Faulting application name: ShellExperienceHost.exe

[martinturner]

I'm having a little bit of an issue with the windows 10 notification side bar (the thing that slides out from the right hand side and shows you all the emails and AV updates you are ignoring). I can see I have new notifications but when I click on the icon nothing happens, and by nothing I mean the application tries to do its thing and instead logs a crash report in the windows log.

Background:

We have multiple floating VDI pools using Windows 10 LTSC (1809) and Horizon 7.13.1 (latest for 7). As this is pretty much end of life now and has started causing issues with office I am attempting up upgrade the base images to Windows 10 Enterprise 21H1 (nice big upgrade and also supported). The notification window has been working absolutely fine using 1809 but I have noticed in 21H1 the 'app' is now a windows store app. The windows store doesn't exist on the LTSC version (I cant remember if its been removed or if its just not there) so its been all fun and games getting things to work in 21H1. I was removing some apps but as I thought this was causing the issue for testing I have removed absolutely nothing and im still getting the error above. Everything else appears to be working as expected.

Really annoyingly, in the base image this works. I can get the notifications just fine. It only seems to be an issue once Horizon has cloned the machines (or I guess I'm logging in as a 'new' user). I have however tried a complete rebuild of the base image from scratch just to see if the issues goes away, and it doesn't.

I actually doubt most users will even notice this issue but I can guarantee some manager will notice and then it'll be the worst fault ever.

The logged error (happens every time you click on the notification icon):

Faulting application name: ShellExperienceHost.exe, version: 10.0.19041.1151, time stamp: 0x6985bf98
Faulting module name: ucrtbase.dll, version: 10.0.19041.789, time stamp: 0x2bd748bf
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x000000000007286e
Faulting process id: 0x2e34
Faulting application start time: 0x01d7c931b15bb97e
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\SystemApps\ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\ShellExperienceHost.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\ucrtbase.dll
Report Id: ee79dede-182c-419a-8ea8-1c23d88049cf
Faulting package full name: Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_10.0.19041.1023_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy
Faulting package-relative application ID: App

[JustSomeGuyDude]

It sounds like you might have a problem with the AppXProvisionedPackage. You could try a DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth.

If that doesn't work try:

remove-appxprovosionedpackage Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_10.0.19041.1023_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy

Add-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -FolderPath "c:\Appx"

note: The folderpath above is not correct for your environment. You will have to get this AppX from Microsoft/Windows Store and place it on your golden image. If you are in an offline environment, this is a nightmare and you may just want to start over with a new image. I recommend starting a new image from scratch with at least every fall Windows 10 update instead of trying to upgrade. 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/dism/add-appxprovisionedpackage?view=windowsserve...

[martinturner]

My issue is that it works fine in the base image. I've already attempted the cleanup and I've just tried the appx command given and neither seem to do anything on the base image. I've also tried running it as a user (so when the shell is broken) and it doesn't fix it (and also seems to require an elevated shell before it stops erroring). I'm on new install number 3 now (from the 21H1 ISO) with various options included and excluded. I have done a fresh install and removed nothing from the base image at all, and its still breaks.

I'm starting to wonder if its just 21H1 that im having issues with. My current plan is to wait for 21H2 and see if its still broken, but that only helps me if it magically fixes it.

[JustSomeGuyDude]

Appxpackages are the packages installed on the logged in user's profile. Appxprovisionedpackages are the ones that will be added to future user's that log in. I wouldn't be surprised. 1809 had a lot of issues similar to this. The link below may help but is not really a fix for why your app is failing to provision correctly. I would check all of the preinstalled Windows apps and make sure they are working too.

https://windowsloop.com/disable-notifications-on-windows-10/

[JustSomeGuyDude]

I forgot to ask, are you using the OS optimization tool? If so, try an image without any optimizations. Sometimes that thing can be aggressive.