Propeties (context-menu) cease to work

[RADiCAL]

* This is a tough bug and only after encountering it for the third time, I decided to enter it for tracking.
Using TC 9.50b3 with Win10x64.

Properties cease to work:
* pressing ALT-Enter
* mouse right click (or context-menu button on the keyboard) -> selecting Properties from the context-menu (during the right-click duration till the context-menu appears, the file is marked as selected and after selecting Properties, nothing happens and it is unmarked).
* selecting (marking) the file and then ALT-Enter (either when moving away from it or leaving the cursor on the same file) - same issue.
* occurs on files/directories
* occurs with single/multiple files/directories
* on the dir mark (..), the "No files selected!" error messagebox is displayed.

The only workaround is restarting TC.

The first time it happened, I noticed it only when trying to CTRL-F in the help (in order to search for a specific wincmd.ini directive and the Find dialog box did not appear (I thought I was out of focus, but no..). Only with hindsight, I assumed that it was the same issue.

The second time was after a long time and I moved away from TC and used ALT-Enter on different files (did not count) and eventually it occurred.

The third time, I tried to ALT-Enter on the same file (I hit 100+ times and still did not reproduce), so I kept repeating the keypress on different files, folders and eventually kept on with my doing and suddenly, it reoccurred. This was the one time that it happened after a very short period of time since I restarted TC.

I mentioned the time factor since I thought it had something to do with side effect or memory leak causing it after a while.

I have no clear reproduction scenario and I am not a GUI automation guy, so if I will have any clear direction about the reproduction behavior, I will update.

Please add your two cents in case you also experienced it.
It is very annoying, but now after identifying it, it is endurable.

[petermad]

pressing ALT-TAB

If you Alt+TAB, you move focus to the next program in the program list - in most cases TC's window will then be more ore less covered by this other program - so how can you then right-click on a file in TC?

Have you perhaps reconfigured the behaviour of Alt+TAB in your system?

[petermad]

Might he have meant to write ALT+ENTER

Hmm, I cannot reproduce it with Alt+Enter either.

how soon or how long does it take for it to happen

Well, RADiCAL writes maybe more than 100 Alt+TAB(ENTER) presses

[RADiCAL]

pressing ALT-TAB

If you Alt+TAB, you move focus to the next program in the program list - in most cases TC's window will then be more ore less covered by this other program - so how can you then right-click on a file in TC?

Have you perhaps reconfigured the behaviour of Alt+TAB in your system?

Sorry, I fixed the post. Obviously, it was ALT-Enter.

[RADiCAL]

It reoccurred 2 more times without any intention.
What I tried actively was to press ALT-Enter on 167 folders right after TC restart which did nothing.
Then, I did it on seveal files and browsed one of the tabs in the Properties (Details mainly).
On one of the times it reoccurred, I moved away to another window or left the TC windows and moved away from the keyboard and when I got back, the first ALT-Enter did not work.
I also did a few renames of folders (Shift+F6) before the bug occurred.

On all reproduction attempts I used only the keyboard.

[ghisler(Author)]

Alt+Enter is not handled internally by Total Commander. It's handled via OLE2. The problem is that there can be both context menu extensions and property sheet extensions which can interfere with the dialog and make it crash at any time. You can try with ShellExView to disable third party extensions - just search the forums for ShellExView for instructions.

[RADiCAL]

Christian
Thank you very much for pointing that out and hopefully, I will not spend more time in trying to reproduce it anymore and just keep an eye if it reoccurs.

I used ShellExView and ShellMenuView in the past trying to solve an easier problem: AcroTray.exe running in the background preventing from safely disconnecting an external drive. Deleting AcroTray.exe, ALT-Enter in Total Commander on PDF files resulted in an error message (the file could not be found) which was weird enough to digging deeper in Registry and the ShellEx tools. This was solved completely.

Following your suggestion here, I already removed several entries from the Registry of non-MS Context Menu and such following ShellExView (I just prefer to remove rather than just disable it) and I will report back after a while if the dialog box crashed again, just in case anyone else who might encounter it in the future.

Just one thing is unclear to me: how come restarting TC solves this? Is it possible that the handlers within TC become invalid because of this external conflict/crash (similarly to my AcroTray.exe issue)?

I am 99% sure that the first time it happened, I tried ALT-Enter on Windows Explorer window and it worked whereas the problem within TC persisted (I did not try again because I assumed I have to reproduce it within TC). I will make sure to check it once again next time it happened - it already occurred twice since my last post.

Christian or any moderator, please feel free to move this topic elsewhere.

[ghisler(Author)]

Just one thing is unclear to me: how come restarting TC solves this? Is it possible that the handlers within TC become invalid because of this external conflict/crash (similarly to my AcroTray.exe issue)?

Yes, exactly - for example, I had one handler which crashed when I right clicked on an USB drive.

[RADiCAL]

It happened again and this time I checked that ALT+Enter from the Windows File Explorer worked and it did, which still going back to TC where it is not working.
I simply entered in TC . (dot sign) and Enter in order to spawn the same folder in Explorer and then tried.

I have only Notepad++ context menu left there (not done lately at all) and the rest are only Microsoft context menu items.
Do you suggest that I start eliminate MS's as well?

[ghisler(Author)]

No, I don't think that the MS extensions cause any problems. Have you looked at the property sheet extensions too?

[RADiCAL]

I have only a single non-MS shell extension which is the Notepad++.
Earlier, when I eliminated following your suggestion, I sorted by "Microsoft" column and this is the only one stating No.
Perhaps you referred to the PropertySheetHandlers key in the registry (cross-references of invalid CLSIDs under this key)?

The issue occurred again, and now I can add that rigth now when I get no response from ALT+Enter within TC on folders/files (I tested various types), when I press ALT+Enter on a file within a ZIP file that I browse within TC (in this case, the shellexview.zip from NirSoft), I get a properties dialog box (with only 1 tab named "General") and 3 buttons: Close, Unpack and execute, Unpack all and execute. I gather this is an internal dialog which strengthen your initial analysis.

I am open to any suggestions.

[RADiCAL]

As promised, I return with a report.
After a long while in which I used 9.50b3 up to beta 5, this issue did not reoccur even once which is weird considering its reproduction frequency.
I do not think that the restart I did to my OS was the main reason, because it did not reproduce a couple of days before the restart.
After removing all the non-MS shell extensions in my early post, I did not change anything or install anything but OS pacthes/updates.

I will update should it return and maybe will have luck reproducing it next time.

[ghisler(Author)]

A reboot can actually have this effect, because it unloads all shell extensions.
Could you try re-enabling all non-MS shell extensions?

[RADiCAL]

Sorry, I took the opportunity to remove them altogether.
I removed all non-MS entries and only the Notepad++ entry left, but now I see that the four Nvidia entries that I already removed respawned (3 context menu and 1 system) following the latest drivers update.

About the reboot - that was the reason I postponed it as long as I could, in order to try and reproduce it more times, but after 2-3 days that it did not, I did the reboot.

Perhaps what you imply here is that removing/disabling shell extensions is not enough unless you reboot/re-login, since they were still resident in memory or partly active, suggesting that what I did before was a job half done?