Uninstalling Helix Plugin did not help in my case. I also killed all Dropbox processes (didn’t uninstall though) because that talks to file explorer, that also did not help. I’ll report back if I find anything else
Yes, this fixes it. Thank you!
This fixed it on 3 of my machines, thank you very much!
This seems to be related to explorer “overlays”. I had the Box Sync client installed which installed an overlay. When I disabled them, the crashing stopped. Since people have reported that it does it with the Helix plugin (which also uses an overlay to show file status), it seems like it is an overlay that is causing the problem.
You can disable overlays by removing the entries at:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers
Thank you!
This didn’t work for me (aarrghh!). There were about 20 entries in my ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers (mostly from dropbox and onedrive). I removed them in groups, testing each time, but even with everything gone + restart, the UE4.25.1 editor still crashes whenever it tries to use a file explorer window.
Clearly this method is useful for many, but apparently there’s still another layer to the problem or a separate possible cause 
It might be my imagination, but my crash output might be different now, though the unhandled exception number is the same (which differs from OP):
Unhandled Exception: 0xe0000001
KERNELBASE
msxml3
msxml3
msxml3
msxml3
msxml3
DTShl64
DTShl64
DTShl64
kernel32
ntdll
I did some more testing and it looks like it was just the Box ShellIconOverlays that are causing the problem. I also have Dropbox as well as some Adobe one and they don’t seem to cause a problem.
I would recommend that you make sure “Editor Symbols for Debugging” are installed vbia the Epic Games Launcher and run the editor under Visual Studio. Go to Debug → Windows → Exception settings and make sure C++ Exceptions and Win32 Exceptions are checked (not a solid box) so that it always breaks on either of them. Open a dialog box in the editor and it should break into the debugger to show you what the exception is. You can use the Microsoft Symbol Server to fetch the symbols the Windows to reoslve the callstakc. Your callstack (from the modules) looks different from mine, so it seems like it is some other problem.
Thanks for your help! Launching the editor via Visual Studio debugging (with C++ and win32 exceptions checked) didn’t reveal much more about the call stack, and then as a control-sample I made an identical (new & empty) project in UE4.24, debugged it the same way, and when the editor creates a file-explorer window, the exact same errors came up, same call stack (then a couple more errors) all with no crash. So my call stack seems to be a red herring and Unreal / Visual Studio might not be logging what actually causes the crash.
I’m feeling pretty stumped at this point. I might have to just hope there’s a hotfix coming soon. (Though I still don’t see this error in the buglist yet despite multiple reports days ago, so I wonder if it doesn’t repro on their machines.)
This appeared in the bug database today, and it sounds like it might be the culprit.
(If so, it has been marked fixed for 4.25.2!)
Update: I also just received a reply to my bug submission. (For context I said I was unable to find a reliable way to make a machine without the issue start repro’ing it)
"This is not something we have been able to reproduce either. Reports we have received have mentioned removing the File Explorer plugins have resolved the issue for them. We are looking into to see if it is an issue with Engine. That issue can be tracked here: Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-93999) "
(Note that that’s a different bug listing though likewise marked fixed for 4.25.2 (in the same commit), but presumably the fix can’t be confirmed because they don’t have a repro to test it on)
I hope the hotfix for 4.25.2 will be released soon
UPDATE: A bug just appeared in the issue-tracker that I think explains both my “red herring” callstack and everyone’s crashes. It is marked fixed for the next update: Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-94087)
Experiencing the same crashes on opening any windows explorer window. Other earlier versions are working well . The crash is repeated in unreal 4.25.1 update. Hope that will be fixed soon in upcoming versions.
Same problem here, with a twist. If i start a brand new blank project, no starter content it doesn’t crash. But every project that i open in 4.25.1 does.
Definitely have this problem too.
Tip: You can import things by dragging files into the editor, this way UE4 doesn’t open a file explorer.
But if you need to export anything it might be a problem.
This will not help everyone but it helped me. When you have this crash when trying to build make sure the path under “project settings → Packaging → Staging Directory” is a folder that already exists.
Thanks! Culprit was indeed the Helix Plugin for File Explorer (P4EXP) in my case too. I had the same problem, crashing after the file explorer popup was opened when I tried to package my project. Problem was gone immediately after I uninstalled P4EXP.
Yes, this worked for me, I uninstalled the perforce p4EXP plugin (p4expinst.exe) from perforce and this resolved the issue for me. Thank you!