I have a pretty standard install, nothing fancy. I have Dopus replacing explorer. This is becoming an almost daily occurrence. I almost always have Dopus open. Occasionally, when going back to it from a game or movie or whatever, I notice it's frozen. Then, slowly, everything on my computer fails. Dopus freezes up, then anything that accesses a hard drive (so most programs) start to crash, then my whole explorer crashes, then the whole computer locks up. The only solution at that point is a hard shutdown. I have logs I'll upload, I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this before.
An application level program like Opus can't lock your whole computer up, but hardware drivers can. Sounds to me like you have a failing hard drive.
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It doesn't occur when accessing a drive, or at any specific time. It just happens randomly whenever Dopus is open (which is 24/7 for me, pretty much). When this error occurs, before everything everything locks up, I can open up explorer, and all my drives are grayed out, causing explorer to lock up, except for 2 of my network drives. Of which I have 8 attached.
If it isn't Dopus and it is something like a hard drive (of which one has been indeed acting odd, at times), everything works "fine" until I click on Dopus to try to do something. Even if it's not on that specific drive. It seems like clickign on Dopus is the catalyst to the eventual crash.
There’s something wrong at a low level in your system (with the hardware, drivers, or possibly antivirus) if all your local drives stop working.
Opus cannot cause that to happen by itself. Nothing that user-mode software does can cause that to happen unless something at a lower level is failing.
Make sure you have installed the latest chipset snd storage drivers for your motherboard (assuming that’s what the drives are connected to).
Use a tool like Crystal Disk Info to see if any of the drives are reporting failures.
Check the Windows Event Log, System section to see if there are any low-level errors reported there (although, if the whole SATA controller is shutting itself down, it may prevent the logs being written as well when it happens).
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Do you have any way to know that the same thing wouldn't happen if you clicked on Explorer?
Right, but as I have Dopus replacing explorer, that wouldn't necessarily rule out Dopus. This issue just started up a few weeks ago, around the time I replaced explorer.
As for hardware, SMART is fine, as well as CrystalDiskInfo. I replaced the SATA cable, and the drive is only a couple years old. The only thing left is to replace the SATA power cable, which I'll have to pick another up. I'm hoping it's that.
Nothing so far rules in Opus, and it simply is not possible for Opus to cause this kind of problem.
If software that just accesses files and directories was able to bring down the entire machine and every single drive on it, then something would be seriously wrong with the OS for allowing that to happen. Only low-level things can do that. (Hardware, drivers, antivirus, and similar.)
OK,
Long long ago I took home a work computer that IT had given up on.
Security wasn't tight. Honestly, I still recommend drilling holes through the hard drive.
The problem was freezing and crash shutdowns.
It turned out to be a bad memory stick !
At the time I used a freeware version of DocMemory from floppy.
This problem doesn't seem to be the same, but these days windows can probably check this .
It's worth a try at least .
Just search for 'Windows Memory Diagnostic' and follow instructions for a diagnostic reboot.
At least we can then rule that issue out.
I had a look at the process snapshots you sent via email, and they also indicate a low-level issue.
When Opus asks Windows for the display name of the Downloads folder, the operating system seems to be hanging (or taking a very long time) in a CloseHandle call:
(It may or may not be specific to the Downloads folder, and could also relate to it being on a network server. That's the folder involved when the snapshots were taken.)
CloseHandle would normally complete instantly, even for a network drive (assuming it is on a LAN, at least). If something is causing it to hang, there's a problem at a lower level than Opus. And if that in turn then causes other drives in the system to stop responding, then there's an even bigger problem in the system. Opus cannot be the cause of that.
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The network drives are indeed LAN.
Could this potential problem with one of my local drives cause an issue like this connecting to other drives, or is there something bigger going on? I appreciate the help, I know we're kinda out of the Dopus realm now, haha.
Could be many things.
Have you checked the Windows event log?
Tried uninstalling antivirus/firewall/security software in case it is locking up?
Checked your motherboard/SATA/network drivers?