I can't access two folders!

[Hi Ho]

I have just encountered a very strange and frustrating issue. I am suddenly unable to access two folders on my laptop. The folders contain mostly video, much of it saved from YouTube. I was downloading a couple YouTube videos this evening. Suddenly, I went to save one more, and Maxthon (browser) dissapeared. I opened it again and tried saving again and the same thing happened. I attempted to open the folder I was saving to in Windows explorer and I got the following message:

EXPLORER.EXE - APPLICATION ERROR
The exception unknown software exception
(0x0eedfade) occured in the application
at location 0x7c812a5b

Every single time I try to access that folder (and one other one) that message appears immediately and Explorer and/or whatever program I'm using shuts down and restarts. I'm at a loss. I ran virus and spyware scans and nothing came up.

Any ideas?

[EzyStvy]

Does the same thing happen after rebooting the pc?

[Hi Ho]

Yes. I have rebooted multiple times. One thing I have noticed is that I can drag the error dialog out of tbe way and browse as usual as long as I don't click OK. Savimg to that location, however, is impossible with either Maxthon or Firefox as clicking save immediately closes either browser. In fact. I can't save any files to any folder with either browser because the simple act of clicking on any download link causes the browser to dissapear because the folder in question was the last download location.

[Kuch]

Have you scanned your system for malware?

I searched for people who had the same issues, and discovered the solutions below that seemed to work for the folks using IE7. I've never used other browsers, but it sounds like it could be an issue with incompatible add-ons.

Try this: Go to tools, manage add ons, and disable IEBrowserHelper Class (Not verified) GetData Pty Ltd.

If that doesn't work, try disabling the unverified add-ons one at a time or in groups.

[Hi Ho]

I had scanned for malware and the problem was not with an internet browser.

I did find the problem. In my attempt to trace it down I ended up switching from thumbnail view to detailed list view and the problem dissapeared. So, I went through clicking on each file individually so that each thumbnail showed up in the Vista preview pane until I found the culprit. Every time I clicked on that file the error would appear. I turned off the preview pane and I was able to click on the file and delete it without a problem. Now everything is back to normal.

The reason, I believe, it was affecting two folders is that the other folder that was affected was the parent of the folder that contained the problem file. In Vista thumbnails of the first four folders in a subfolder are shown. When I opened the parent folder it just so happened that the suspect file was one of the first four in the list and it caused the error even in the parent folder because it was attempting to generate a thumbnail.

Whew... That was a long winded and probably confusing explanation but hopefully anyone else who has a problem like this will benefit from it.