I've got a problem: There's an issue with explorer.exe on XP Home SP3, and I think it's Mesh-related. I'm not a software engineer, but Mesh clearly hooks into explorer in interesting ways, and since experiencing the "missing files" bug mentioned by me and others, explorer.exe has been behaving oddly.
But I don't know how to file the bug for it, because there is just no way to either repro the bug or fit it into a pattern.
1) My "my documents" system folder is mesh sync'd - and since uninstalling/reinstalling Mesh after suffering the "missing files" problem, when I use certain explorer dialogs, there are two "my documents" folders shown, both of which point to the same place and neither of which are shortcuts. I have submitted a photo of this, but it's fairly meaningless on its own. Mostly, when I do a search and go to the "select folders" option, that's where I see two "my documents" folders.
2) If I do a simple search, where I don't use wildcards, explorer crashes after a while. This is new, and Mesh is the only software that could really have had this impact. In XP, if you type "file", it will find myfile, myfile.txt, longnamewithfile.ini.t etc. If I do that kind of search, explorer now crashes. If I type "file*.*", it doesn't.
3) If I have a mesh-sync'd folder open (ie one with a Mesh sidebar attached) on my main PC, and do stuff inside the sync'd folders on my laptop (which is p2p sync'd), I can often see explorer.exe crashing when I look over at the PC. But not always. Not every day. Not every time.
Can you see my problem? I can't possibly submit this as a bug, because "explorer crashes at various times doing various things" is the worst sort of bug report (repro steps? 1) turn PC on, 2) wait and see if crash happens - useless steps!).
Can any of the more software-engineery type people or Mesh bug resolvers give me any advice on how to narrow this bug down? I am convinced that Mesh and explorer.exe are interacting in an odd way, related to the side-effects of the missing/conflicted files bug and the fact that I'm using a system shortcut as a Mesh folder.
All advice greatly appreciated (I like these threads - no one says "get a Mac" when you say you've got a Mesh problem...)
This is a nicely detailed post. I think that the best way for us to start helping you would be to have you collect your Live Mesh logs and email them to lmprev@microsoft.com, preferably with the text of your post here included in the email. Once we have a chance to look over the logs, you'll hear back via email about any new information learned and/or any additional information we might need to help narrow in on the cause(s) of the problem you're having.
Thanks,
Ben.
Proposed as answer byBen [Live Mesh]Wednesday, September 10, 2008 7:42 PM
Marked as answer byBen [Live Mesh]Monday, October 6, 2008 10:13 PM
