File explorer random close and can't disconnect ext drives

Hello everyone.
I have a laptop that runs on win 10 x64 ver 1809 build 17763

I have some problems that I think are file explorer-related.
1) The file explorer often randomly closes without any crash. I can still use my laptop afterwards. I have to restart the file explorer each time it happens.
It can happen during file copying or when I just explore files. But in one or two occasions, it indeed froze, and I needed to hard reset.

2) When I connect an external drive, as long as I just browse for files, a few hours later, when I click the "safely remove" icon, it disconnects properly.
However, after playing some movies or songs for a few hours, it can't disconnect. The message "Windows can't stop your device because a program... etc" appears. Even after I close all open file explorer windows.
I tried using offline disk feature from diskpart. Then, even after it is offlined, the option to safely remove is still there, but when I click it, the same message appears. I tried offlining and onlining back (do those words exist?) the drive to no avail. Even if diskpart says the drive is 'offline' the fact that the safely remove icon still has the option to remove the drive makes me think that I may damage the hard drive if I pull it out. So far, my solution was to sign out and back in, then, I can safely remove it properly.
It seems like something is latching onto the ext drive. This never happens with flash drives.

Any assistance is appreciated. Thank you.

thanks for your reply and for the link.
I will try that and share the outcome soon.

Any ideas for the random close problem ?

Callender said:

Set AV not to scan external drives.

Also you might have some corrupt media files (video thumbnails or image files) so check that out:

Media Preview 1.4.3 Free Download - VideoHelp

Set the program to show thumbnails for all supported video formats.

Then set Explorer to show medium icons and delete all videos that do not show a preview thumbnail - or move them to another drive that you can disconnect.

my AV no longer scans ext drives, and the problems still remain. Only when I deal with movies/songs. With Media preview, my videos seem ok.

Callender said:

Check all video files on any connected drives plus any on your HD. See if the problem remains. If it's still there check shell extensions. It can be tricky to track down the cause.

I thought so too .... I am currently trying to sort it out using ShellExView.
Might take some time to find the culprit, if it is the one causing it, instead of maybe certain registry settings.
Is there any registry setting I could look into? Just to see if my system is ok