(solved?) Strange crashing with 10.5s, probably due to "XChange pdf viewer"

[ncherkasov]

Hi,
I was using the TC from version 5 at least. On a new PC, I installed 10.52 + a few plugins. And the TC just crashes randomly. It is open in the background - when I want to open it, I see it is gone. It may stay open for a few hours all right - I could see no pattern or logic. the
I enabled log but they show nothing; no error messages. Is there a way to diagnognose this problem?

Thanks!

[Dalai]

At first, you should check all plugins which are installed. By "check" I mean specifically use them to see if any of them trigger a crash. Also, open Windows Event Viewer to see if anything about a crash of totalcmd.exe or totalcmd64.exe has been recorded in Windows Event Log.

Regards
Dalai

[ghisler(Author)]

You could use the tool Procdump to create a crash dump:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd996900.aspx

1. Create new directory c:\dumps
2. Create a lnk file of procdump.exe or procdump64.exe (for 64-bit Windows)
in Total Commander with Ctrl+Shift+F5, e.g. procdump.lnk
3. Open the properties of the lnk file with Alt+Enter
4. Change the command from c:\path\procdump.exe to
"c:\path\procdump.exe" -ma -i c:\dumps
5. Important: Click on "Advanced" and check option "As administrator"
6. Run procdump with this link file
7. Wait until the crash occurs.
8. Send me the dump file from c:\dumps.

[ncherkasov]

The problem ended up being simple.
Windows Event Viewer (Event Viewer -> Windows Log -> Applications) showed that the crash was caused by XCShMain.x64.dll_unloaded
This library is from XChange pdf viewer responsible for thumbnail generation. I did not use this feature at all, but it seems it was running anyway.
As I did not use it, I simply removed "Shell integration" from the pdf viewer. It should have removed the offending library.
If you hear nothing else - it would mean all is solved.

[Horst.Epp]

There is no general problem with the PDF-XChange thumbnail provider.
It works here without any problems using version 9.5 build 368.0 of the PDF-XChange Editor.

[Dalai]

2Horst.Epp
From the wording I guess that ncherkasov uses PDF-XChange Viewer while you use PDF-XChange Editor. These probably ship with different versions of their shell extension DLL. And maybe the one used by the Viewer is faulty.

Regards
Dalai

[Horst.Epp]

2Dalai
To my knowledge the Editor uses the same basic moduies as the old Viewer.
Anyway, the viewer is discontinued and users should install the free Editor
which is continually updated.

[ncherkasov]

I have an editor which is almost always open.
Anyway, removing the shell extension (which I do not use) fixed the problem. No crashes for a day.