Windows – Metro apps crash on startup, driver or permissions issue

crashmodern-uiwindowswindows-8-preview

After installing Win8 x64 RC, Metro apps worked correctly, but desktop OpenGL apps were slow and unresponsive. I installed the latest Win8 nVidia drivers, and the OpenGL apps started working correctly. At the same time, because of annoying permission messages, I changed the C:\ drive and all its files ownerships to my user, and gave it full permission.

I restarted my pc after installing the drivers, and now Metro apps only show the splash screen, then crash.

I tried installing other versions of the nVidia drivers, with the same result.

My GPU is a GeForce GTX275.

Is this a known problem with nVidia drivers?
Or maybe changing the ownership of C:\ is the real problem?

Thank you.

More information (after looking in the event viewer)

I've managed to find the problem and the error in the Event Viewer. I still cannot solve it. Here's the information I found by opening the Mail app and letting it crash:

Log Name:      Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell
Date:          07/06/2012 15.54.17
Event ID:      5961
Task Category: (5961)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      
User:          VEE-PC\Vittorio
Computer:      vee-pc
Description:
Activation of the app microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail for the Windows.Launch contract failed with error: The app didn't start..
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell" Guid="{315A8872-923E-4EA2-9889-33CD4754BF64}" />
    <EventID>5961</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>5961</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T13:54:17.472416600Z" />
    <EventRecordID>6524</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="3008" ThreadID="6756" />
    <Channel>Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational</Channel>
    <Computer>vee-pc</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2753614643-3522538917-4071044258-1001" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="AppId">microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail</Data>
    <Data Name="ContractId">Windows.Launch</Data>
    <Data Name="ErrorCode">-2144927141</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Found other stuff, this is another error that appears when opening a Metro app:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        ESENT
Date:          07/06/2012 16.01.00
Event ID:      490
Task Category: General
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      vee-pc
Description:
svchost (1376) SRUJet: An attempt to open the file "C:\Windows\system32\SRU\SRU.log" for read / write access failed with system error 5 (0x00000005): "Access is denied. ".  The open file operation will fail with error -1032 (0xfffffbf8).
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="ESENT" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">490</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>1</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T14:01:00.000000000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>11854</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>vee-pc</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>svchost</Data>
    <Data>1376</Data>
    <Data>SRUJet: </Data>
    <Data>C:\Windows\system32\SRU\SRU.log</Data>
    <Data>-1032 (0xfffffbf8)</Data>
    <Data>5 (0x00000005)</Data>
    <Data>Access is denied. </Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

After changing permissions again (adding Everyone and Creator Owner to System32), the "access denied to sru.log" error disappears, but this one appears in its place:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell
Date:          07/06/2012 16.16.34
Event ID:      2486
Task Category: (2414)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      (64),Process Lifetime Manager
User:          VEE-PC\Vittorio
Computer:      vee-pc
Description:
App microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail did not launch within its allotted time.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell" Guid="{315A8872-923E-4EA2-9889-33CD4754BF64}" />
    <EventID>2486</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>2414</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x2000000000000042</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T14:16:34.616499600Z" />
    <EventRecordID>11916</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="3008" ThreadID="6996" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>vee-pc</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2753614643-3522538917-4071044258-1001" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="ApplicationId">microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Now I'm stuck. It tells me "Activation of app microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail failed with error: The app didn't start. See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information." but I can't find the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log.

I'm starting a bounty.

I found the TWinUI/Operational log. It only tells me:

Log Name:      Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell
Date:          07/06/2012 16.28.57
Event ID:      5961
Task Category: (5961)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      
User:          VEE-PC\Vittorio
Computer:      vee-pc
Description:
Activation of the app microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail for the Windows.BackgroundTasks contract failed with error: The app didn't start..
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell" Guid="{315A8872-923E-4EA2-9889-33CD4754BF64}" />
    <EventID>5961</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>5961</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T14:28:57.238140800Z" />
    <EventRecordID>6536</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="3008" ThreadID="2624" />
    <Channel>Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational</Channel>
    <Computer>vee-pc</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2753614643-3522538917-4071044258-1001" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="AppId">microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail</Data>
    <Data Name="ContractId">Windows.BackgroundTasks</Data>
    <Data Name="ErrorCode">-2144927141</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

I need to go deeper. I found a forum thread that told me to look for "DCOM" errors. I found this one related to the app crash

"The server Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail.wwa did not register with DCOM within the required timeout."

Log Name:      System
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM
Date:          07/06/2012 16.46.45
Event ID:      10010
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          VEE-PC\Vittorio
Computer:      vee-pc
Description:
The server Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail.wwa did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM" Guid="{1B562E86-B7AA-4131-BADC-B6F3A001407E}" EventSourceName="DCOM" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">10010</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-07T14:46:45.586943800Z" />
    <EventRecordID>2763</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="804" ThreadID="2364" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>vee-pc</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2753614643-3522538917-4071044258-1001" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="param1">Microsoft.WindowsLive.Mail.wwa</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Best Answer

OK, it took me forever to solve this problem so hopefully this helps someone. I had changed permissions on my user folder (like I always do) to only allow my user and SYSTEM. Unfortunately this broke some Metro/Modern apps including Weather, News, Finance, Netflix, etc.

The only permissions that 'ALL_APPLICATION_PACKAGES' needs in order for all Metro/Modern apps to work are:

File - %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files\counters.dat - Read & Execute, Read - (You'll need to uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files' in Folder Options to see the Temporary Internet Files folder)

(if you cannot find in the above location try %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\counters.dat)

Folder - %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\WER - Special: List folder/read data, Create folders/append data

(if you cannot find in the above location try %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER)

It does not need full access to your C: drive or even access to the Packages folder as previous answers suggested.

You can either reboot after making the above permission changes or kill the appropriate processes.

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Windows – Metro apps on Windows 8.1 crash on start

I had the same issue on Windows 10 Technical Preview.

After some digging, I've found answers on MS Community and in this blog entry. Just to summarize - to fix a single application (PC Settings in this case), type in Administrative Powershell console:

Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $Env:SystemRoot\ImmersiveControlPanel\AppxManifest.xml -Verbose

For fixing all applications run:

Get-AppxPackage | % { Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppxManifest.xml" -verbose }

Windows – Confirm HDD errors were due to USB enclosure not supporting large capacity drives

If it is the USB drive, and it is size-related, then the USB drive is failing to correctly process a sector write (and probably read, too) request. The file size does not matter. The cause is that the larger file has "pieces" falling beyond the addressable boundary.

Due to disk fragmentation, it is difficult to confirm or deny this hypothesis, but you can try with any tool which displays the disk fragmentation map. This should display a large disk with the beginning which is filling up, and nothing past a certain point. Not at the end, especially.

On a FAT32 disk you could try and fill the disk with small files, each 8Kb in size, until the "reachable" area was filled up and the disk became unwriteable. But the disk is NTFS and however the method isn't really very precise, or certain.

If at all possible, I would mount the disk on a Linux live distribution. At that point you could try and read the disk one sector at a time:

fdisk -l

will tell you how many 512-byte blocks are there in the external disk. Then

dd bs=512 if=/dev/sdc of=test skip=NNNNN count=1

will request a read of sector NNNNN (one-based :-) ).

If it is a matter of a limit to NNNNN, you will observe that:

N=1         it works
N=MAX_NUM   it fails
N=MAX_NUM/2 it fails

...

so you can start with a classic bisection algorithm and determine where the critical sector "C" lies (any sector before C is readable, any after is not). If such a sector exists, you've got either an incredibly weird hardware damage, or the proof you were looking for of the enclosure's guilt.

Update - finding the boundary by bisecting: an example

So let's say the disk is 4TB, so 8,000,000,000 sectors. We know that sector 1 is readable and sector 8-billion isn't. Let READABLE be 1, let UNREADABLE be 8. Then the algorithm is:

 let TESTING be (READABLE + UNREADABLE)/2
 if sector TESTING is readable then READABLE becomes equal to TESTING
 else, UNREADABLE becomes equal to TESTING.
 Lather, rinse, repeat with the new values of (UN)READABLE.
 When two consecutive values of TESTING are obtained, that's your boundary.

Let's imagine the boundary lies at sector 3,141,592,653 because of some strange bug in the enclosure.

 first pass: testing = (1 + 8000000000)/2 = 4000000000.
 4,000,000,000 is unreadable, so replace 8,000,000,000 with 4,000,000,000
 second pass: testing (1 + 4M)/2 = 2M
 sector 2M is readable, so replace 1 with 2,000,000,000
 third pass: testing (2M + 4M)/2 = 3M
 sector 3,000,000,000 is readable
 fourth pass: testing (3M + 4M)/2 = 3,500,000,000 which is UNREADABLE
 fifth: (3 + 3.5) / 2 = 3,250,000,000 UNREADABLE
 ...

So READABLE and UNREADABLE stalk the unknown boundary more and more closely, from both directions. When they are close enough you can even go and try all the sectors in between.

To locate the boundary, only log2(max - min) = log2(4TB - 0) = log2(4TB) = log2(2⁴⁰) = 40 (actually I think perhaps 42) sectors need to be read. Given a 30" reset delay on the enclosure when a reading error occurs, that should be 20 minutes at the most; probably much less.

Once you have the boundary B, to confirm it is a boundary you can do a sequential read of large chunks before B (this will not take too long), maybe one megabyte every gigabyte or so; and then a random sampling of sectors beyond B. For example the first 4*63 sectors beyond the boundary, then one sector every 3905 (or every RAND(4000, 4100) ) to try to avoid hitting always the same magnetic platter.

But actually, if you do find a boundary-like behaviour, and confirm that with another enclosure there is no such boundary -- well, I'd declare the case (en)closed.

Best Answer

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