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PT causes COM Surrogate to eat a lot of CPU and makes File Explorer hang and die #30260

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Description

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.76.0

Installation method

PowerToys auto-update

Running as admin

No

Area(s) with issue?

File Explorer: Thumbnail preview

Steps to reproduce

There are no distinct steps to reproduce. The bug started appearing by itself at random moments of time.

Probably related to the fact I'm having laptop (14", 3000 by 2000 px, scaling 250%) + external display (27", 2560 by 1440 px, scaling 125%), they are at different resolution, different DPI, different scaling.

✔️ Expected Behavior

Previews for images and pdf files are generated and shown without issues. No extra CPU is eaten by the "COM Surrogate" process.

❌ Actual Behavior

At some moment of time images (jpg, png and others) simultaneously with PDF files stop showing their thumbnails in the File Explorer (Win 11, 23h2, 22631.2792). When containing folder is opened, the explorer's tab shows rotating wheel (a throbber), no thumbs are shown, at the same time in the Task Manager the "COM Surrogate" process continuously starts eating about 25..30% of the CPU, laptop's temperature increases dramatically, fans are working at full pace and are very noisy.

When the issue described above happens, if I use the right-mouse-click to an image whose thumb is not shown, then the context menu fails to appear, the File Explorer hangs indefinitely and then dies (crashes), and all of the opened folders die without re-opening.

Only full restart of the laptop helps to get rid of the issue.

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Issue-BugSomething isn't workingNeeds-Team-ResponseAn issue author responded so the team needs to follow upNeeds-TriageFor issues raised to be triaged and prioritized by internal Microsoft teamsProduct-File ExplorerPower Toys that touch explorer like Preview PaneSeverity-HighBugs that we consider a blocking issue for release (crashes stuff outside of PT)Status-In progressThis issue or work-item is under development

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