Action center failing to launch - "ShellExperienceHost.exe" crashing

Version: 10 Pro, 20H2 (19042.1266)

Hey everyone. I've been having an issue where my action center/notification panel will always crash upon attempting to open it. As such, I have not been able to receive/view notifications for months now. I've tried everything I can think of besides a complete reinstall since I do not want to have to resort to that.

A look at Event Viewer shows that ShellExperienceHost.exe is crashing every time I try to click on the action center. I've tried looking up the given exception code to no avail. Much of the advice I have found already consists of the things below that I have tried.

Code:

Faulting application name: ShellExperienceHost.exe, version: 10.0.19041.1151, time stamp: 0x6985bf98
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.19041.1202, time stamp: 0xc9db1934
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x000000000010be3e
Faulting process id: 0x25b4
Faulting application start time: 0x01d7bf9981a68cff
Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\SystemApps\ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\ShellExperienceHost.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: df025549-e3d0-48d9-8035-9dcbf410b8db
Faulting package full name: Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_10.0.19041.1023_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy
Faulting package-relative application ID: App

Things I have tried thus far include:

• Running SFC /scannow
• Running several DISM commands
• System restarts
• Updating to the latest version of Windows

Sadly, none of these have fixed the issue. As I stated previously, I want to avoid a reinstall if possible, so any other advice is appreciated!

Have you tried---control panel>troubleshooting>system security---and go through the various options there?
If --sfc /scannow---and ---dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth---aren't successful,then it is close to a Repair install or Clean install.
Does Reliability History give any report of the problem?

joeandmarg0 said:

Have you tried---control panel>troubleshooting>system security---and go through the various options there?
If --sfc /scannow---and ---dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth---aren't successful,then it is close to a Repair install or Clean install.
Does Reliability History give any report of the problem?

Reliability history shows the same thing that Event Viewer was showing me, nothing new. Also, what options specifically did you have in mind for this section? There doesn't appear to be anything here that would really help me.

Option>run maintenance tasks>advanced.
In Reliability History,do you get indicators,red and/or yellow?
Do you get any information in ---view tech details---
When you ran ---sfc--- and ---dism---was there anything in the relevant log files---C/Windows/logs/ CBS{for sfc] and DISM?
It would be advisable to know the date/time of running those,the log files can be eye glazingly lengthy.

joeandmarg0 said:

Option>run maintenance tasks>advanced.
In Reliability History,do you get indicators,red and/or yellow?
Do you get any information in ---view tech details---
When you ran ---sfc--- and ---dism---was there anything in the relevant log files---C/Windows/logs/ CBS{for sfc] and DISM?
It would be advisable to know the date/time of running those,the log files can be eye glazingly lengthy.

I get a red indicator. ShellExperienceHost crashing shows up as a red X/critical event. The information provided in "View technical details" is identical to what I show in my original post, nothing new at all.

As for the log files, the CBS log doesn't really show anything. I tried searching specifically for "ShellExperienceHost" but nothing came up.
The DISM log file also doesn't show anything. Both log files are from today.

It sounds very much like a corrupted registry,which is normally why sfc and dism do not find anything.
All I can suggest is a system restore point might work or failing that,a clean install.
Third party "registry fixing tools" often cause more problems than they purportedly fix.That method is entirely at your risk.
Imaging and a clone,using Macrium have saved me on more than one occasion.
Forgot to mention,there is one method I used,pre Macrium,but have not utilised for many years.
In command ,as administrator,type---regsvr32KernelBase.dll---then Enter.
Absolutely no guarantee and definitely no responsibility.

Finally managed to fix it. So in an attempt to fix it, I was trying to do an in-place upgrade which can supposedly clean up the OS and fix some corruptions and errors. However, the in-place upgrade would fail every single time I tried to perform it (had this issue when trying to install a Win11 insider preview as well but I never figured out what was causing it)

After some digging, I came across the "SetupDiag" tool, and ran it. In my case, the file that was causing the upgrade to fail was a file called "wpndatabase.db-wal" located in C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Notifications


I deleted everything in this folder, and just out of curiosity attempted to open my action center/notifications, and voila! The action center was finally working again, thus eliminating my need for any sort of in-place upgrade. If anyone else ever happens to have the same issue, try removing these files and seeing if it fixes it for you.