8 November 2011

Heads up: Right-click crashes triggered by Qualcomm Atheros Bluetooth Suite

We've had several crash reports recently which turned out to be triggered by Qualcomm Atheros Bluetooth Suite and the shell extension it installs.

If you have that software installed (and it may come pre-installed with some computers), and you are also getting crashes when right-clicking files, then it is probably the trigger.

The shell extension in question will be blacklisted in the next Opus update (after 10.0.2.0), but if you are affected by it now you can manually tell Opus to ignore it:

  • Go to Settings -> Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced.

  • Double-click ignore_context_menus.

  • Paste this into the list:

    {B8952421-0E55-400B-94A6-FA858FC0A39F}

  • Click OK twice.



(The shell extension appears to create its own background threads and windows when files are right-clicked, then falls over if the extension is unloaded while those threads/windows still exist. The COM object's name (shown in the debug output) is the generic-looking AppShellPage Class, and the associated DLL is C:\Program Files\Bluetooth Suite\BtvAppExt.dll.)


For more information on tracking down problematic shell extensions, see our FAQ: Crash, exit or high CPU when right-clicking certain files. The steps in that FAQ were used to track down this problem and work out what needed to be added to the ignore list.