[Solved] Cannot start Opera (0xc0000022 error)

ashdown017

ashdown017

Hello! I hope this the right place to go to about this issue.

About a week ago when I turned on my computer I wasn't able to open the browser, and instead received a "The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000022). Click OK to close the application" error. I restarted my computer a few times and eventually I got it to work again. However just yesterday the error started appearing again and this time no matter how much I try I cannot get it to work.

I've tried re-installing, uninstalling and then installing again, uninstalling, deleting all folders related to it, and using CCleaner to clear it entirely, and even just letting my computer stay turned off for a day. The only success I've remotely been able to have is that, if I restart my computer and immediately go to the browser, sometimes I can get in before any web pages I try to load say that "the page has crashed" and wasn't able to load.

I've looked all over for some sort of solution but after running the Process Monitor, turning DirectPlay on, and just trying my best I haven't been able to get it to work and I'm at an absolute loss. I really enjoy using Opera and would like to keep using it, so I'd really like to get this fixed. I should be able to provide any information needed. I could just use some help with this.

Thanks so much.

donq

donq @ashdown017

@ashdown017
Google tells that this error usually means problems with reading some file contents. Most likely reasons are screwed up security descriptors (although cleanup of installation and appdata folders should have taken care of that) or some software, which interferes with normal file access (either virus/trojan or overagressive security tool or similar). Well, security can be misconfigured on windows system components either.

Does eventlog show something relevant? I rare cases there can be something usable

I would start with removing temporary files and checking disk integrity.
Also I would avoid CCleaner - I have seen many systems rendered unusable by it.

ashdown017

ashdown017

@donq
Gotcha. I gave Opera all the security access through it's properties, and my virus software (Webroot) hasn't ever had issues with it before.

I can't see anything too relevant in the event viewer, and the process monitor information that comes up when I try to open the browser is mostly a mix of "Success","Name Not Found", sometimes "Reparse" and an occasional "Buffer Too Small". I'm...not really sure if any of that is helpful though.

I removed the temp files and ran "chkdsk /f /r C:" in the command prompt to clean things out. After restarting I was able to open it, but no pages would open and eventually when I closed out and tried reopening it the error came back up.

I appreciate your help. I am a bit of a novice at this stuff. I'll keep trying to figure it out.

donq

donq @ashdown017

@ashdown017

Processmonitor log is extremely hard to parse, even when it is known what to search. You should start with last entries and look for problems opening files or registry keys; ideal would be compare successful and unsuccessful startup logs - but of course you don't have both.

I'm somewhat concerned by intermittancy of problems - normally any software piece should work every time or run into problem every time. This may indicate some interefrence with external components.

I would continue with renaming opera_autoupdate.exe (or how exactly it is named) in Opera installation forlder to someting else - I think Opera runs it every time when it starts and this process is certainly external and thereby asynchronous to Opera. There are more executables in Opera folder, unfortunately I have no idea, when they are executed and so on. Sure you may rename all these (except Opera itself of course), one by one - if you notice different behavior, then we can be step closer to solution.

Then (if previous doesn't help) I would disable webroot temporarily - it is also external component, affecting every program start. Well, it doesn't stop other programs and thereby probably doesn't affect Opera either, but disabling it can exclude some noise anyway.

ashdown017

ashdown017

@donq
I don't quite understand what I did, but apparently I fixed it!

There wasn't anything of real value in the Process Monitor logs so I abandoned that. I went into the installation folders and just renamed all the .exe files to some similar name (opera_autoupdate.exe -> opera_updater.exe). I tried that and that didn't really work either.

I had read elsewhere while looking around that it seemed to happen to some people's Opera GX when they got a new update, so I just decided to uninstall and install an older version. For some reason though since this has started every time I open the installer it gives me an option to "Upgrade", which seems to never work as every time I open it after I "upgrade" it just tells me I can upgrade again.

This time it didn't though! I tried going through the usual update loop and it just...opened. I restarted to make sure it wasn't a fluke and apparently it just works now.

Thanks so much for your help. Again, I'm not 100% sure what I did but I certainly never would've thought to rename stuff so I'll assume that was what helped.