Simon_Gibbs Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 I'm getting this really weird problem with a few students, in two of our computer rooms straight after logging in, they go to my documents and explorer seems to crash, all they can do is ctrl alt del and log out, nothing else. I've tried seeing if there was a corrupt file by going through and putting documents back in one at a time into a users area, seeing which one caused it to happen, but it would seem rather then one corrupt file, its once too many are put in the folder. As far as I know there is no limit for how many files can go in a folder, defiantly not the 30 - 40 that at the very highest level some of these kids have in them. So I'm getting pretty stumped by this, why would it lock up explorer? has anyone else had anything similar.
elsiegee40 Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 I'm getting this really weird problem with a few students, in two of our computer rooms straight after logging in, they go to my documents and explorer seems to crash, all they can do is ctrl alt del and log out, nothing else. I've tried seeing if there was a corrupt file by going through and putting documents back in one at a time into a users area, seeing which one caused it to happen, but it would seem rather then one corrupt file, its once too many are put in the folder. As far as I know there is no limit for how many files can go in a folder, defiantly not the 30 - 40 that at the very highest level some of these kids have in them. So I'm getting pretty stumped by this, why would it lock up explorer? has anyone else had anything similar. Anything in the event log?
armadillo Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 I'm getting this really weird problem with a few students, in two of our computer rooms straight after logging in, they go to my documents and explorer seems to crash, all they can do is ctrl alt del and log out, nothing else. I've tried seeing if there was a corrupt file by going through and putting documents back in one at a time into a users area, seeing which one caused it to happen, but it would seem rather then one corrupt file, its once too many are put in the folder. As far as I know there is no limit for how many files can go in a folder, defiantly not the 30 - 40 that at the very highest level some of these kids have in them. So I'm getting pretty stumped by this, why would it lock up explorer? has anyone else had anything similar. Do you have ranger or similar on the machines?
Simon_Gibbs Posted March 23, 2010 Author Posted March 23, 2010 Nothing in event log, when it first started there was something coming up about webfldrxp.exe, so I had a hunt round, it is for publishing folders on the web, which I didn't want the kids doing anyway, so got rid of that, but that didn't solve it. and We've got AB tutor, and securus on the machines.
ChrisH Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 Have you tried deleting their local profiles off the machines in question?
FreeWill Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 We have the exact same problem - just in a different folder. Students log on, open My Computer and browse to (usually) their Home Drive or a folder within it. Explorer hangs whilst attempting to load the contents of the folder. Only way out is Log off and back in again (No Taskman for students). The problem has also been present for some staff - on fully updated XP Service Pack 3 Machines. This has happened to approximately five students and two staff, starting in September 2009. It tends to be the same users who have a problem. Policies and permissions are relatively identical between students, just the file contents of the folders differ. The workaround that we have been suggesting to users is to open the application and then open the file from there; thus not using explorer.exe. It is by no means a solution but allows users to work. I have searched for solutions and nothing has turned up thus far.
Simon_Gibbs Posted March 23, 2010 Author Posted March 23, 2010 We use mandatory profiles, there is also a script that runs every time to clear off any profile bits that are left on the pc as well on shutdown, so yup, tried that too
FN-GM Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 We did have a problem like this. Are there any files that are .fsm or .fms format in the folder? Z
Simon_Gibbs Posted March 23, 2010 Author Posted March 23, 2010 Nope, no files with that extension. I don't think its the number of files now, which was kinda one of the things I was suspecting, because I'd tried everything else I could think of!
FN-GM Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 hmm we had some files in the home areas with that extension causing the problem. I just set a script to delete them and it sorted it. Do you have alot of temp files in the areas?
elsiegee40 Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 Have you redirected My Documents so each student has their own? This might sound like a daft question, but some (primary) schools don't.
sonofsanta Posted March 23, 2010 Posted March 23, 2010 Had this before at my last school - as FreeWill said, all we could do was tell people to use File > Open from the application. Can't remember if we ever found a solution - it seemed to go away of its own accord after a while, not that that's much help...
Simon_Gibbs Posted March 23, 2010 Author Posted March 23, 2010 There are a few temp files in the users areas that have the trouble, but first thing I do is clear them out, doesn't fix it, and yup, all home areas are redirected.
Simon_Gibbs Posted March 24, 2010 Author Posted March 24, 2010 So any ideas, because I'm really struggling now to find an answer to it, and it seems to be affecting more and more of our students, help would be really really appreciated!
FreeWill Posted March 24, 2010 Posted March 24, 2010 I've also been investigating this today. Something I have noticed which is common with all of the users that have been having this problem are unassociated file extensions. All of our affected users so far have file extensions which are not recognised by software installed on the computer on which they are trying. I have removed these files for one user and explorer did not crash for them, but haven't tested for other users yet. The files for this particular user were Microsoft Works .wps files. This could be similar to the .fsm / .fms post above by FN-GM. i.e. file extensions potentially unknown by the OS causing the hang.
DMcCoy Posted March 24, 2010 Posted March 24, 2010 It could also be a known file type that is the problem. What setting is being used for folder view? It's worth trying with the details option instead as I think this avoids any thumbnail generation of files.
tech_guy Posted March 24, 2010 Posted March 24, 2010 I saw this with some students who had saved a website to their Documents folder using IE. Once I deleted the folder that had been created and the associated files the problem disappeared.
mrmontymick Posted March 24, 2010 Posted March 24, 2010 It could also be a known file type that is the problem. What setting is being used for folder view? It's worth trying with the details option instead as I think this avoids any thumbnail generation of files. This is probably good advice, we had a similar problem once, it got better with details view instead of thumbnails etc. When windows was creating the extended attributes (such as thumbnails) it was crashing explorer whilst trying to retrieve them. This happened particularly with media files such as AVI's which were encoded with, in those days, unusual video codecs such ax XVID. Once we updated the codecs on the machine the issue went away. Since then I've find that 90% of explorer crashes when browsing folders tend to be related to it attempting to do something fancy with extended attributes.
Simon_Gibbs Posted March 25, 2010 Author Posted March 25, 2010 Well, I think I've got to the bottom of it, something to do with google sketchup, take it off the machine.. and they start working fine again.. don't really know why, but for the time being they are going to have to make do with out it till I can find out what it is doing!
Simon_Gibbs Posted March 25, 2010 Author Posted March 25, 2010 A little premature it would seem, fixed one room, but the same thing hasn't worked on the other two, back to the hunting for an answer..
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