XYplorer crashes - can You make it more crash-proof? - SOLVED

[stoik]

I get the crashes very randomly, but in average a few times a day.
Sometimes, it will be only one crash a day,
but at other times they may occur every few minutes,
and then they would stop.

You asked "How often do you have to do it to get a crash ?".
I just now tested that scenario of using the script button
"create new folder with text from clipboard",
that was easy - I just repeatedly clicked the button,
no crash happened after some 60 new folders were created,
of course each one with a numerical extension,
no, when some other circumstance are OK (like now) - crash will
not happen, and when some environmental factor changes
(maybe folder with too much content) - then crashes will happen.

For a while I suspected that the auto-refresh function (of the view)
was buggy if there are too many files inside a folder,
then relatively recently You guys seem to have improved that,
and indeed my crashes now are less frequent
but they still happen.

I tried disabling "auto-refresh" (I hate that ! it's like walking in the dark)
but that did not fix the problem.

[admin]

Well, unfortunately I NEVER get a crash.

So, I can't do anything.

[stoik]

I understand.

Thanks a lot for trying !

[eil]

Just a guess: it either has something to do with Win systems or with data storage(this case usually looks like a total "no reason" when making some operations gets unto the damaged sector).

[jupe]

Years ago when you had "crashes", it ended up being dodgy AHK scripts/macros you had running in the background sending cmds that just closed the XYplorer window, are you still running ANY?

[admin]

Just a guess: it either has something to do with Win systems or with data storage(this case usually looks like a total "no reason" when making some operations gets unto the damaged sector).

He says the new folders are created, so the system works. It's what happens then.

[Marco]

My first guess is the AV is somehow thinking the folder creation is some malicious activity...

[stoik]

THANK YOU
Eil, Jupe, Marco, and Admin !

That is exactly what I was looking for !
Not 100s of questions (although a few are very important)
WITHOUT ANY suggestions,
but rather a bunch of suggestions - it could be this or that,
try this and try that - and see how it goes.
Of course, 4 out of 5 suggestions will not work,
but then the 5th one just might.

On AHK scripts (excellent thought, Jupe !) :
I do have an AHK script running in the background all the time,
I won't bother You will the details, but it is very complex
with many keyboard shortcuts involved.
So, I will now disable it, and see what happens.

On AntiVirus (Marco's thought) :
I do not get the usual AV alert ("suspicious thing detected" or so),
but this is still important and easy to check.
I won't disable the Windows Defender (too risky),
but I added stuff to AV exceptions, namely folder called "Folder"
in my most commonly used locations (e.g. My Documents, and more).
Rationale : XY first creates a default folder named "Folder"
and then it asks me about renaming; it is right after creating "Folder"
when the crash happens (before I can rename it).

I will let You know what happened.

[Marco]

Windows Defender in my experience is the one that behaves the worst because it's very silent in what it does... it even wiped (filled with hex zeroes) a couple of my files without any warning nor log.
Unplug the ethernet cable or disable any wifi card, disable Defender for a while and do some tests. At least you can then discard this hypothesis on sound ground.

[stoik]

Thank You, Marco, great algorithm.

I will first see what happens after disabling AHK scripts and after adding those AV exceptions, and if XY crashes persist - You have already mapped out my next move.

The way You guys think is quite logical and to be expected :
Admin is strongly focused on XYplorer (that is his job !)
while Eil, Jupe, & Marco are more likely to think about things
outside of XYplorer ...

[Horst]

Windows Defender in my experience is the one that behaves the worst because it's very silent in what it does... it even wiped (filled with hex zeroes) a couple of my files without any warning nor log.
Unplug the ethernet cable or disable any wifi card, disable Defender for a while and do some tests. At least you can then discard this hypothesis on sound ground.

No need for any cable or internet manipulation.
I use the very useful free tool DefenderUI,
which allows you to disable/enable all protections
add exceptions and many more settings.
https://www.defenderui.com/

[Marco]

Nice tool, thanks for sharing!

[stoik]

Thank You, Horst.

Interesting thing, this "DefenderUI".
I already have a similar freeware "ConfigureDefender".
I will definitely check out this stuff later, but it gets me side-tracked,
first I want to focus on XYplorer crashes,
so I will keep it simple for now.

If one is cynical and not open-minded
one can find flaws in any idea, e.g. the AHK suggestion :
why would it only crash XY randomly,
and not regularly on every folder creation,
but the theory is SO EASY to check out,
and there are extra variable that we are probably over-looking,
it would be stupid of me to not try it out.

[stoik]

Update for Eil, Jupe, Marco, and Admin ...

I followed Your suggestions as outlined above.
Unfortunately it did not work.
On day one, there were no crashes.
On day two, there were three crashes.

That is the difficulty with testing this,
I have to wait for at least two days to be sure.

I disabled that autohotkey macro that was using F4
assuming that some scenario might be triggering Ctrl+Alt+F4
which for XYplorer means "Exit without saving".

However, I cannot be sure that some other software
is not somehow silently triggering Ctrl+Alt+F4.

After giving it some more thought,
the idea that Windows Defender (WD) is mistaking
the creation of a new folder for malicious activity
seems a bit far fetched, especially since :
- there is no usual security warning from Windows Defender,
- this happens only randomly (why not always ?),
- creating new folders is such a basic function,
surely WD would recognize that the folder is empty ...

I do not feel like "turning heaven and earth"
for a trivial XY closure once or twice a day (in average),
I will not go coo-coo and follow those totally idiotic online suggestions
like "work without anti-virus" or "reinstall Windows".

I do not know if this little XYplorer tweak would help
differentiate "close without save" from a "crash" :
optional "warn on exit" (like "are you sure you want to exit").
I hate such nags, but it could be made OPTIONAL in XY settings,
but I do not see it as an option in XY.

I will keep checking further for those issues mentioned above,
namely - is some program "shooting" Ctrl+Alt+F4 ?,
and adding empty folder creation to Windows Defender exceptions
(right now, I am not sure this can be done) ...

Thank You all for Your excellent ideas !

[stoik]

Right now I had a crash when
dragging a folder from left pane to right pane.

As if the "auto-refresh" function
caused the crash.