Over the past two weeks I have randomly received a popup containing the text: System Error : Unknown Hard Error. After clicking OK, explorer crashes and restarts, but everything continues to run fine on the machine (no blue screens, no system restarts or anything). I hadn't noticed it before a week ago but now that I've received it twice I'm concerned about what could be causing it. I have not updated Windows recently.
Some answers suggested this could have been caused by failing hard drives. I have several hard drives in the computer but they are all functioning properly (according to wmic diskdrive get status and Rick click on Disk -> Properties -> Tools -> Error Checking -> Check), so I think all my drives are OK.
I went into Windows event viewer and there is this information in the xml view for the system event in the Windows log section corresponding to me receiving the popup:
- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Application Popup" Guid="{47BFA2B7-BD54-4FAC-B70B-29021084CA8F}" />
<EventID>26</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>4</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-01-21T23:11:44.493358200Z" />
<EventRecordID>83652</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="136" ThreadID="1460" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>MY-PC-NAME</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data Name="Caption">Commandline.exe - System Error</Data>
<Data Name="Message">Unknown Hard Error</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
The process ID 136 corresponds to "Client Server Runtime Process" located at C:\Windows\System32\csrss.exe. I only have one program titled Commandline.exe on my computer, which is the Cinema 4D command line render executable, which was running both times I received the error. However, the C4D render did not fail and continued as though nothing happened after clicking the OK on the message box, so I'm not sure if it is truly related to that or not.
Although I only recall seeing this popup twice to date, I exported the Windows system log and searched for "Unknown Hard Error", and apparently I've encountered it a lot of times in the past as well:
Information 1/21/2023 5:11:44 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: Commandline.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 1/17/2023 7:46:11 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: Commandline.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 10/29/2022 4:23:47 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: CINEMA 4D.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 10/28/2022 8:05:41 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: CINEMA 4D.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 5/29/2022 12:56:43 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: CINEMA 4D.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 2/3/2022 9:01:24 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: CINEMA 4D.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 9/2/2021 7:30:48 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 9/2/2021 5:01:43 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: ShellExperienceHost.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 9/1/2021 7:03:41 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 8/30/2021 7:34:13 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 8/29/2021 3:46:37 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 8/29/2021 3:20:09 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: ShellExperienceHost.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 8/28/2021 12:46:12 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 8/9/2021 8:50:37 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 8/9/2021 10:25:11 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 8/6/2021 2:47:12 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 7/23/2021 8:00:45 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: SearchUI.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 4/30/2021 7:40:03 PM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: CINEMA 4D.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 4/30/2021 12:52:12 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: CINEMA 4D.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
Information 4/30/2021 12:17:57 AM Application Popup 26 None Application popup: CINEMA 4D.exe - System Error : Unknown Hard Error
As mentioned, Cinema 4D and Commandline.exe are related, but apparently this has appeared from several other programs as well (ShellExperienceHost.exe and SearchUI.exe).
I really don't have any clue what could be causing this. Any thoughts?
