Browser crashes when attaching to emails, etc.

I posted this in an older thread on the subject but a suggestion was made to created a new thread on this problem. So, here it is...

When attempting to send an e-mail with an attachement, simply hitting the "attach" button causes the browser, any browser (IE, Firefox and Chrome), to crash. Likewise, trying to save a web page or, for that matter, trying to use "save as" crashes the browser.

I see that the original poster as to this type of problem apparently solved the problem by "copying in" Vista Service Pack 2. But, My lap top is running the following:

Operating System: Windows 7 Premium Home Edition (and looks to be up to date with service packs and updates)

Internet Explorer 9 (more specifically, 9.08112.16421)

Firefox: 11.0

Anti Virus: Avast 120804-0

SO... I'm thinking my lappy would simply snicker at a Vista service pack. Any ideas?

 

Hi & thanks for starting a new thread!

What email service are you using?

What is the type of file & size of file that you are trying to upload?

Does the browser come to a complete stop or does it exit immediately, or does Windows step in and say that it is no longer working?

 

Hi and thanks for the response.

The email service doesn't seem a factor. AOL Mail, GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo... All services return this result.

Likewise the size of the file being attached doesn't seem to be an issue as even simple, small, one page text documents, without any graphics, cause the problem.

The browser doesn't simply "freeze". It closes entirely, disappearing from the screen, leaving the user at the desktop. When IE crashes, a box usually pops up with "Microsoft speak" saying, in effect, "As you can plainly see, IE has crashed. We can't imagine what you can do about it but await your amusing attempts to work around the problem." *sigh*

Sorry for the snark. I'm just frustrated.

 

Are you able to successfully upload files to other services on the internet, such as photo sharing websites?

No need to apologise for the snark, I do understand your frustration and we will work at this.

 

Haven't done that in quite a while...

OK, this morning I tried to upload a photo to my photobucket account and was unable to do so.

Using IE, after clicking on the "upload button" a bottom bar message appeared that said: "A problem with this webpage caused IE to close and reopen this tab."

(hmmm... maybe the webpage, maybe not?) Anyway, IE does this 3 times then says "we are unable to return you to photobucket."

I tried the same with Firefox... I received a message that "Adobe Flash Plugin has crashed." Thinking that I should perhaps update or download that plug in anew, I tried to do that. Now that is a problem. Because Firefox Tools>Add-ons>Plugins does list Shockwave Flash 10.0.32.18 as needing updating. But when I try to download the update... that is, as soon as I click "save file"... Firefox crashes.

It's odd that I can receive attachments without any problem but am unable to send them. And now a downloading/saving issue rears it's ugly head.

BTW, now at my office, my work computer easily uploads a file to photobucket. So, I think my lappy IE was just misinterpreting the issue as being a webpage isssue.

 

Flash is at version 11.3.300.270
Your version is from sometime in 2009 or 2010!

Flash uninstaller: http://majorgeeks.com/Adobe_Flash_Player_Uninstaller_d6551.html

flash for IE http://majorgeeks.com/Adobe_Flash_Player_for_Internet_Explorer_d5163.html

flash for FF http://www.filehippo.com/download_flashplayer_firefox/

 

Guilty. Yes. Horribly out of date. I'm downloading those files to a flash drive and will (hopefully) be able to update in that manner in any event. But... is that the source of the problem with vis-vis the e-mail attachments, then? Thanks in advance.

 

Oh, and just to clarify, as an uninstaller was listed. I need to uninstall the older version of Flash and then install the IE Flash and Non-IE Flash, correct?

 

I don't want to interfere with the help you are receiving with the Adobe issue but am curious if you have any problem saving a file in Wordpad.

When you get a chance: Open Wordpad by typing wordpad in the Start box and then type a sentence and choose to Save As and see if the Save As dialog box opens the way it should or if you experience a similar crash. (It seems to me the error relates to bringing up the Save as dialog box which is part of Windows itself.)

 

Thanks. But, no, "save as" in Wordpad works just fine. All other wordprocessor programs seem to work OK in this regard as well.

 

Yes, that is correct.

 

Thanks, Plodr. Well, at least that's taken care of. Flash is all nicely updated now. The "attachment" and "save as" problems still persist. While it's good to have those updates, I figured that wasn't the core problem.

 

Have you had any Antivirus installed prior to Avast? Is there any other security software installed, any disk emulation or rollback software etc ?

 

Open Firefox, click on Help then select Restart with Add-ons Disabled. Now try to attach a file to an email. What happens?

 

Nullptr: The Laptop came preloaded with trial version of "Trend Micro Internet Security", which expired a while back and then I loaded Avast.

Plodr: Just finished trying FF restart with add-ons disabled. Called up email and as soon as I hit "attach" FF still crashed.

 

Oh, I should probably said earlier that the laptop is an ASUS Model: K60IJ, in case that's needed info.

 

It would appear that the problem lies within the networking stack of your computer or possibly your network connection.

Are you able to upload anything at all from any other PC in the house?

Does Windows file sharing still work correctly? (Can you copy files from one computer to another over the network?)

 

As a follow up to #13, use the following method to ensure that all traces of trend have been removed: http://esupport.trendmicro.com/solution/en-US/1038848.aspx

 

Thanks Satrow, I'll attend to that when I return home from work today. Could Trend be a cause of the problem, do you think? Or is this suggestion more of a common sense house keeping detail?

Thanks, Collinsl. Laptop is the only working Computer in the house at the moment and isn't networked to any other computer. And, I'm afraid we're reaching the point where my grasp of computer terms will begin to fail. While I deem myself to be reasonably computer savvy, we're drifting into "Say it in 'Computers for Dummies' language, please" because my Google-fu skills take me only so far.

Don't know why I didn't think to do this before, but I'll bring the laptop over a friends house, plug into his DSL line and see if the laptop and the 'net behave better. Will report back with results.

 

Any 'bad' or incomplete uninstall of security software can cause similar issues; if a remnant remains active without the program being available, it effectively blocks that action from taking place - with no error or other message flagged, it can be tricky to resolve.

 

OK, all taken care of. Followed directions and removed Trend in Safe Mode. Unfortunately, it had no effect on the problem. Still, it's good to know all traces of Trend removed least it cause some other problem in the future.

 

Well, unfortunately, that proved to be no help either. Plugged into the DSL line (which also involves no network) the problems (outgoing email attachments and "save as" case browser crashes) persist.

 

Hmmm... This morning I tried saving a document in Open Office Write (which I hadn't checked earlier) and now, or perhaps I'm just noticing it, "Save as" freezes that word processor. When I get home, I'll uninstall Open Office and re-install (I have it on a flash drive). I'll also re-check Wordpad to see it documents can yet be saved in it.

 

I'm still convinced this is a Window's problem not a particular program. I think it has something to do with Windows building the left pane of the Save dialog where it gives a tree-view of folders. I had some links to regedit keys to check but have lost them. I'll see if I can find something useful.

Just a couple of quick things to check.

In an Explorer window hit the Organize link on the top left then choose Folder and Search options. Untick both boxes under Navigation. (Was either ticked?)

Also in an Explorer window open Computer Do you see any entry for Network Location in the main window under the listings for your partitions (C: D: etc.)?

Lastly, if you hit the network icon in the left pane to open that view in the main window, does the main window just show one icon for the name of your computer?

 

Uninstalling and re-installing Open Office didn't help. "Save as" still freezes the word processor. That is, the cursor still appears in the document blinking but unmovable and no further typing can be done. The mouse arrow cursor is present and can be moved about the screen but clicking on any function is ineffectual. I then have to close Open Office with task Manager.

Explorer>Organize>Folder and Search>Navigation: Neither box was checked. I left them so.

Explorer>Computer: There's no entry for network Location in the Main (I presume you refer to the right pane) window under the listing for C:

Network Icon in the left pane - It shows an Icon for the name of the computer, an icon for a media device (Windows media player, is that supposed to be there?) and two icons for wireless internet connections that are presumable related to routers broadcasting in the neighborhood. I'd be surprised if those were involved somehow with the problems as the problems persisted when the laptop was hooked up to a DSL phone line. But then, what the heck do I know? LOL

 

I'm sorry I haven't come up with anything as to the cause.

I want to explore the network connection but haven't had time to really read up on that.

Two things I have been considering as options but don't know if they would do any good are:

1) Running a sfc /scannow from the command prompt to check that all your system files are OK. I don't think there is a downside to doing this.

2) As a last resort you could download Win7 SP1 file to reinstall SP1. I don't know if this would do anything or not but in your original post you mentioned that someone said installing Vista SP2 fixed their problem (I believe I read the thread you were referencing but they didn't say if they were already running SP2 or if this was an update to their system). Installing SP1 again would install new system files but I believe it keeps various settings intact so I can't really say why it could possibly work. Thus the reason I haven't mentioned it.

I will take another more look at networking to see how that could possibly be involved. I don't like the WMP link in there. If I don't post back please remind me.

 

Thanks, Sach2. I'll try those ideas out and let you know how it goes.

On an entirely unrelated note, is there preference on this message board about bumping older threads? On some boards that I frequent, such a practice is generally frowned upon by the moderators. This forum seems to move rather quickly. I'd hate to find this thread on page three or an even older page and forgotten before the problem gets resolved (Of course it will be resolved! How's that for confidence in you people? )

 

mmdobies, at the top of the thread you see something called Thread Tools. Click the down arrow and select subscribe to this thread. When anything is posted to the thread, you will get an email.

Also you can save the thread as a bookmark

Code:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=263255&page=2

That will get you to page 2. If more pages are added change the 2 to a 3.

 

Thanks, Plodr. I'm already getting email notifications of post to this thread. I didn't mean to say I would forget about the thread. LOL I meant that I was worried it would fall off of other peoples' radar and thus I'd miss out on other helpful suggestions.

 

Yesterday, playing a wild hunch, I booted up in safe mode and ran Spybot and Avast AV. Both found a few issues and those wee beasties were deleted. I also ran a register cleanup with CCleaner and quite a few issues were found and repaired. However, none of this helped with the problems detailed in this thread. Those issues annoyingly persist.

Any other ideas?

 

I haven't had much success finding anything clear cut. Did you run the sfc /scannow? I think that might be a good idea to rule out a bad system file.

Networking is a bit out of my league and haven't been able to find anything useful.

 

D'oh!!! Forgot about that. And I'm rather embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to find the damn C: prompt! LOL Wow, has that been a long time...When computers first hit my desk in work it was all DOS all the time.
:-o

OK... When I run sfc /scannow, I'm told that "You must be an administrator running a console session in order to use the sfc utility". Hmmm... there's only one user account on this laptop and I could swear I set it as an admin anyway. Gonna go log out and back in to see if I can get admin status.

 

It is Start then type in cmd into the search box. Cmd.exe will appear in the search results, right click that and select Run as Administrator. Then in the command window do the sfc /scannow.

Or where you found command prompt (probably All Programs>Accessories) do the right-click there and run as administrator.

I'm no sure if it will do any good but it won't hurt and we can rule out some .dll problem that could be causing the crash. I've seen one mentioned but don't think it is the cause.

 

I ran sfc /scannow. It states that corrupted files were found that could not be fixed. "Details are in CBS.log". But, when I tried to open the log so I could post the findings here, Notepad opened and returned an "Access Denied" even though I'm clearly in as an admin. How rude!

Alright... Don't panic. Let's noodle around a bit... I right clicked CBS.log and went to Properties>Security>Permissions and granted myself full access for the CBS folder and the CBS.log specifically. (Are you proud of me? I figured that out all by myself. ) Still "Access Denied"! Grrrrr! Do I have to reboot for the permission changes to take effect?!

 

I'm not really interested in the results of the scannow, I just wanted to see if it could fix the problem.

I think the following command (you can copy/paste) run from the elevated command prompt (rightclick cmd.exe and Run as Administrator) will give you the salient points of the much larger log file and put the file cbslog.txt in your C: directory.

findstr /c:"[SR]" %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log > c:\cbslog.txt

or this one will put the file on your desktop.

findstr /c:"[SR]" %windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log >"%userprofile%\Desktop\cbslog.txt"

I'll take another look at your problem later today.

 

I have found hundreds of threads with the same problem but no solutions.

See if this will get FF working, it may crash when attempting.

Go to FF Options and under the General tab, where it sets the Downloads folder click on Browse if the windows doesn't crash FF, hit Organize at the top left. Select Layout and untick the Navigation pane. Hit OK or Apply.

Now try to upload or attach a file to an email. Does FF crash?

 

Wow, is this laptop being uncooperative! It seems like it does NOT want me poking around trying to fix it. :banghead Running these either of these commands immediately crashes the DOS window. I mean, IMMEDIATELY. I'm lucky to see the flash of the Black screen DOS window open and close or else I'd assume the commands had no effect at all. That kind of fast. And this happens whether I copy and paste into the Run line or call up a DOS window as an admin and manually type the commands in.

As to FF, Options>General crashed immediately upon clicking on the browse button for where downloaded files would be saved. Filled out a detailed crash report to Mozilla.

 

I tried SFC /scannow again trying to get the info on the corrupted files. Once run, I typed in Windows\Logs\CBS and then typed type CBS log. Whoa! Long blinding scroll of info too fast to read. I recall there's a switch one can include to pause a DIR listing. But /P didn't work with the TYPE command. How can I slow the typing down or print it out? I know there's a way, but using DOS commands was a long time ago for me.

 

I am really at a loss as to why the command prompt would crash.

Answering the how to read the cbs log which I think will be too big to be meaningful without the command to pull out the salient points, you could redirect the output to a file, something like:

type cbs.log > cbs.txt

should redirect the output from the command window to a text file which can be read in notepad or wordpad.

 

HA! Your suggestion of casting the TYPE spell in this fashion worked! My poor bewitched computer was compelled to spit out the desired result. And Notepad allowed me to "save as" to a flash drive so that I could attach the txt file to this post from work. Naturally, the output might just as well be written in Sanskrit as far as my eyes are concerned. But, I'm hopeful there is a clue in there for anyone who can read through all of that. Bonus points and a chocolate chip cookie if you can stay awake while doing so. The txt file is loooooong. So long, in fact, that I had to chop it into 4 parts just to post it.

I'm a bit terrified that your final diagnosis after reading the txt file will be:

"On such and such a date your lap top became self aware. It spent several hours investigating the internet. After seeing the current state of humanity, it took the only logical course available to it and became incurably psychotic."

Anyway... As noted earlier, the sfc /scannow run indicated several files were corrupted and could not be repaired. What might that mean exactly to one only moderately versed in computers? Among the possibilities I suppose are:

1) Somehow over time the files became garbled and unreadable (perhaps, due to a now, hopefully, deceased virus?). If so, is there a way to download new "replacement" files and overwrite them, assuming they can be identified?

2) A, hopefully, tiny section of the physical drive where the corrupted files are stored became dirty/marred/scratched, etc rendering the files unreadable. Is it possible to download new "replacement" files and arrange to have them stored on a workable section of the disk (There's tons of room available on the hard drive)?

3) In many other threads, I've seen recommendations to download and run "Hijack this" and post the resulting log. Would that be helpful in this situation?

 

I haven't had time to check all the cbs logs but Windows\SysWOW64\SearchFolder.dll is corrupted. I'm off to bed, so hopefully someone will get your PC sorted out.

 

In all fairness, I did try to warn you that it was sleep inducing.

OK. So, at least, that is one corrupted file identified. Thanks, Nullptr. Dunno if it has anything to to with the issues I'm having. But even if not, at some point, I guess I have to investigate trying to repair these files.

 

I only saw that one file singled out as corrupt. I've attached my copy for you to try. You want to rename your original rather than delete it. Then put this one in its place.
I renamed mine so it wouldn't be loaded but it did not replicate your problem.

Are you at all familiar with regedit? I'm thinking about removing the Network icon from the Navigation bar and seeing if that makes a difference. It is fairly easy but looks more difficult than it really is. Take a look at this to give an overview. You would be doing step 9. I could post the steps in order if you want to try it. Most importantly, they skip Exporting a copy of the current key which I would want you to do before making any changes.

 

Thanks, Sach! So, this should repair the corrupted file. But, the underlying problems will most likely still be bedeviling us. Gotcha.

I will more carefully read the link/tutorial when I get home. I used regedit once loooong ago with some kind soul carefully stepping me through it. If you could also post the steps it would be greatly appreciated. Whatever changes we make, I presume can be reversed if disaster strikes? This laptop remains my only source of internet at home and I'd be horribly handicapped if I lost that connection to the 'net.

 

The regedit is fairly straight forward. The only problem with working in regedit is the changes are immediate with no undo, so you want to be careful when making changes. You are changing the display of the Network icon in Open/Save dialog so it shouldn't effect your internet.

You should create a System Restore point before running regedit. That is just right-click Computer and select Properties then System Protection from the left menu. Hit the Create button and choose a name.

Open regedit which is Start and type in regedit and hit <enter>.
In regedit you want to navigate to this key by expanding each folder until you get there.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}\ShellFolder

When you get to the ShellFolder entry, right-click it and select Export. Select a name like networksaveopen and save the file.

Right-click Shellfolder again and select Permissions. Highlight Administrators and then click the box for Full Control. Hit OK.

In the Right pane, right click Attributes and select Modify.
Change the value from b0040064 to b0940064 (the second 0 is being changed to a 9)
Close regedit. Reboot.

Then in FF>Options>General what is the current location for your downloads? If you hit the Browse button does it still crash?

 

Hi Sach. I was able to download your copy of the searchfolder.dll. But, when I tried to rename my original, corrupted searchfolder.dll, prior to pasting your good copy in, I was prevented from doing so. Apparently, this is a file covered by Trustedinstaller. A google search leads me to a lot of info about TrustedInstaller and how to work around it. But, I haven't had time to monkey with it. Likewise, I haven't had time to explore your other suggestions. Hopefully, real life will slow down a bit over the next couple of days and allow me to work on this. Will report back results when I do so.

Oh, and I did set a restore point in anticipation of using regedit.

Thanks again for all the time and effort.

 

Whew! Life finally slowed a bit. So, I thought I'd update this thread for those interested.

Before I was able to try the latest suggestions, another, more serious problem arose. When booting up, the laptop would hang on the welcome screen. Not freeze... the little circle spun and it seemed something was going on... but for over an hour, nothing past the welcome screen. I could get into via Safe Mode, but restore points and other fixes were no help.

On another computer, I researched the problem at Microsoft sites. Others had the problem and nothing seemed to help. Frustrated, I decided to nuke the laptop from space and with recovery CDs restored the laptop to factory fresh. In this I was successful.

End result, the computer works fine and the issue(s), the subject(s) of the original post, remain a mystery without resolution. Not having had the chance to try the last batch of advice, the solution may be there, or at least close, for anyone who develops the problem. At least you'll have a starting point and know that, as a last resort, restore will fix it.

Thanks again for all the help on this! You folks are aces!