Explorer.exe crashes in Windows 7 when start menu accessed with the mouse.

[Qchristensen]

Steps to reproduce:

On Windows 7:

1. Click on the Start button to open the start menu.
2. Move the mouse over a couple of the items in the start menu as if to select something.

Actual behavior:

Explorer.exe stopped responding, and was restarted by Windows.
Intiailly I used SAPI 5 voice, and the log contained:
"DEBUGWARNING - eventHandler.executeEvent (11:39:07.355):
error executing event: mouseMove on <NVDAObjects.Dynamic_EditableTextWithoutAutoSelectDetectionUIA object at 0x052C8AF0> with extra args of {'y': 991, 'x': 337}
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 155, in executeEvent
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 92, in init
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 100, in next
File "NVDAObjects_init_.pyo", line 928, in event_mouseMove
File "documentBase.pyo", line 24, in makeTextInfo
File "NVDAObjects\UIA_init_.pyo", line 314, in init
COMError: (-2147220991, 'An event was unable to invoke any of the subscribers', (None, None, None, 0, None))"

Full log: Win7Explorerlog.txt

I then restarted the computer, changed the synth to eSpeak and repeated with the same result. It took about 10 or 15 seconds to crash this time and in the meantime reported each menu item as the mouse moved over it. After reading the last menu item before crashing, the log reads:

DEBUGWARNING - watchdog.watcher (12:53:44.414):
Trying to recover from freeze, core stack:
File "nvda.pyw", line 233, in
File "core.pyo", line 519, in main
File "wx\core.pyo", line 2134, in MainLoop
File "gui_init.pyo", line 1003, in Notify
File "core.pyo", line 491, in run
File "mouseHandler.pyo", line 257, in pumpAll
File "mouseHandler.pyo", line 223, in executeMouseMoveEvent
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 155, in executeEvent
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 92, in init
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 100, in next
File "NVDAObjects_init_.pyo", line 928, in event_mouseMove
File "documentBase.pyo", line 24, in makeTextInfo
File "NVDAObjects\UIA_init_.pyo", line 314, in init

DEBUGWARNING - eventHandler.executeEvent (12:53:44.584):
error executing event: mouseMove on <NVDAObjects.Dynamic_EditableTextWithoutAutoSelectDetectionUIA object at 0x050C2C30> with extra args of {'y': 988, 'x': 139}
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 155, in executeEvent
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 92, in init
File "eventHandler.pyo", line 100, in next
File "NVDAObjects_init_.pyo", line 928, in event_mouseMove
File "documentBase.pyo", line 24, in makeTextInfo
File "NVDAObjects\UIA_init_.pyo", line 314, in init
COMError: (-2147220991, 'An event was unable to invoke any of the subscribers', (None, None, None, 0, None))

This has been reported by several users with several other scenarios (all involving explorer), but using the mouse in the start menu seems a consistent way to trigger it.

Expected behavior:

Explorer shouldn't crash.

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA version:

NVDA 2019.1 installed

Windows version:

Windows 7 Home Premium, version 6.1, build 7601, service pack 1.

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your PC?

Yes.

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA?

Previous versions of NVDA (2018.4.1) do not produce a crash, and repeating without NVDA running there is no crash.

[Qchristensen]

I also meant to add, accessing the Start menu with the keyboard works fine.

[DrSooom]

Does this issue also occur if mouse tracking (NVDA+M) is disabled?

[Brian1Gaff]

It does but there is something odd from time to time when reviewing characters ie actual spelling using the review modes that can end in the explorer has stopped working issue as well. Often I've seen strange things going on in older copies of Word resulting in the machine needing a reboot. Hard to get a log in such situations I find. Its only worse in the latest version of nvda. I do not use the mouse so I suspect that its not actually the mouse as such, more likely its easier to fit the criteria using it. Its not a mega problem but it has happened afew times since I put it on. I would need to do more testing to find out if the log is similar though. These sort of effects are very hard to get to happen to order. Brian bglists@blueyonder.co.uk Sent via blueyonder. Please address personal E-mail to:- briang1@blueyonder.co.uk, putting 'Brian Gaff' in the display name field. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Quentin Christensen" <notifications@github.com> To: "nvaccess/nvda" <nvda@noreply.github.com> Cc: "Subscribed" <subscribed@noreply.github.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2019 3:16 AM Subject: Re: [nvaccess/nvda] Explorer.exe crashes in Windows 7 when start menu accessed with the mouse. (#9435)

…

I also meant to add, accessing the Start menu with the keyboard works fine. -- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #9435 (comment)

[Qchristensen]

With mouse tracking disabled, the crash doesn't happen.

Brian, re crashes which require a reboot - in the %temp% folder, where the nvda.log is kept, there is usually an nvda-old.log which is the log from the previous time NVDA was run. If you look for that file when you restart the computer, it should have just about everything NVDA recorded about what it was doing. Also re the problems with issues which can be hard to reproduce, that was why I was specific in how to repro this one. This one definitely seems to be triggered by the mouse.

[Adriani90]

cc: @nishimotz, @LeonarddeR

[LeonarddeR]

Ah, looks like i"m the author of this crash, see #8572.

Disabling mouse tracking seems to be an acceptable work around for now, but I"ll provide a fix anyway.

[lukaszgo1]

I don't know if it has the same underlying cause, but for me even with mouse tracking disabled it is sufficient to route mouse to start menu search field in Windows 7 to cause explorer to crash. When it crashes it takes NVDA with it, so the only way to go back to the working condition is to kill explorer.exe from another account.

[LeonarddeR]

@lukaszgo1: yes, this is expected behavior according to the cause of the crash, which is a freeze in the UIA client library according to earlier findings. We thought that these were fixed, but it seems like they aren't.
A try build is on the way.

[LeonarddeR]

@lukaszgo1 @Qchristensen Could you test this try build

[lukaszgo1]

I can confirm that routing mouse to the start menu search box no longer crashes explorer with this build.

[Brian1Gaff]

Hi a couple of weeks ago we had this crash 49 times while attempting to copy some files with the mouse with nvda loaded, so I'll be glad to get a fixed snap asap to save my producers sanity!
Brian