I am running Windows Blinds and Curtains HOWEVER I had everything set up the way I wanted BEFORE the problems started happening out of the blue for no apparent reason exce3pt possibly an Update to Windows 10 21/H2.

Also I have uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of times with reboots

Where is the FAQ? That alone is hard to find. Crashed twice before while searching - wanting to provide dmp files.

yeah were are the dump files to be able to send them to you

Nevermind, found it - https://forums.stardock.com/505872/start11-support-faq#CrashDumps

Have installed the software and will wait for the next crash to occur.

all I get is

PS C:\Users\Morgoth> C:\WINDOWS\system32>.dump /mf c:\users\ray\desktop\Start11_RiverComb_04062022.dmp
C:\WINDOWS\system32>.dump : The term 'C:\WINDOWS\system32>.dump' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function,
script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is
correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ C:\WINDOWS\system32>.dump /mf c:\users\ray\desktop\Start11_RiverComb_ ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (C:\WINDOWS\system32>.dump:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

The .dump command needs to be run in the WinDbg program, seems like you are running it from a command prompt?

Ahh

ok Ill do that

Still not having any luck changing my task bar color or the start menu icon

Here is my dump file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dlbs9z4ueavtttz/Start11_01062022.dmp?dl=0

Thanks for that.

One thing that is curious is in the call stack is bdhkm64.dll which seems to be part of BitDefender.

Does this happen if bitdefender isn't running?

I haven't tried doing a search without BitDefender being active. However, in saying that, yesterday morning I was able to do searches completely fine - and without signing out or restarting my laptop, in the afternoon, doing searches then produced crashes. So it is very hard to predict when things will run smooth vs when they won't.

The stack indicates the issue occurs when the OS says it has an image in the global imagelist and when asked to paint it you find it doesn't and goes off to load it.  It is at this point bitdefender seems to be involved.  I wouldn't be surprised to find this is delaying the load for some images which is causing some very odd behaviour.

Once the image has been loaded it will remain until the OS decides to flush things.

Thanks for that. Should I contact BitDefender with this to see if they come back with any solutions? Or Microsoft?

It should be noted that Start10 worked fine with Windows 10 on this current laptop, where BitDefender was also up and running. It is only since updating to Win 11 and Start11 have the issue I'm experiencing become present.

No it may well be normal for it to be in the stack, if the issue were to go away without bitdefender running then yes it would be their end.

But we have made a change for an upcoming build which will force the icons to first paint in another thread to see if that helps things.

Okay - I shall wait for the next update to see if things improve.

Well Hell I'm sitting here stuck with THIS as my start button and Start 11 will NOT change it.  and no suggested help.

seriously getting sick of it.  Trying this but nothing happens.

well I tried to snip an image out of Start11 to show the Bio-hazard icon I wanted to use instead of that half moon garbage that I don't know where it came from.

Quoting MagiK1, reply 140

Well Hell I'm sitting here stuck with THIS as my start button and Start 11 will NOT change it.  and no suggested help.



seriously getting sick of it.  Trying this but nothing happens.

well I tried to snip an image out of Start11 to show the Bio-hazard icon I wanted to use instead of that half moon garbage that I don't know where it came from.

Thats not a bug.  It looks like you are using Curtains and have set it to replace the start button with the theme one.  Disabling that option in Curtains will fix that.

I've been following this thread since I purchased Start11 last year.    I've installed it and uninstalled it more times than I can count, hoping that every beta release would be stable enough so that I can work, and I'm constantly disappointed.

I write software for a living and my biggest question is how the hell did something with so my problems even be allowed to be sold to the public?   I feel you are using the general public as your Quality Assurance department instead of doing it yourself.  

This isn't a bug that slipped through the cracks.   It happens on all 5 of my computers with totally different setups.

I've been dealing with this bug for over 6 months now.

I am sorry you are experiencing problems.

It is possible all five of your setups have something in common setup wise?  For example do you use BitDefender, are you using the Start10 style search option in Start11?  Obviously if this was happening for everyone then the forum would be full of complaints about this and very few people are having a problem.  This makes it harder as it isn't easy to reproduce in house.

Given you are a software dev it would be most helpful if you were able to help us and provide a dmp file from a crash as this would provide information on where the problem is.

I'll try that

Two are Malwarebytes machines, two are Bitdefender machines and one is Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security.

All the machines have Visual Studio 2019, Office 365, Jetbrains PHP Storm, DataGrip, node.js, composer, Apache, Mysql, Postgresql and Sublime Text, Sublime Merge, DBeaver Enterprise, eM Client, EmEditor.    Two of the machines have DaVinci Resolve Studio.

All the machines are nvme storage, Ryzen 7 or Intel 7 between 32gb to 64 gb of memory.  The oldest machine is 2 years old and all the machines are very stable when Start 11 is removed.

I've been using Fluent Search and don't use any start menu anymore at all and don't really miss it.

Well that seemed to be the problem, it appears to be working now.  Thanks for your help.  Still have some hinky behaviors in StarDock apps (not the games) but they arent worth the effort to track down.  Thanks again.

Have you ever been able to follow this and create a dump file for us to review?

https://forums.stardock.com/505872/start11-support-faq#CrashDumps

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

As a developer yourself, I would think you of all people would understand the difficulties in writing software for the Windows PC market. There are so many configurations of software and hardware in the Windows PC world that is virtually impossible to completely test new software inhouse, especially software with hooks into Windows 11 which is a moving target right now. In my opinion, Windows 11, even in the stable branch, is a beta version with so many issues it's ridiculous. My point is that even Microsoft can't completely test it's software inhouse.

I believe Stardock to be a very conscientious software developer that provides some of the best customer support in the industry. If you would be willing to provide Sean with the dump file he is requesting, I'm sure he will give it the attention it deserves and help you solve your issue.

I just found this thread by an internet search "Start11 crashes explorer.ext"  I thought I was the only one having this issue while gaming.  Apparently not.  This has become a major issue and making the application unusable.  I do not know if the competition also has this issue but when I reviewed them all I decided to go with Start11 for a few minor reasons.  

Has there been any traction with this?  For me, it only happens when I am gaming.  Playing several game clients at once.  Are we still trying to track down the issue with dump logs?  If so maybe I can help.  22 years in SQA.

I can devote more time if the issue has not yet been isolated.  If it has is the fix on the schedule yet?