Explorer crashes or freezes when accessing Network Drive

If File Explorer crashes or freezes while accessing Mapped Network Drives on your Windows 11/10 system, this post may help you fix it. At times, you may see error code c0000374. This issue prevents users from accessing the data inside the mapped network drives because every time users try to access them, File Explorer either freezes for a long time or crashes.

Explorer crashes or freezes while accessing Mapped Network Drives

The following solutions may help you fix the issue:

Unpin everything from Quick Access.
Set File Explorer to open to This PC instead of Quick Access.
Turn off the Thumbnails Preview in File Explorer.
Clear the File Explorer’s history.
Disable Windows Search Service.
Clear Thumbnail Cache
Check for Shell Extensions Conflicts
Disable Auto Network Discovery in Explorer
Disable Windows Search on Network Locations
Create a new Value in Windows Registry.
Disable Fast Startup
Re-map the Network Drive
Check in Safe Mode with Networking
View Event Viewer Logs.

Go through the list first and see which may apply in your case.

1] Unpin everything from Quick Access

We can pin files and folders to the Quick Access menu. This allows us to access such files and folders quickly. But pinning files and folders to Quick Access sometimes causes the File Explorer to hang or freeze. Hence, if you have pinned anything to Quick Access, remove it and see if it brings any changes.

2] Set File Explorer to open to This PC instead of Quick Access

You may also experience this issue if the File Explorer opens to Quick Access by default. Set File Explorer to open to This PC instead of Quick Access and see if it fixes the issue.

The steps to do this are as follows:

Open File Explorer.
Click on the View menu and select Options. If you are a Windows 11 user, click on the three horizontal dots in the File Explorer and then select Options.
In the Folder Options window, make sure that you have selected the General tab.
Select This PC in the “Open File Explorer to” drop-down menu.
Click OK to save the changes you have made.

Read: File Explorer crashes or freezes when creating New folder.

3] Turn off Thumbnails Preview in File Explorer

Among the affected users, some have explained that the issue was fixed when they disabled the Thumbnail Preview in File Explorer. You should also try this.

4] Clear the File Explorer’s history

You can also try to clear the History of File Explorer. This action clears the search history and the list of all files and folders that you have opened in File Explorer. In addition to this, deleting the File Explorer history also clears the cache. Hence, it also fixes the problems that arise due to the corrupted cache.

5] Disable Windows Search Service

If the above methods did not fix your issue, disabling the Windows Search service may help. To do this, follow the steps below:

Press Win + R hotkeys and type services.msc. Click OK.
In the Services app, scroll down the list and find Windows Search.
Once you find it, double-click on it to open its Properties.
Under the General tab, select Disabled in the Startup type drop-down menu and click on the Stop button.
Click Apply and then OK to save the settings.

After disabling the Windows Search Services, check if the issue still persists.

Read: How to enable or disable SMB1.

6] Clear Thumbnail Cache

To clear Thumbnail Cache, execute the following in Command Prompt (Admin):

ie4uinit.exe -ClearIconCache
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
del /f /s /q %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\thumbcache_*.db
start explorer.exe

7] Check for Shell Extensions Conflicts

You should use ShellExView to disable non-Microsoft shell extensions, as some of them may be causing this issue.

8] Disable Auto Network Discovery in Explorer

To disable Auto Network Discovery in Explorer, save the following file as a .reg file and click on it to add these entries:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoRemoteRecursiveEvents"=dword:00000001
"NoRemoteChangeNotify"=dword:00000001

9] Disable Windows Search on Network Locations

To turn off Windows Search on Network Locations, open the Group Policy Editor and navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer and yjen on the right side, set Turn off Windows Search on mapped network drives to Enabled.

10] Create a new Value in Windows Registry

Another method to fix this issue is to create a new Value in Windows Registry. We have listed the instructions for this below. But before you proceed, it is better if you create a backup of the Registry so that you can restore it if any problem occurs.

1] Press Win + R hotkeys to launch the Run command box. Type regedit and click OK. Click Yes if you receive a UAC prompt message.

2] In the Registry Editor, copy the following path, paste it into its address bar, and hit Enter:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\NetworkProvider

3] Make sure that you have selected the NetworkProvider key on the left side. Now, right-click on the right side and go to “New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.” Name this newly created Value RestoreConnection. Now, double-click on it and set its Value Data to 0.

This has helped many.

TIP:

This has also been known to help some. Add the registry key ProviderFlags as a REG_DWORD with a value of 1 (0x00000001) to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network\*SMBv1 Drive Letter</code<> Then reboot the computer and see.
Yet another suggestion that has helped some is to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters and create a DWORD DisabledComponents with value 00000020.

11] Disable Fast Startup

Fast Startup is a feature in Windows 11/10 computers that decreases the bootup time to start Windows faster than the normal mode. Sometimes, it creates issues with Windows OS. You can disable the Fast Startup feature.

12] Re-map the Network Drive

Sometimes re-mapping the Network drive can resolve the issue. So right-click on the mapped drive in File Explorer and select “Disconnect”. Next, re-map the network drive by following the steps in File sharing over a network in Windows.

13] Check in Safe Mode with Networking

You may boot into Safe Mode with Networking and see if the Mapped drive works properly.

14] View Event Viewer Logs

Open Windows Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application/System and look for Explorer.exe or NetworkProvider crash errors. See if these help you troubleshoot the issue.

All the best.

How do I fix File Explorer crashes or freezes in Windows?

If File Explorer keeps crashing or freezing on your Windows computer, you can try some general solutions given in the linked post. You can disable the Preview Pane, disable the Thumbnails Preview, run SFC scan, update your display drivers, etc.

How to fix Can’t reconnect to all network drives

When Windows is unable to reconnect all network drives, it displays the following error message:

Could not reconnect all network drives. Click here to check the status of your network drives.

Such an error occurs when the Netlogon service is disabled. Hence, to fix this error, you have to enable this service on Windows OS. The steps for the same are listed below:

Press Win + R hotkeys to launch the Run command box. Type services.msc and click OK.
Scroll down the list of services and find Netlogon.
Once you find it, double-click on it to open its properties.
In the properties window, select Automatic in the Startup type drop-down menu.
Now, click on the Start button.
After Service starts, click Apply and then OK.

Hope this article helped you fix the error.