File Explorer hangs on "working on it" & Open As menu crashes

OS: Windows 10 Home - Version 21H2 (OS Build 19044.1466)
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB
Storage: SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB

Hello, I built a new PC a month ago and this is my first time using Windows 10 so I don't know much about the OS and how to optimize it. I've noticed that after some time (could be a day to even 5 days uptime), my explorer will start acting weird and the issue seems to only be fixable with a system reboot.

When this occurs, the following problems & strange observations appear:

• "This PC" will get stuck on "working on it" and show nothing in the main body and the side bar will be empty (opening a 2nd explorer window and going to This PC on that window will work and show correctly, tho)
• Opening any folder and leaving the window idle for 1-2 seconds will trigger that green loading bar at the top to start growing for no reason and it'll hang at 99% full. <-- The folder is already loaded and this never happens except when explorer is exhibiting this bug.
• Hovering over the "open as" option in the right click menu causes explorer.exe to permanently hang and will require a process restart.

Things I've tried to do while the problem happens:

• Restarted explorer.exe - The bug still persists
• Changed File Explorer options - See here: https://i.imgur.com/HzBz1mb.png
• Clear File Explorer History + restarted explorer process - The bug still persists
• Cleared quick access cache - The bug still persists
• Changed the option "open file explorer" to "This PC" - The bug still persists (so quick access isn't the culprit in my case?)
• Disabled Windows Explorer from trying to read .WAV file tags with regedit (but it still does this anyway? doesn't seem to be the culprit though) - https://i.imgur.com/J4c44AY.png

Things I haven't tested yet:

• Uninstalled Onedrive (Never used this before, but I just uninstalled it after I rebooted)
• Rebuild search index
• Disable indexing

Not sure what else to add, but if you want more info feel free to ask.

Thanks!

Hello Chiffon and welcome to tenforums ,

See if this finds any issues
Run SFC Command in Windows 10

If sfc found and fixed issues, then we don't need to worry about the log contents. You could run it again to make sure that it reports no issues found.

Run "chkdsk /scan /perf c:" to make sure c: drive is fine. Also run Crystal Disk Info to check drive health.

Thanks for the update.

Check Windows Reliability too for an issues, especially when the problem occurs. Nothing in Event Viewer before and around the time this occurs?

So the problem may not happen for five days?

You mentioned search. We're you searching when the problem starts occurring?

Since it's a new build, I presume your drivers and BIOS are fairly current.

"How To Fix File Explorer ‘Working On It’ Message In Windows 10"

addictivetips.com try what they suggest here