 is not compatible on Windows 11. Have you tried running without Fences 3 and see if the issue still there?

What do you mean by Start11 crashed? It stop responding? Perhaps, it is Explorer which crashed causing Start11 to stop responding. Restart Explorer.exe does it help?

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

I'm going to buy Fences v6. Didn't know v3 was outdated.

1. First Start11 crashes and doesnt respond 
2. (file) Explorer works fine
3. Agressive clicking on start11 triggers restart
4. explorer.exe starts and the normal taskbar shows (at the bottom)
5. 10 sec later start11 restarts and the top taskbar is back and functional

This all takes +/- 1 minute

So Start11 makes explorer restart. not the other way around

Start11 is in the explorer process.  Anything in that going wrong will stop Start11 working and the taskbar is still the Windows taskbar.  We simply add to it.  Clicking on a not responding window will eventually make it restart as you have seen but it just tells you the primary thread in explorer stopped working.

Your file explorer windows may be set to run in a separate process depending on your Windows settings too.

My advice would be remove Fences 3.x as thats very much not designed for Windows 11.  See if the issue continues.  I would also watch out for user profile corruption causing this.  We have no other reports of anything like this which strongly suggests Start11 isn't the root cause of the issue here, it could be something it does triggers a windows setting sync which then runs into a problem due to corrupted data somewhere in your user account though.

Having just checked one further thing there is also one conclusive bit of proof that this dmp has nothing to do with Start11.  The Start10_64.dll  file isn't actually loaded up in that crash dmp.  I assume it is from before Start11 starts up on a restart.

This crash is a crash in Windows.CloudStore.  This isn't something Start11 uses and is used for syncing windows settings.  One possible reason would be corrupted data somewhere.

Start11 should also not be involved in any drag & drop operations between windows.

I understand

Thanks for the reply, I am going to reinstall windows and I bought Fences 6. 

I've also been having lots of issues with start11 since 25H2 (26200.7171). Lots of explorer hangs. Disabling start11 seems to clear it all up.

What version of Start11...?

2.56 is the latest

https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

I reinstalled windows an got the same issues. But I found the problem. I use "ChrisTitusTech" to disable a lot of windows features like Telemetry / consumer featurs etc. (https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil?tab=readme-ov-file)

When i reset all settings to default the explorer crashing stoped. So now i'm going to disable feature by feature