Explorer.exe CPU Usage/Not Responding and Sidebar Diagnostics Flashing/Flickering

[ngj5-beasTxx]

1. Is this a feature request?

If yes then sorry but this project is not taking feature requests at this time.

2. Your Operating System

Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 (1809)

3. App Version

3.6.2

4. Any Relevant Settings

5. Steps to Reproduce

Attempt to configure Sidebar Diagnostics as above then reboot and see what happens. On my end after logging into Windows Sidebar Diagnostics is constantly flashing/flickering on the right side occasionally appearing on the left side. Explorer.exe is constantly using around 15% CPU usage, completely unresponsive so not usable and when you hover over the taskbar it's just a spinning circle. If restart Explorer.exe everything seems to be stable or if I uninstall Sidebar Diagnostics then reboot everything is normal when I log in.

[ArcadeRenegade]

1809 is a very old version of Windows 10. Can you update?

On Tue, May 10, 2022, 11:47 AM ngj5-beasTxx @.***> wrote:

1. Is this a feature request?

If yes then sorry but this project is not taking feature requests at this time.

2. Your Operating System

Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 (1809)

3. App Version

3.6.2

4. Any Relevant Settings

[image: 2022-05-10_14-31-40_SidebarDiagnostics] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17461011/167699693-c6d9a22f-77d0-4b93-a42c-7d1e575b2460.png [image: 2022-05-10_14-31-45_SidebarDiagnostics] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17461011/167699696-4dc9f375-9ab8-4fa8-82a8-247e1b5d5a21.png [image: 2022-05-10_14-31-51_SidebarDiagnostics] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17461011/167699697-adcab9d9-19d9-4713-bd51-67768b83d02b.png [image: 2022-05-10_14-31-54_SidebarDiagnostics] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17461011/167699699-b437c8a2-6f50-4a87-a63f-23859bbdbf64.png [image: 2022-05-10_14-31-57_SidebarDiagnostics] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17461011/167699700-a8a4bb8c-b62f-4993-8f7e-40917c2f6b1a.png

5. Steps to Reproduce

Attempt to configure Sidebar Diagnostics as above then reboot and see what happens. On my end after logging into Windows Sidebar Diagnostics is constantly flashing/flickering on the right side occasionally appearing on the left side. Explorer.exe is constantly using around 15% CPU usage, completely unresponsive so not usable and when you hover over the taskbar it's just a spinning circle. If restart Explorer.exe everything seems to be stable or if I uninstall Sidebar Diagnostics then reboot everything is normal when I log in.

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[ngj5-beasTxx]

1809 is a very old version of Windows 10. Can you update?

I'm on LTSC for stability purposes currently for work. Eventually I will move to a newer version when I get some free time. I can try to replicate the settings on another computer running a newer version of Windows 10 sometime though. Do you know if there's any specific software that could conflict with Sidebar Diagnostics.

[ngj5-beasTxx]

I found the culprit on my end, whenever I uncheck Reserve Space the issue occurs.

[jusito]

Can confirm the occurrence on Windows 10 Education 21H2, installed it ~20 minutes ago. Default configuration worked, tried around and hit apply multiple times without any issue, hit apply / save / close and sidebar started flickering and explorer hanged.

It seems like sidebar moved, including reserved space to the left (only position, size didnt change) up to the mid of my 2nd monitor and once every few seconds moved to main screen too. Killing sidebar diagnostics in task manager + restarted it without restarting pc worked. Until now I couldn't reproduce it.

Edit 6 days later: It seems to be fixed, it still looks like the same if I minimize/maximize a game sometimes and the explorer hangs for a sec. So maybe updating windows will at least reduce the issue to "fine enough to work with". If I would need to guess completely into the void, seems like if there is an event for "display changed" which is triggered very often in this case but setting some values (maybe reserve space) will retrigger this event sometimes.

My configs differs slightly from op:

[djm2k]

Confirming on 21H2 as well, I had noticed Explorer.exe taking 30% CPU and freezing often, restarting Explorer.exe in Task Manager fixes it until next reboot.

I can prevent the error by ensuring Reserve Space is checked. As soon as I uncheck Reserve Space and click Save, Explorer freezes and jumps to 30%.

My Windows is fully up to date.

EDIT: I'm no dotNet developer, but using ProcessMonitor whilst reproducing the issue, I can see SidebarDiagnostics is endlessly creating and exiting threads until I restart Explorer.

[andycjw]

I also found that when the "Dock" is set to 'Left' instead of 'Right', none of these explorer.exe unresponsive happens, I found this advice from a thread on reddit.

This could be a clue to find on the code path on why only the right side docking has this behaviour

[AtomicHaggis]

I experience this problem if I temporarily disconnect a monitor while Sidebar Diagnostics is running. It causes excessive flickering and slows down the OS on Windows 11 22623.870 and a reboot or app restart does not fix the problem. It seems to get stuck because it can't launch on the correct monitor.

[JacobWKlein]

I got this bug today, when I moved from a single-screen (where Sidebar Diagnostics was working great for years), to triple screens (where Sidebar Diagnostics is now completely unusable on Windows startup or on app startup). Can it be fixed please?

[ymartin59]

Just installed and configured on Windows 10 Enterprise 21H2 and also got this flickering issue with 3 screens, whenever Sidebar Diagnostics is configured for main screen (#1) or another one... I have to kill process from Task Manager but then I have to reconfigure my custom settings at next startup - most of them have been reset to defaults.

[jt3204]

I am also experiencing this issue in version 3.6.3 on Windows 11 22H2 (22621.1194). Flickering explorer.exe with high CPU usage, but only under specific circumstances.

I believe the core lies in the code for locating the sidebar in the right side of a monitor, when Reserve Space is not selected, and a secondary monitor is positioned (via display settings) to the right of the screen displaying the sidebar. If I change just one of those variables, the problem disappears.

[itsFlake]

Same for me on Win11 Pro 22H2. Only occurs with 2 monitors active and it being set to Monitor 1, right side. every time it flickers in and out of existence, a little bit of the sidebar is visible on the left side. With 2 monitors:

Monitor 1, left side: ✅ Monitor 2, left side: ✅ Monitor 1, right side: ✅ Monitor 1, right side: 💣💥

With 1 monitor:

Monitor 1, left side: ✅ Monitor 1, right side: ✅

[drlight17]

Try this standalone version I haven't tested it on the Win 11, but in my Win 10 22H2 there is no flickering effect any more.

[jusito]

@drlight17 Did you try the release artifact of 3.5.0? Is it not working, or did you change something in 3.5.0 to make it work? https://github.com/ArcadeRenegade/SidebarDiagnostics/releases/tag/3.5.0

Because I have to admit a repository with just a readme and an uploaded exe looks quite fishy to me. So no fork with changes that we could see what you have modified.

[drlight17]

@jusito No changes in source code of 3.5.0 were made. Just added language files and latest open hardware monitor dll. Made this repo for myself, but seeing many related issues I decided to make it public and mention it in some of them. Nothing more so no fork as it is not fork generally. But if you are suspicious - you could checksum exe or it's signing. ;)