Windows Rundll32 (child process of DllHost) is crashing. How can I even identify it?

2

Windows 10 Home / "x64-based PC" / Dell XPS 13 9360

In Reliability Monitor, I have many "app failures" every day. They go back all the way to 2017-12-04 without variation (the details below are identical), when I believe this machine was first used. The problem is marked as having been reported (apart from problem instances in the past few minutes).

@magicandre1981 also suggested I open a public problem in the Windows app Feedback Hub for some reason.

My question is: How can I identify this? What causes the crashes? Can they be resolved somehow?

Problem details

  • Faulting Application Path: C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe
  • Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
  • Fault Module Name: Windows.UI.Immersive.dll
  • Fault Module Version: 10.0.16299.125
  • Exception offset: 00000000000ac885
  • Exception code: c0000005
  • OS Version: 10.0.16299.2.0.0.768.101
  • Bucket ID: ab5106f0b0020ee0d7e0c2d4f71642fb (1720589277589816059)

"Anti-virus" is installed (McAfee VirusSafe) and running with no alerts, no quarantined items, no significant logs that I can find. sfc /scannow gives the system a clean bill of health.

Triggering the problem manually

It seems possible to trigger the crash by logging in. This isn't what has been causing it in the past, because the machine doesn't usually have a user logging in and out (or even turning the machine on and off).

Process Monitor allows to trace process creation and exit. Running it as a second user, I am able to see the crashing process:

  • Command line: "C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe" -localserver 22d8c27b-47a1-48d1-ad08-7da7abd79617.

It's not really clear what this UUID is. The -localserver option does not appear to be documented. Google finds a question, the only answer claims it is "Process Profiling Performance Analysis Program (Windows Performance Counter Program)". Admittedly I can see that profapi.dll and powrprof.dll are loaded in this process.

  • Parent process: DllHost.exe ("COM Surrogate").

Described as "I don't feel good about this code, so I'm going to ask COM to host it in another process. That way, if it crashes, it's the COM Surrogate sacrificial process that crashes instead of me".

  • Command line: C:\WINDOWS\system32\DllHost.exe /Processid:{133EAC4F-5891-4D04-BADA-D84870380A80}

This UUID in the parent's command line can be found in the registry. It is associated with the name "Shell Create Object Task Server". Using the registry tracking in Process Monitor, I see DllHost loads shell32.dll, located via HKCR\CLSID\{133eac...}\InProcServer32).

=> I think we can identify this parent process, as shell32.dll / "Shell Create Object Task Server", and that it is part of the OS.


Both processes run as the user NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. This seems a possible venue of investigation. What is the privileged part of the GUI software doing, that needs to be run in a separate process?

Crash backtrace

After running procdump -ma -i C:\dumps, I am able to capture crash dumps. (procdump -u to stop capturing). The analyzer from DebugDiag is able to open them and run the CrashHangAnalysis:

In rundll32.exe_171225_165805.dmp the assembly instruction at Windows_UI_Immersive!CUserTileValidator::_SetReadOnlyCapability+1d in C:\Windows\System32\Windows.UI.Immersive.dll from Microsoft Corporation has caused an access violation exception (0xC0000005) when trying to read from memory location 0x00000000 on thread 0.

The following threads in rundll32.exe_171225_165805.dmp are processing an inbound RPC call over LRPC to the OLE54BFB094974A828ACE9FBFE5A353 endpoint:

( 0 )

Thread 0 - System ID 4332

  • Entry point rundll32!wWinMainCRTStartup
  • Create time 25/12/2017 16:58:04
  • Time spent in user mode 0 Days 00:00:00.000
  • Time spent in kernel mode 0 Days 00:00:00.000

ntdll!NtWaitForMultipleObjects+14 
ntdll!WerpWaitForCrashReporting+a8 
ntdll!RtlReportExceptionHelper+33e 
ntdll!RtlReportException+9d 
combase!ServerExceptionFilter+71 
combase!AppInvokeExceptionFilterWithMethodAddress+62 
combase!`ObjectMethodExceptionHandlingAction<<lambda_76d9e92c799d246a4afbe64a2bf5673d> >'::`1'::filt$0+77 
ucrtbase!_C_specific_handler+a0 
ntdll!RtlpExecuteHandlerForException+d 
ntdll!RtlDispatchException+358 
ntdll!KiUserExceptionDispatch+2e 
Windows_UI_Immersive!CUserTileValidator::_SetReadOnlyCapability+1d 
Windows_UI_Immersive!CUserTileValidator::_GenerateLargeFromDynamicAndReset+23 
Windows_UI_Immersive!CUserTileValidator::ValidateUserTile+141 
rpcrt4!Invoke+73 
rpcrt4!NdrStubCall2+3a5 
rpcrt4!NdrStubCall3+e3 
combase!CStdStubBuffer_Invoke+62 
rpcrt4!CStdStubBuffer_Invoke+3b 
combase!ObjectMethodExceptionHandlingAction<<lambda_76d9e92c799d246a4afbe64a2bf5673d> >+53 
combase!DefaultStubInvoke+2d2 
combase!ServerCall::ContextInvoke+492 
combase!AppInvoke+99e 
combase!ComInvokeWithLockAndIPID+55b 
combase!ComInvoke+210 
combase!ThreadDispatch+d4 
combase!ThreadWndProc+e8 
user32!UserCallWinProcCheckWow+2ad 
user32!DispatchMessageWorker+19f 
rundll32!_InvokeLocalServer+1b9 
rundll32!wWinMain+168 
rundll32!operator delete+2eb 
kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+14 
ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+21 

Inbound RPC Call:

Protocol Sequence    ncalrpc 
Endpoint OLE54BFB094974A828ACE9FBFE5A353 
Source Process ID 1160 
Source Thread ID 2624

PID 1160 is an svchost.exe instance for "RPC" and "RPC Endpoint Mapper", according to Process Explorer.

windows-10
crash
asked on Super User Dec 24, 2017 by sourcejedi • edited Jun 12, 2020 by Community

1 Answer

2

What causes the crashes? Can they be resolved somehow?

Apparently, the crashes are caused by validating the UserTile of this specific user.

I believe this refers to the picture that is shown when you log in. After setting the user's picture to an arbitrary image file taken from Pictures/, the crash was no longer triggered when I go to switch users and log in as the specific user.

How can I identify this?

It looks like "Exception offset" is a code offset inside the DLL/EXE (i.e. avoiding the effect of relocation / address randomization). So the crash location can be identified by "Exception offset" + the specific DLL/EXE contents -

  • Fault Module Name: Windows.UI.Immersive.dll
  • Fault Module Version: 10.0.16299.125
  • "x64-based PC" (the 64 bit version of the DLL, not 32-bit "x86").

If you have debugging symbols for the DLL/EXE, you may be able to take extra effort to look up this location. Use procdump as described to capture a crash dump. Open the dump with any debugger which supports the Microsoft Symbol Service, if the DLL/EXE is from Microsoft. The names of the symbols are less likely to change over time (or different hardware platforms) than the numeric addresses. A debugger will also show a full trace of the nested function calls leading to the crash.

  • Symbolic location: Windows_UI_Immersive!CUserTileValidator::_SetReadOnlyCapability+1d etc.
answered on Super User Dec 25, 2017 by sourcejedi

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