Icaros constantly crashing Explorer.

I have the latest K-Lite 15.9.9 installed on a clean install of Windows 10 Pro x64 build 20H2.

Explorer has constantly been closing its windows, with absolutely nothing to show WHY - until a few minutes ago when a window popped up with something about "Icaros Unhandled Exception Error". How "fun" to have a bug that blows up and 99.99999% of the time never pops up an error message. If it hadn't done it once and I just happened to catch it, I'd still have no idea what's doing it.

After about 30 minutes with Google, finding mostly links to pages circa 2016~2018, mostly in non-English languages or behind paywalls, I found ONE in English that mentioned Icaros in connection with the K-Lite Codec Pack. Looks like Icaros is responsible for adding thumbnail support and all the additional columns available to Details view. I set up my Details view for my videos folder how I want but when I open the properties on that folder to have it apply the view to all subfolders, Explorer just quits. It's also been randomly closing even when I'm not attempting to change folder properties.

Here's Windows error log. Not many entries since I just got this all new PC put together Feb. 6th. https://anonfiles.com/h1xeJ2G5p2/crashing_rar Is there a way to search *all* of Windows logs at once for any mention of Icaros?

Most of the entries are similar to this

Faulting application name: explorer.exe, version: 10.0.19041.746, time stamp: 0xca234864
Faulting module name: shcore.dll, version: 10.0.19041.746, time stamp: 0x5e98fab6
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x000000000002b617
Faulting process id: 0x1f3c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d6fdee0e71ce7d
Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\System32\shcore.dll
Report Id: 3c7bde99-ae98-4a85-9671-032e481b6fc8
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

It is crashing in shcore.dll so it is possible that it is because of another shell extension.

Step 1: Enable debug mode for Icaros:
Codec Tweak Tool > Thumbnails > Options > debug mode
This will make Icaros show an error message on error, which also includes the filename of the problematic file.
If you do find a "bad" file, then don't delete it immediately. Disable thumbnails (see below). If possible upload this file for me, or tell me where I can download it. Then I can fix the crash together with the developer of Icaros.

Step 2: Disable thumbnails
If debug mode does not help, then disable thumbnails:
Codec Tweak Tool > Thumbnails

Step 3: Remove icaros
Uninstall the codec pack.
Then install it again and select "Advanced" install mode in beginning.
Then on the "Select Components" page, near the bottom, uncheck the Icaros shell extensions.

Step 4: ShellExView
If problem is still not solved, then another shell extension may be at fault.
This tool can show which ones are installed:
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

A corrupt icon cache in Windows can also cause issues.
Codec Tweak Tool > Fixes > Clear Windows icon cache
Reboot afterwards.

The only thing that worked was using ShellExView and sorting by non-Microsoft then uninstalling every one of the non-Microsoft ones, followed by a Disk Cleanup and using CCleaner on the storage and Registry. Been reinstalling those apps and programs one by one and so far no problem.

Could have been simply something slightly corrupted somewhere, and of course Windows loves to tell you what's died, rather than what killed it, same as it will claim a file/folder/drive is "in use" but never what it thinks is using it.

Good to hear it has been solved.

Which other non-Microsoft ones did you have installed?

When searching I found people who has issues with for example shell extensions from KZip, Internet Download Manager, and NVIDIA.

It's Format Factory doing it. I can enable and disable its shell extension and the shcore crashing and closing Explorer windows comes and goes with it.

Looks like there's a bit of a bug in the newest version of Format Factory. I like it for converting audio files to MP3 because it's fast and does four files simultaneously.