Explorer crashes

Has anyone figured out why the explorer crashes when plugins are used? The bar works fine as long as no plugins are used but once i put plugins on the bar explorer crashes every so often when i click on a button or a plugin to use it or execute the program the shortcut pertains to.

Also how many other people get these random explorer crashes? I've read a lot of post about these crashes but no one seems to konw why as of yet. Yuri could you help us all out so we can use plugins. Ever since day one when I paid for the bar I couldn't get plugins to work so I said the heck with it but now that the free version is out I wanna use plugins so I don't feel ripped off. So far the only plugins I found to work correctly is the media control plugin. Explorer won't crash with them on inside a menu where I have them. Explorer only crashes when I put on the weather plugins of the system monitor plugins. I have yet to figure it out. As far as other plugins I don't use any of the other ones. They serve me no purpose yet. Thanks.

I am running windows xp pro xpsp2. Fresh install of xp with no 3rd party software other then tlb at the moment.

I know only about Weather Forecast plugin crashes. Some posts for the last days. I'm working on fixeing this bug.

Other plugins are stable. I'm using most of them on my computers and no cashes. But maybe this is depends of configuration. Please can you backup your True Launch Bar (TLB Settings->General Options->Backup toolbar) and send file to me <!-- e --><a href="mailtoupport@tsoftcentral.com">support@tsoftcentral.com</a><!-- e -->

Also please attach the screenshot of your toolbar and menus and write your Windows version. I'll try to find bug with your settings.

BTW what TLB version do you use?

Ok thanks for the reply Yuri. I'm gonna have to set up my bar again the way that I had it when i got the crashes. Cause for some reason thats unknown it works great without plugins and skins enabled. But as soon as I enable plugins and skins and set the bar upto my likeings it crashes explorer out big time. So badly that dr.watson pops up as a crash too. Which makes me have to press the reset button. However I think this is caused due to the weather plugins yet. Even though they ain't enabled I beleive that files have been currupted due to the weather plugins crashing out explorer. Thats why the explorer keeps on crashing now. The files that I beleive are caused by this crash which have been currupted are the image files for skins and the plugins that were enabled at the time of the weather plugins crash. I am also looking at other files that were involved in the crash as well.. These include native windows files as I will list them for investgation.

The native files that were included are as follows:advapi32.dll, gdi32.dll, kernel32.dll, ntdll.dll, ole32.dll, oleaut32.dll, shell32.dll, user32.dll, wininet.dll, winsock.dll.

Those are the files that are natvie to windows and show up in the crash report with tlb.dll. Anyways I'll go now and setup my tlb the way I've had it so the crashes are reproduced. I will then take screen shots and back up the bar to send.

Ok now this is odd. Should the backup file be 52mb's or am I seeing things. Cause my backup file turned out to be 52mbs. Thats gonna take for ever to send with screenshots too. And another thing my isp only allows 10mb files to be sent. Why would that backup file be so big anyways. 52mbs its no wonder explorer crashes out. To much info to handle at one time when clicking on a shortcut. Oh I forgot to mention I am running windows xp pro with sp2. My tlb version is the latest at 3.2.

I have been thinking about these crashes and think I have found the problem however I can’t figure out why I got a 52mb tlbbackup file which is why I haven’t sent it to you. Once I figure out why its so large I’ll be able to cut it down to send a copy to you so you can test my layout and find the bug. I recently downloaded freelaunchbar as well for my brothers pc since he liked my truelaunchbar menu’s and when I installed free launch bar on his pc and added 4 menu’s and 3 submenu’s under one menu and 2 under another as well as 5 shortcuts under one of the menu’s I have gotten the same explorer crash on a default launch bar setup within the settings panel. So I have no idea what I’m doing wrong when setting up the menu’s but it’s got to be the wrong way. Any ideas on how to setup these 2 programs so explorer don’t crash. Its annoying. Oddly though tlb don’t make a crash if I have only menu’s and shortcuts, tlb version only does it with plugins and skins turned on. I have a feeling its a refresh problem with ati video card drivers. You mentioned earlier that it works fine with your pc. Are you by chance using an nvidia card instead of an ati video card. I know ati’s drivers tend to act oddly with certain games according to there site. This might be something that you might want to start a poll here on the fourms about. Ati video cards and Nvidia cards to see who uses what card on the fourms, cause a lot of people are having problems but others are not which got me to thinking of a video card problem. Now that free launch bar I'll get a few of my friends which some have nvidia video cards to try free launch bar out. If they encounter no crashes then I'll dig deeper to solve these crashes and contact ati to fix whatever the problem is. But I'm pretty certian its caused by ati's refresh handler.

Currently I'm using ATI video card. Anyway TLB do not uses hardware acceleration.

About backup size. If you are changed icons and select the option "Save icon with toolbar" then all these icons will be added into backup file. Also try to locate what files are most big in the toolbar folder. I know about problem when tlbdata.xml can become very big for virtual folders. Also you can send me the setup.ini from toolbar folder. This file contain main TLB settings and some screenshots will help me to make toolbar like yours.

The other bug that was found in TLB 3.2 (and FLB too) incompatibility with Logitech QuickCam software. There are also can be similar problem with other software. This can be found only if delete shortcuts one by one. But as I understand the crashes are not stable and appears in random times.

Also some antiviruses can cause the explorer crashes together with TLB. The old versions of KAV even prevented TLB loading. And I'm hope you are check your PC for spyware and adsware. Most of them become explorer addon like TLB and can conflict with True Launch Bar.

Ok thanks Yuri. That explains why my tlb backup file is so huge. I have put my icons in a folder under my launch bar foldder and i hid them from showing on the task bar. I will send screen shots and my setup.ini file. Screenshots of a few menu's which are customized should be fine right. Although you mentioned about quickcam software is this caused by the drivers of the quickcams or the software itself cause I did install my camera drivers but not the software. Also use ontrack virus scan which comes with vcom's system suite. Although I did get a crash or 2 on a fresh install of xp without drivers or virus software but not as many as I am now. So i wonder if its caused also by the logitech keyboards as well. Like the elite keyboard with the volume and other buttons on the f keys. The drivers for these keyboards are installed with windows xp as a native hid compliant keyboard and all options work though the drivers xp uses but with no on screen display. I've checked my lauchbar folder and found that the icons folder is why my tlbbackup file is so big. I didn't think i had 50 mbs of icons. So I'm gonna move that folder and link my icons to another folder outside of the laucnh folder and disable my antivirus to see if that helps be4 I send files to ya. If this helps I'll contact vcom again so they can release a new update fixing the problem. If not I'll unplug my camera and see what happpens. Its most likely the camera since that is a known problem. I'll do things one by one till I get no crashes which they are random and cant be recreated to easily.

The problem was with shortcut to Logitech QuickCam not with drivers. So I guess there are can be same problem with other software but I don't sure.

BTW when explorer crashes without TLB plugins? Maybe some specific actions cause crashes?

Hmm... and 56M backup size is very-very big. Actually TLB create backup by merging of all files from toolbar folder. So maybe when you've created shortcuts using drag&drop you've moved or copied some program files or documents folder into toolbar folder.

Ok Well so far I haven't had any crashes since I moved my icons out of the truelaunchbar folder. I didn't think that would cause the problem but it seems like thats what the cause was. So far I am able to move shortcuts around and click on the folders pretty good even with all my plugins in use. As far as the weather monitor plugin goes I won't use them untill I see that the bug has been fixed since its a known bug. That with the combonation of me putting my icons in the tlb folder didn't help. It caused a major crash which caused some major system files to get currupted and tranucated. So it will be sometime be4 I get a stable system again to get rid of all the bad files and such from the crash. I guess I could try my setup on my copy of xp home. I run xp home and pro on the same pc with as a dual boot setup. But before I do that does the licsense allow me to install the licsense on another copy of windows as long as its on the same system. I don't want to do that and lose my licsense. If I"m able to I'll test my setup on xp home to see if it works.

Well I found the source of the problem. As far as where its located in the source is beyound me. But the source of these random explorere crashes is within the registry. The way I found this out is I took the ntuser.dat file from the default user folder and placed it in my user name folder. THis has solved the probelm and sped up my pc pretty well. The ntuser.dat file is the registry and somehow it got currupted. Another strange thing is my computer uses less memory yet the same programs are running. So it seems that tlb is actually being blamed irregularly via windows error reporting. When infact its not tlb's dll causing the crashes. The reason tlb is being blamed by windows error reporting is due to the fact that tlb is an addon 3rd partied program and not native to windows. I don't think this is fair but thats microsoft for ya. Its either that or one of the registry keys for tlb somehow gets deleted by the weather monitor plugin bug which then causes continous crashes at random times. Even though weather monitor plugins ain't running anymore due to user taking them off of the bar they may still get the same type of crash due to the key being deleted or possibly misconfigured. Another idea is that a key for browseui.dll somehow got crossed with tlb.dll due to a previous crash by the weather monitor bug. At this point in time its really hard to say until I can figure out exactly why and how the registry has gotten so currupted. So for all of you who have random explorer crashes I have a soloution for you.

Sign on to the admin acct go to documents and settings default user and copy the ntuser.dat files. You may see 2 ntuser.dat files one that looks like a text document and another one that has a default system icon. Well don't let that bother you cause you need to copy both of them. So select both of them and right click and press copy from the menu that appears. Backout of that folder and find your user name that you sign on with everyday. Go into that folder and right click. Press paste to copy the ntuser.dat file from the default folder. Say yes to any conformations that popup. Reboot your computer and sign on to your user name as usual if windows xp don't automaticly sign on.

NOTE:
Now when you sign on windows will appear as if the user acct was just created. The tutor will appear as well as the visual style will be defaulted back to the default blue luna style. Also the my computer, my documents. my network places, and internet exploer will no longer be on the desktop. You'll have to bring them back again. And any program that you have installed for your user name only will not autorun so you'll have to run them as a new user and select for them to autorun again. But most programs will be as they were when you replaced the ntuser.dat file. So many shouldn't need to worry.

I will be monitoring tlb and these random crashes of explorer for a few days or so to see what causes them to come back if at all. So I'll keep everyone here upto date as well as Yuri. This way we can solve this problem so it never appears again. Well I'm off to figure out where this originates from. In the mean time stay tuned for updates to random crashes of explorer being caused by tlb. But I found that its not tlb.dll whatso ever. Its a key in the registry.

Glad to hear you found the cause of the crashes.

Yet I wouldn't anyone recommend to replace the NTUSER.DAT file with the default one after a crash occurs. You should keep in mind that this file contains all the user specific settings for all programs. I'd rather delete the corruped key(s) than remove all my settings

Ok A bit of an update for this type of crash. I've stated be4 that I have fixed my problem by replacing the ntuser.dat file to fix the registry. Well I have found out what causes the registry to get currupt. This is not related to tlb itself but its related to the icons that are available at certian websites. Some of the icons are not created correctly so windows can't read from them. This causes gdiplus.dll to crash out. When this dll crashes out it causes all dll's in memory to appear in the crash report. When this file crashes on some pc's depending on whats being ran at the time and if anything is reading to the harddrive or where have you. In my case when it crashed once it was writing to the registry. This caused an error in the regisrty. So for those people who get misterious explorer crashes while using tlb plus go though all your icons to make sure paint.exe can read them. If not delete and don't use the icon. This pertains to the tif's as well which microsoft is aware of with the gdiplus.dll. And there is no fix to this via tlb cause its not the problem. Send all explorer crashes to microsoft so they can fix this problem. I sent them about 100 error reports in a days time cause of this bug. Welp there ya have it everyone the real reason to misterious explorer crashes that everyone blamed tlb for. So Yuri you should be able to work on tlb to make it better since there is no need to track misterious explorer crashes caused by tlb. Instead add more features and plugins to make this program even better.