Windows – How to identify the cause of a crash in the context menu

context menucrashwindowswindows 7windows-explorer

When I right-click on a file in an open-dialog it makes the underlying application crash "once-in-a-while". This happens in many applications such as Total Commander and Visual Studio . The application don't crash each time, but when they do it is before I click any item in the context-menu. I looked at the call-stack and I see nothing interesting to pinpoint what is the cause of the crash. This started to happens a couple of months ago so I don't know what I could have installed that causes this problem.
My context menu contains items related to TortoiseHg, TortoiseSVN, SandBoxie and a couple of other usual apps like 7-Zip, etc.
I never noticed any crash when using the context menu directly from Windows Explorer but I think it could be crashing more silently than other apps.

How can I identify which item of the context menu is causing these crashes ? Is there any crash log I could look at somewhere ?

Update: I have uninstalled all applications (Avast, VLC, etc.) adding items in the context menu and the crashes still happen. I noticed that it is a lot easier to reproduce the crashes in some apps (Total Commander) than other (IPLab), not sure why.

Update 2: The compressed dump file is now available here. It is based on the IPLab application available here.

Best Answer

The crash file uploaded has the following information inside:

0:014> .exr -1
ExceptionAddress: 000007fef2dabf80 (<Unloaded_SugarSyncVFSNamespace64.dll>+0x000000000001bf80)
   ExceptionCode: c0000005 (Access violation)
  ExceptionFlags: 00000000
NumberParameters: 2
   Parameter[0]: 0000000000000008
   Parameter[1]: 000007fef2dabf80
Attempt to execute non-executable address 000007fef2dabf80

It seems that the crash is related to Sugar Sync. 

0:014> lm vm *Sugar*
start             end                 module name

Unloaded modules:
000007fe`f2d90000 000007fe`f2de5000   SugarSyncVFSNamespace64.dll
    Timestamp: Tue Nov 05 05:51:38 2013 (5278795A)
    Checksum:  000471D3
    ImageSize:  00055000

The version you're using is from November 2013. Maybe there's a newer one available (couldn't figure out from the website).

I'm using WinDbg to analyze the crash dump.

Commands used:

.symfix d:\debug\symbols
.reload
.exr -1
lm vm *Sugar*

Explanation of the commands:

  • Make sure the symbols will be downloaded from Microsoft
  • Force a reload of the symbols to make sure they are up to date
  • Show the last exception record
  • Show detailed information about the DLL given in the exception address

I think you could use similar commands in VS2012 if you enter them in the Immediate Window, but I'm not too familiar with it.

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