ExplorerPather (suspected) freezing apps and system processes when notifications occur in Windows 11

[abcxyz0123]

I have been having an issue for a while now where apps on my PC are freezing and I suspect the ExplorerPatcher is the issue. I have noticed that the freezing occurs when event occur that should trigger a notification in the system stray in WIndows11. I think the way the notifications are interacting with ExplorerPatcher Windows 11 is the issue

Affected apps and behavior:

• Google messages for the web. I have a tab open in Firefox for it and I notice if I get MFA code it freezes at the point it should have popped up a notification in the system tray.
• Discord. This is freezing the app well and also will send notifications that Windows will display/
• Teams. Again this is another app that pops notifications and become completely.

When the app freeze occurs I have go open the Task Manager and kill the processes for Firefox and then I am able to launch FireFox again. Discord tends to get hosed and will not reopen after I kill the task. As for Teams this just started last week and even if I kill Teams the app will not work again if I relaunch it and only after I restart my PC is the app working again. Also, this now often seems to hose explorer.exe and even if I kill the task on that and restart the taskbar will not load again until I restart my PC.

This issue is making me pull my hair out. I had if for a few months so stopped any sort of activity that would trigger notifications but then last month found that that things seemed to be working ok again with notifications so I stated using them again and had no issues for a few weeks. Then as of last week the app freezing on notification events started up again.

I have already ran DSIM and SFC on my PC as well as a full check disk and didn't find any issues. Not sure what I can do here but to me if seems that ExplorerPatcher is the likely culprit. Short of uninstalling ExplorerPatcher and running without it from a month or two I don't know of any other way to prove it the issue is ExplorerPatcher or not. Any suggestions on how I could gather some logs or details that useful in troubleshooting if this is an ExplorerPatcher issue or not would be appreciated.

Edition Windows 11 Pro
Version 25H2
Installed on ‎3/‎24/‎2025
OS build 26200.8246
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.297.0

ExplorePatcher version: 26100.4946.69.6

[abcxyz0123]

Not really much detail in this post 4903 but I suspect it is the same behavior I noted where explorer.exe gets hosed and then the system needs to be restarted.
#4903

[pyrates999]

uninstall EP and see if it is still happening.

[abcxyz0123]

I'll have to try that and see if it occurs again. Thanks

[abcxyz0123]

So far no freezes ups when getting notifications after uninstalling ExplorerPatcher. Will have to run this for a a week and see where things go but so far as expected the freezing up of apps immediately stopped after uninstalling ExplorerPatcher. I would rather not have to discontinue using it but this sort of issue is not one that can be ignored as it affecting the OS and hosing system processes. ExplorerPatcher has been my solution for adding the Quick Toolbar back in Windows 11 but if the issues with freezing cannot be resolved I will need to go with another solution but very much would like to help with devs of ExplorerPatcher squash this bug. If there is anything I can do to help gather some information that could be useful please let me know. For now I am going to run without ExplorePatcher but would be ok with installing it again for testing if anyone has some suggestions of logs or other data that I can provide that could be useful identifying the issue and developing a fix. I think some recent changes in 25H2 are not playing nicely with ExplorerPatcher.

[abcxyz0123]

Just had freeze up occur again and this time without ExplorerPatcher installed so I guess it wasn't the issue. Still not sure what is causing it when getting notifications in Windows 11 but at this point I will just reinstall Windows 11 since this has been going on for months now and I'm still no closer to discovering what the root cause it. I will mark this as resolved since even with ExplorePatcher the issue persist on my system.

[pyrates999]

You may need to repair your windows install. Please run the following in an elevated command prompt (right click on command prompt icon and select run as administrator) or elevated powershell (right click on powershell icon and select run as administrator):

chkdsk C:

If it tells you there are errors, then run this:

chkdsk C: /F

Reboot to run it on boot. Keep running that command until it reports no errors. Then run this to repair windows:

sfc /scannow
dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
dism /online /cleanup-image /checkhealth
dism /online /cleanup-image /analyzecomponentstore
dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup

then run this until it reports no errors:

sfc /scannow

Then reboot your computer.