Mouse won't click to open files

[willem2]

It seems the registry information for the .exe filetypye is wrong. (and maybe other filetypes as well). try this:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2688326

 

[yungman]

It seems the registry information for the .exe filetypye is wrong. (and maybe other filetypes as well). try this:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2688326

I finally ran this. we'll see what happen.

I was very reluctant to change the registry. I went and posted my problem on the Lenovo Community forum, no reply after a whole day. So I came back and try this.

Thanks

 

[yungman]

It still failed. I kept checking by opening folders. An hour ago, I still can open the folder. I did not even touch the computer after that, I just tried open the folder and it fail. This mean it fail by itself without me touching it.

 

[meBigGuy]

The description of you symptoms are not clear to me. Things don't quite make sense. I'll make some assumptions and you tell me where I am wrong.

Go to control panel-> mouse and verify the buttons work reliably and that your double click works well also.

You are using the normal windows explorer for file access.

You left click a file and it becomes selected. You can left click one file after another and it selects fine with no delay.
You double click a selected file and nothing happens? But you right click and select open and all is OK?
Does this behave the same for all file types and sizes?
For example, a small text (.txt) should open in your editor.
A small mp4 should open in your media player.
A large mp4 should open in your media player.
What happens if you open a large mp4 via the browser?
Do files on your main drive behave the same as files on your SSD? Do you suspect SSD drivers or settings?
How much space left on the SSD?

CTRL-ALT-DELETE, Task Manager and look at CPU usage. Does all look normal there? Also memory usage (but you said that looked OK)
Do any processes, (like IE, Chrome, Firefox, etc) seem to be using a lot of memory?
Any strange looking processes?

You need to whittle this down to a consistent set of cause and effect relationships and then experiment a bit.

For example, when it starts happening, shut down all applications and see if that helps. Shutdown as much as you can in the taskbar notification area. If there are still issues, then look at Task Manager to see what is still active and consuming memory.

Eventually, When it happens, you might try shutting down realtime protection in Norton Pro. (do you have multiple antivirus running?)

One of my favorite tools for tracking down strangenesses is resource monitor. I'm not sure whether it came with win7, or I had to download from Microsoft.
The shortcut to launch on my machine is %windir%\system32\perfmon.exe /res

 

[yungman]

The description of you symptoms are not clear to me. Things don't quite make sense. I'll make some assumptions and you tell me where I am wrong.

Go to control panel-> mouse and verify the buttons work reliably and that your double click works well also.
The mouse is working. I can go on the web, download and open pdf and word files by double clicking. I have no issue with any browser.

You are using the normal windows explorer for file access.Yes

You left click a file and it becomes selected. You can left click one file after another and it selects fine with no delay.
First click will highlight the file or folder, further clicks will not open it.
You double click a selected file and nothing happens? But you right click and select open and all is OK?
when it first fail, I can left click and open the file or folder, but after two or three times, it won't work anymore.

Does this behave the same for all file types and sizes? Yes, regardless of size or type.
For example, a small text (.txt) should open in your editor.
A small mp4 should open in your media player.
A large mp4 should open in your media player.
What happens if you open a large mp4 via the browser?
Do files on your main drive behave the same as files on your SSD? Do you suspect SSD drivers or settings?
How much space left on the SSD?
Once it fails, they all behave the same.

CTRL-ALT-DELETE, Task Manager and look at CPU usage. Does all look normal there? Also memory usage (but you said that looked OK)
Do any processes, (like IE, Chrome, Firefox, etc) seem to be using a lot of memory?
I checked the task manager and looked at CPU and memory usage. Very low. CPU is less than 20%, memory usage is lest than 5%.

Any strange looking processes? I looked at the process, I copied down a few that looked strange, but after I recovered as described below, those task are still there. So I don't see any particular strange about them.

You need to whittle this down to a consistent set of cause and effect relationships and then experiment a bit.

For example, when it starts happening, shut down all applications and see if that helps. Shutdown as much as you can in the taskbar notification area. If there are still issues, then look at Task Manager to see what is still active and consuming memory.
Try that, I shut down everything now except this and two folder that got stuck. I tried opening the folder and it got stuck, it opened a blank page and stuck, I can't close it at all. I can't get into control panel, my computer or anything. But see below.

Eventually, When it happens, you might try shutting down realtime protection in Norton Pro. (do you have multiple antivirus running?)

One of my favorite tools for tracking down strangenesses is resource monitor. I'm not sure whether it came with win7, or I had to download from Microsoft.
The shortcut to launch on my machine is %windir%\system32\perfmon.exe /res

Hi, Thanks for your help. I just found out a way to get out of it:

When I try open the folder, the symptom is it open a blank page and stop. I click the "X" to try to close, it would not. That's when I know the computer is acting up. This time, I open the Task Manager, and do End Task. I did managed to end it and the computer start working again.

This is the first time I don't have to restart the computer to get out of it. The end task work this time. I have to try again when it fails. Everything is fine for now! I really think is a software issue.

Thanks.

 

[meBigGuy]

It does sound like something is affecting Explorer (the file explorer window).

20% CPU is very high when you are not doing anything. Something is not right. Right now my CPU is at 1% peaking to 5% and I'm running a bunch of small background things (a few widgets, a sensor monitoring program, and typing this).
Open the Task Manager. In the task manager there are several tabs.
1. Click Performance. it shows CPU% and Memory Usage (Memory usage is not in % in my machine)
Verify it shows 20% CPU usage and tell me what it says for Physical Memory (Total, Cached, Available, and Free)
You can click Resource Monitor at the bottom, and get more detailed views of what is happening in your machine, but we will do that later
2. Click the Processes Tab
Click the CPU column such that maximum CPU usage is at the top. What are the processes consuming CPU, and how much.
(look at this when there is not a problem, when you open a file, and when there is a problem)
(for me right now it is Idle 99% and every once in a while firefox hits 2%, perfmon hits 1%. If I move my mouse between windows, taskmgr hits 2%)
Click on the memory column and see what programs are consuming the most memory. For me, for example, it is firefox, svhost, sidebar, explorer, svhost(net) and so on.
3. Since you have an SSD, maybe there is massive SSD activity and you can't see it (is there a light for SSD accesses?)
IF you go back to the Performance Tab and click "Resource Monitor" you can click Disk and see what is accessing the disk(s) if anything.
(I use resource monitor whenever my disk starts doing strange things and I don't know why. It's usually my Anti-virus, or something auto-updating or some program optimizing its database)

Did you try shutting down Norton's real time protection (or better yet, uninstall it as an experiment)? Norton could easily be the cause of this. Try reading the Norton event logs and see if there is anything strange there.

 

[yungman]

Thanks Mebigguy.

I don't remember exactly how many % of CPU exactly, it was low. I just check while it's working, it was something like 10% or so, I closed Chrome, it went down to 1% or less. I still have IE and Firefox open. Seem like Chrome takes more CPU.

I open both the performance and resource monitor. I click the CPU in the resource monitor to look at the one that use the most, it switches around. When I re-open Chrome again, it does not seems to take up as much CPU as before. CPU still stay at about 1% to 2%. BUT the memory usage is about 3G all the time. I click "Memory" in the "process" and it show Firefox uses 3.5M, IE 1M and Chrome close to 1M as the top 3 in memory usage.

There is no light for the SSD.

I did not try turning off the Norton, I'll try it next time if I can open it when it fails.

Are you convince that this is pure software problem? It starting to have problem only like two weeks ago, never have any problem before. It's a fast computer.

I'll keep the two monitors open for the next time when it fails.

Thanks

 

[meBigGuy]

I am convinced it is a software issue. Related to swapping, the SSD, Norton, or something like that. Or some process we don't know about yet. Basically a resources issue.
Of course, everyone always suspects malware. That's always possible. I ALWAYS run malwarebytes as soon as my machine does anything strange.
There usually isn't anything there, but its a habit of mine. Have you run malwarebytes?

(well, it could be an SSD failure of some sort, but it's not a typical failure)

We need to know the CPU and Memory numbers when it is failing.

I think your browser memory numbers are way low. The memory is listed in KBytes, so 284,000 is 284MBytes. My firefox is at 250MB. If I just start chrome and load google it runs 4 processes at about 15 to 30MB each (nearly 100MB total)

It could be related to swapping and the SSD.

The data does not compute yet.

I just fixed a problem with my computer. It randomly froze three times with no indications. I opened it up, reseated all the connectors (except the cpu and ram) and blew all the dust out of the power supply (turns out there was a lot in there) and the video card. I suspect the video card or power supply was having issues. (or maybe the video card). Just sayin ...

 

[yungman]

I am convinced it is a software issue. Related to swapping, the SSD, Norton, or something like that. Or some process we don't know about yet. Basically a resources issue.
Of course, everyone always suspects malware. That's always possible. I ALWAYS run malwarebytes as soon as my machine does anything strange.
There usually isn't anything there, but its a habit of mine. Have you run malwarebytes?

(well, it could be an SSD failure of some sort, but it's not a typical failure)

We need to know the CPU and Memory numbers when it is failing.

I think your browser memory numbers are way low. The memory is listed in KBytes, so 284,000 is 284MBytes. My firefox is at 250MB. If I just start chrome and load google it runs 4 processes at about 15 to 30MB each (nearly 100MB total)

It could be related to swapping and the SSD.

The data does not compute yet.

I just fixed a problem with my computer. It randomly froze three times with no indications. I opened it up, reseated all the connectors (except the cpu and ram) and blew all the dust out of the power supply (turns out there was a lot in there) and the video card. I suspect the video card or power supply was having issues. (or maybe the video card). Just sayin ...

Thanks, I don't understand the meaning of swapping.

I have the browser opened before, it was just sitting idle all these time. Maybe if I do something, it would be higher. I mainly have different email, one for my home, one for work that I kept open at the time.

I doubted it's virus. I lead a very boring life, I really don't surf around much. My main places I visit is Diyaudio, Digikey, email. Occasionally look up some inform on the cast of tv series and some technical stuff. I do post political comments on the Yahoo news, but that's pretty much posting on the articles. That's it, no porn, no nothing. I don't think there is much virus to catch. The computer is super fast, I pulled out the old 3rd gen I-5 laptop with Win8 because of problem of this one, it is so much slower. There is no symptom telling me to suspect virus infection.

I scan with Norton full scan before, nothing came up. I can download MS security essential to scan it again. If you have another one better, please give me a link. I really don't want to go on web and find one because I don't trust them.

Thanks

 

[meBigGuy]

Scan with malwarebytes free version. Malwarebytes scans for different things than Norton. It might not find anything (but it almost always does when first used), but it is a very handy program to have. https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/ Read carefully as you install. I don't think they will try to load extra stuff (not like them to load extra stuff) but be alert anytime you install anything. Their software is trustworthy. Just download and then execute. It will download their database and do a scan. It doesn't leave anything running in the background when it finishes. It only runs when you ask it to.
Ignore anything regarding upgrading to their pro version, for now. You don't need it
If it finds anything, you can choose to let it take care of it, or just ignore it for now and report back here.

Nothing you report makes me think malware, but Malwarebytes is just good, uncontroversial, computer maintenance. BTW, you can get malware just sitting on a site with ad servers. You don't have to click on anything. I had a computer rooted by a hacked ad server, through a popular news site, while no one was at the computer.

again, regarding the symptoms:
1. Can you just open a bunch of files and get it to occur reliably?
2. Need to know CPU and Memory usage when the problem occurs
3. Turn off Norton when the problem occurs. Better yet, if you can make the problem occur, turn off Norton and then try to make it happen.

Regarding swapping:
Your system has a certain amount of physical memory, and a disk file call the paging file or virtual memory (some call it a swap file) where it can store data that isn't being currently used by the running programs. When you run out of memory it will swap some older program data to the disk to make more room.

You should check how much swap memory you have.
Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced Tab
under performance, press Settings -> then Advanced
Under virtual memory it will have a number. Mine is 6.135GB (or 6135MB)
You can click on Change and set it to let the system decide if it isn't already set that way. Or increase it, or whatever. Don't decrease it.

 

[yungman]

It failed again.

I looked the CPU and memory, CPU is 7 to 8%, memory is 3.75G. In the resource monitor, the memory usage from highest down is Firefox, IE, Explorer and Chrome.

I closed all the programs except the stuck folder, CPU down to 1% and memory down to 2.77G. It still does not work, I still cannot open program or file.

I disable all Norton task, did not help.

I finally went to task manage as end the folder that is stuck. For a few seconds, I can click and open programs. But when I try to open the original stuck folder, it will not open. I tried opening the program that I can open a few seconds ago, it failed. this time, the stuck folder does not even show up in the task manager, so I cannot try to close it anymore. The only program running is Firefox, all other tasks are closed.

That's it, I need to restart the computer now.

 

[meBigGuy]

Wow. That sort of points to the file system. As a random thought, is it possible you have cooling problems? Blocked fan when you use the laptop? Dirt accumulation? Can you feel the airflow from the fan running?

What is the history of the machine? Has it always been SSD based? Is it just one SSD? No hard drive?

1. Check the virtual memory as I described earlier
2. Update the SSD drivers
3. Run MalwareBytes (really, this is a safe smart thing to do)

 

[yungman]

Wow. That sort of points to the file system. As a random thought, is it possible you have cooling problems? Blocked fan when you use the laptop? Dirt accumulation? Can you feel the airflow from the fan running?

What is the history of the machine? Has it always been SSD based? Is it just one SSD? No hard drive?

1. Check the virtual memory as I described earlier
2. Update the SSD drivers
3. Run MalwareBytes (really, this is a safe smart thing to do)

It is Lenovo Thinkpad T440 20B7S1KJ00 i5-4300U Dual Core 1.9GHz with 2.9GHz Max Turbo 8GB DDR3L-1600 128GB SSD 14" HD 1366x768 Display 3-Cell + 3-Cell Battery Intel N-7260 Win 7 Pro 64bit. The laptop is only 4 to 5 months old, never have a problem until now. It comes with SSD drive, no hard drive.

The fan do not come on that often, I don't think dist and dirt is the problem as it's so new. Also, most of the time, it fail when I come back to use the computer after it sat idling, not really running anything. I feel around the casing, it is not warm.

BUT I lifted the back of the laptop up and use a small fan to blow the bottom and side so I have more air for the bottom and see whether it still fail.EDIT:

I just finished the malware scan you gave, it removed 14 potential malware.

I went to :Control Panel -> System and security-> System-> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced Tab
under performance, press Settings -> Advanced...The size of virtual memory is 7879MB. It is higher than yours, so I take it is ok.

I went on Control panel, device manager, Disk drive and choose Sam Sung SCSI drive. right click and choose update drivers. It went on web to look for update drivers and came back saying I have the latest driver already.Thanks

 

[yungman]

I also did the following

In the Device manager->system devices, I checked for updates for MS system management BIOS drivers and Virtual Drive Enumerator drivers. It came back as said it has the latest update already.

 

[meBigGuy]

Hopefully it was malware related, because I'm running out of ideas.

Is windows defender turned off? Sometimes two active antivirus programs can cause issues. Click on start and type defender in the text box at the bottom.
Then click on windows defender. It should give a message that it is turned off.

I guess the next thing I would do is uninstall Norton. If running without AV makes you nervous you can turn on windows defender. It's not very good, but ...

 

[yungman]

I have been using Norton many years without problem. My desktop upstairs has no problem what so ever, hard to imagine Norton is the cause of the problem.

Thanks

 

[meBigGuy]

I agree, but we are running out of things to try. Did you verify you are not running defender also <-- important step?

Regarding Norton, if you don't try something because of anecdotal data from a different situation you risk overlooking the cause. Norton could have been corrupted by a bad shutdown, for example. Or, an accidentally aborted update. I agree it's unlikely, but you probably thought finding 14 questionable issues with Malwarebytes was unlikely also.
Just saying.

I guess I would check that defender is off and wait for the issue to happen again. (has it happened since you ran malwarebytes?) At that point I would reboot, shut down Norton and try to make it happen again. Or uninstall Norton. Or reinstall Norton.

 

[yungman]

Yes, I did verify right away, the defender is not running. Should I uninstall Norton and reinstall again?

It has not fail since I ran the defender, I have something under the laptop at the back to lift the back up to create a gap between the counter and the bottom, I am using a small fan to blow under it. I am waiting for it to fail.

Ha ha, I am surprised the defender only found 14. I had scanned some old computers with other scans and came up a lot more! It almost seems like some of the malware scanner trying to scare people into buying the program.

Thanks

 

[Chronos]

reload your mouse driver

 

[yungman]

reload your mouse driver

How do I do it? I went in Control Panel and checked for update, it came back and said I have the latest driver already. I don't dare to uninstall it as I have to make sure I know how to install it back in.

I don't think is the mouse, I have no problem doing everything on web, problem only with trying to open folders and programs on the desktop.

Thanks

 

[Chronos]

Do a driver search for your brand of mouse If you have the current version, it will have no effect.

 

[meBigGuy]

It is obviously NOT the mouse driver. It has nothing to do with the mouse. The mouse works fine even when the file system is hung.
What makes you think it could be the mouse when explorer hangs, and deleting the explorer app unhangs it? Try coming up with something consistent with all the symptoms before suggesting random stuff.

When he opens files through explorer, the system eventually hangs. There are no high CPU usage processes, and no high memory usage processes when this happens. When the system is hung trying to open a file, the browser still runs fine. He virtual memory settings seem OK. A reboot gets the system back to normal.

He is running an SSD so it could be SSD driver related, but he checked the drivers and they are up to date.
(could be a corrupted SSD driver, but low likelihood)

The system seems to be running OK with respect to cooling, and many diagnostics have been run.

He is running Norton AV, and defender is not enabled. Norton could be corrupted (but low likelihood)

He ran malwarebytes and it found 14 "things", which he removed. It has not exhibited the issue since then (but it was not long ago)

Right now the best hope is that malwarebytes cleaned it up.

 

[meBigGuy]

Ha ha, I am surprised the defender only found 14. I had scanned some old computers with other scans and came up a lot more! It almost seems like some of the malware scanner trying to scare people into buying the program.

That may be true of some programs, but I don't think malwarebytes is in that category. The free version gets the job done, and it generally finds real junk. Do you think the programs it removed for you were good things to have on your computer? BTW, were any of the suspicious programs added around the time the issue began?

Don't do anything until it happens again. As I said:

wait for the issue to happen again. (has it happened since you ran malwarebytes?) At that point I would reboot, shut down Norton and try to make it happen again. Or uninstall Norton. Or reinstall Norton.

 

[Chronos]

Having nothing happen when you click on a folder gives me cause to suspect a driver or hardware problem. Try another mouse and see how it works [or doesnt]. I agree and doubt Norton is relevant to the issue. If its a wireless mouse a new battery might be in order.

 

[meBigGuy]

Yet the browser works fine (the mouse works fine in the browser). What leads you to this weird mouse conclusion? Explain how a mouse driver can cause an explorer window to hang? The mouse works great. The file open hangs. Do you understand that?

 

[yungman]

Yes, I don't think it's the mouse at all. I don't remember the date of the malware, the names did not sound familiar, more like the name of some gaming stuff, BUT I never play games on my computer. Hell, I never play games, it's a total waste of time to me. My video games are doing LTSpice circuit simulation, laying out pcb! I lead a very very boring life and love every bit of it.

So I should hold back in uninstall and reinstall Norton until the next time if fails. That, I have done before and not an issue.

 

[Borg]

I'm only mentioning this because you seem to have exhausted all of the other options. Have you tried looking at which Services are running on your machine and compare them with the other computer that is working OK? I review my running services from time to time and aggressively turn off services. This has led to occasional problems for me where I will get odd behavior while trying to access directory services. For example, whenever I use Firefox to save a file and try to create a new folder using the dialog, Firefox crashes and closes. I am pretty sure this is due to a service that I shut down but I haven't gotten around to figuring it out. I understand that you may not have shut down a service but it could have been done through an update or a program installation. Definitely use great care with modifying your services - you can really make a mess of your machine.

 

[Mark44]

Having nothing happen when you click on a folder gives me cause to suspect a driver or hardware problem. Try another mouse and see how it works [or doesnt]. I agree and doubt Norton is relevant to the issue. If its a wireless mouse a new battery might be in order.

Yet the browser works fine (the mouse works fine in the browser). What leads you to this weird mouse conclusion? Explain how a mouse driver can cause an explorer window to hang? The mouse works great. The file open hangs. Do you understand that?

A suggestion early on in this thread was that the file associations were broken. In Win7 (which is what I'm running), these can be checked by opening Control Panel, and then clicking Default Programs. Click Associate a file type or protocol with a program to see a list of all file types and the action that is associated with each. If there is some file type (such as .exe, .txt, .jpg, etc.) that has no action listed with it, clicking on a file of that type won't cause anything to happen.

 

[yungman]

Yet the browser works fine (the mouse works fine in the browser). What leads you to this weird mouse conclusion? Explain how a mouse driver can cause an explorer window to hang? The mouse works great. The file open hangs. Do you understand that?

Hi MeBigGuy
I was curious about what being quarantined by Malwarebytes, I went in and looked at the history. To my big surprised:

1) Most of them were from Mapsgalaxy.com. the names are Pup.Optional.MindSpark. Location in
mapsgalaxy.com\META-INF\manifest.mf
mapsgalaxy.com\chrome.manifest
mapsgalaxy.com\chrome\39ffxtbr.jar
r@www.mapsgalaxy.com\install_old.rdf
-99DE-4CBB-8211-683810C93B8B.sqlite
r@www.mapsgalaxy.com\install.rdf
rofiles\0z1y7dhd.default\MapsGalaxy_39
tbr@www.mapsgalaxy.com\bootstrap.js

2) One is from PrimoPDF which I use for a while with no problem
downloads\InternationalPrimoPDF.exe

I installed the Mapsgalaxy almost the same time as I started experiencing the problem. Maybe it is this malware that causes the problem. It still has not fail so far. I turned off the fan and let the bottom of the laptop sit back on the counter as originally was all the time.

I am going to wait if it fail again, then I am going to uninstall all the Mapsgalaxy stuff. do you know of a map and direction site that is reliable and clean?

You might hit the problem right on the nail.

Thanks

Thanks

 

[meBigGuy]

I'm only mentioning this because you seem to have exhausted all of the other options. Have you tried looking at which Services are running on your machine and compare them with the other computer that is working OK?

That makes a lot of sense and probably would identify the issue. The problem is interpreting the massive amount of data, and doing it in a way that doesn't jeopardize system stability. I find the sheer quantity of services and what they really do to be mind boggling. It is so easy to think "I don't need this" only to find 3 months later that something can't happen because you disabled it.

While it is not directly service related, my approach to this is to run HijackThis. I essentially set ignore on anything that looks like stock Microsoff, apple, google, etc. and any programs or services that I am positive that are OK (like skype, my AV, etc). Then I try to figure out what the rest of it means and whether something looks suspicious. Then, whenever something suspicious happens, I rerun it and see if there is anything new (it remembers all the ignores). I don't try to get a clean run, just a manageable report. Right now I have about 20 things left in the report after a scan (most of which I could ignore, but just don't) and maybe 50 in my ignore list. If something suspicious happens, it will stand out like a sore thumb.

HijackThis will tell you all the startup programs and services, and you can easily eliminate the ones you don't want. For example, mapsgalaxy probably had a startup setting and left something in memory on a permanent basis.

The problem with HijackThis is that it is very easy to eliminate something you shouldn't, so you need to research every thing you do before using it to "fix" something.

I have one other program that I run called WinPatrol. I actually bought the pro version. The pro version let's you click on a service or a process, or a startup program to access an online database that describes the service and suggests whether it is really needed. I love it. It tells you everything about your software environment. It also flags new startup programs, association changes, some registry changes, and other things that might be indicative of something awry. But, for some it is just too much information.