For a few months, IE has been crashing whenever the Open/Save dialog is used (from File:Open or from Browse a’la GMail attachment). I assumed it was a problem with IE. Possibly even spyware, though I couldn’t find any.
Then recently Firefox started doing the same thing. At this point, I started to think about what they have in common. It couldn’t be the dialog itself, because other programs (like JCreator) were able to use it just fine.
As a test, I clicked on ‘Stop On-Access Protection’, and they quit crashing. I clicked ‘Start On-Access Protection’ and they started crashing again.
That’s strange, avast! shouldn’t interfere with the open dialog in any way.
Do you get any details about the crash? I mean, are there any specific information in the error dialog? (module name, address, …?)
run regedit (start → run → regedit)
o navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting\DW\Installed
o make a note of the previous value if you’d like
o set to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRWTSN32.EXE
[the default is C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\MICROS~1\DW\DW20.EXE]
run drwtsn32 -i (start → run → drwtsn32 -i)
o [it should say that Dr Watson has been set as the default application debugger]
run drwtsn32 (start → run → drwtsn32)
o set the desired path in Log File Path [you don’t need to change it]
o set the desired filename in Crash Dump [you don’t need to change it]
o make sure Crash Dump Type is Mini unless we need to generate a Full crash dump
After enabling crash dumps, restart IE and when it crashes click the Send Error Report button and hopefully, some files will be generated on the
machine in the Log File Path specified in step 3.
It would be useful if you could send these files to my email address.
Ah, XP 64bit. In this case, you need to add Wow6432Node just after HKLM\Software.
I.e. the right key path now reads HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting\DW\Installed.
It seems that IE has stopped crashing… last time it crashed was 2/22 according to event viewer. I can’t seem to get it to replicate it now, even though it was doing it every time.
As far as the Dr. Watson thing, looking under the specified folder, I notice it shows:
Default REG_SZ (value not set)
DW0200 REG_SZ C:\Progra~2\COMMON~1\MICROS~1\DW\DW20.EXE
DW0201 REG_SZ C:\Progra~1\COMMON~1\MICROS~1\DW\DW20.EXE
It seems that the Progra~1 is the “Program Files” directory and Progra~2 is the “Program Files(x86)” directory.
I assume that means one is 32-bit and one is 64-bit
So questions at this point:
would any of the updates since 2/22 have made this problem go away with IE?
will the Dr. Watson thing help diagnose Firefox (2 btw)
1. would any of the updates since 2/22 have made this problem go away with IE?
If you mean avast update - I very much doubt that. There haven’t been any program updates, and a virus definitions update can hardly influence such a behavior in any case.
2. will the Dr. Watson thing help diagnose Firefox (2 btw)
I’m afraid not. If Firefox simply disappears, it seems that the DrWatson won’t be able to catch it.
3. if yes to #2, use ~1 or ~2?
You should modify the DW0200 value as both IE and Firefox are 32-bit applications.
Also, now that I’m thinking about it, the correct path to put there should probably read C:\WINDOWS\SYSWOW64\DRWTSN32.EXE as we need to use the 32-bit version of DrWatson, not the 64-bit one which is stored in the SYSTEM32 folder. Yeah, nice indeed, I guess MS couldn’t have made it more confusing…
Stopping for a moment and thinking this through, I think we can close this thread.
The problem I was encountering in IE consistently apparently hasn’t happened in a week. When I disabled avast and then opened the window – not a valid test, since IE seems to have stopped crashing in the last week.
The problem with Firefox crashing… while that one still does happen, I just verified that the problem does not go away when I stop avast. I think I might have jumped the gun, assuming that the same behavior in IE and Firefox were related, which it looks like they are not.
Sorry about this. I should have approached these as two separate use cases, and then I might have noticed that the IE issue was unrelated to the same behavioral problem in Firefox.
As far as the Dr. Watson thing… It appears that the one in Syswow64 and the one in System32 both are named “drwtsn32.exe” and both have the same version. They definitely could have designed it better
Thanks again for all your help. At this point, I am going to assume M$ fixed the IE bug via an automatic update and that Firefox has its own unique bug.
