Feedback, Complaints or Problems

Yes and no. I would recommend you reinstall .NET Core 3.0 and if that doesn't help you install .NET Core 2.2 also: Link

You can have both installed at the same time without a problem.

I have uninstalled .NET Core, rebooted, then installed the 2.2.7 and 3.0 updates (x86 and x64 for both), and rebooted again. I then did another sfc /scannow (plus an additional first step recommended on the Microsoft site for Win10 machines [DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth]), and rebooted again.

Still nothing unfortunately. The TrainerTemplate trainers are behaving the same (temporarily in the CheatHappens\Work folder, then disappear after a couple seconds).

The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps Defender is either ignoring the Exemptions I put in place, or there's some other bug or issue. I wonder if I temporarily install another free AV option and configure it, if anything would change?

Windows Defender will show in its log if it did something but you said its empty. The event log shows a crash which is untypical for an AV. They usually silently kill a process. The only reasons I can think of is a third party application trying to do stuff with the trainer, like overlay tools try to inject their code to draw stuff onto the graphical user interface, or whatever other tools might be doing.

The faulty module ntdll is a system module that gets loaded by literally every application you start. It doesn't mean the module itself is faulty rather than whatever makes the trainer crashing is happening in the very early beginning of the trainer start, before any of our code is executed. This can be missing files, incorrect files, corrupted files.

The error code 0xC0000005 means "Access Violation" which can be caused by one of the things above but also missing rights on files, etc. Missing rights can again be caused by AVs or security tools trying to deny an access. It's a very generic error.

You need to isolate the cause by following the generic help instructions:
1. Close all other apps. Not only those with windows on the screen but also anything that runs in background and is not part of Windows.
2. Disable AV, run trainer and check its log to see if it not silently blocks the trainer
3. Run sfc
4. Run chkdsk
5. Run dism with checkhealth and restorehealth
6. Reinstall all dependencies
7. (Re)install VC++ 2015 Link
8. If nothing helps try boot in safe mode and run trainer
9. Try downloading trainer again, unpack it to a different folder / drive and run it again.
10. See if you can find another computer and run the trainer there

1. Closed all processes except Windows ones. Again, I don't use or have installed any overlay tools. I killed everything including Nvidia processes, and anything I didn't recognize.
2. Did this also. The most recent item in the AV log is from 9/30, and relating to Adobe
3. This has been done 3 times now. Hopefully it's fixed all it needs to
4. Just did this. No errors detected.
5. I ran Restorehealth earlier today, and that made sfc work better. Just ran checkhealth and it reported no issues
6. Are the dependencies .NET Core? If so, that has been done earlier.
7. Just did this via the link. I had versions going all the way back to 2008 (likely due to Steam) so I nuked those out and I figure they'll add back automatically or I can grab them later if I need them.

So far none of the above 7 things has worked, unfortunately. However:

8. Safe Mode did. I copied one of the trainers to the desktop, restarted in Safe With Networking, and it started immediately. So that's very curious.

9. Essentially did that with step 8
10. I suspect this will also work, but I'll have access to another Windows computer on Monday.

Something I did notice in the sfc logs is that, while presumably they've all been fixed, there were numerous errors related to Defender. So if that's still screwed up, maybe it is Defender that's at fault. I'm going to grab a free AV to test with and see if that changes anything. I've used Avast and Comodo in the past, but it's been 10 years or more

When the trainer starts in safe mode that's a good sign because we can nuke the dependencies as a possible reason. Same for corrupted files or missing rights. So it isolates it to third party apps (or windows apps which are not active during safe boot), or third party drivers.

I would focus on any app that interacts with other apps in any possible ways first. Make a system backup and then remove them one by one. Or try another AV first like you said which should disable Windows Defender.

No good news to report unfortunately. I installed AVG as a test, and set up Exclusions for the appropriate folders and locations. I also then killed every active process I could. Attached are all that were left; these could not be killed or would regenerate soon after ending. There's nothing in the list that pops out at me, or looks like something suspicious or conflicting. I've not added any software to the computer, except AVG for testing, and the .NET stuff.

imgur.com/a/bYXtOTw

[Edited by laurenke, 10/13/2019 8:46:27 PM]

Another suggestion would be to uninstall the Nvidia drivers clean and complete with DDU (latest version Link). I don't see that many Nvidia container tasks on any of my PCs but only 2 taks having GPU driver and PhysX installed and addiotionally HD Audio drivers on 1 PC (no Shadow or Experience though). - Launch Windows in Safe Mode and from there launch DDU. Once rebooted, install the Nvidia drivers manually again.

The other thing would be to disable the Macrium Reflect tasks from Autorun. You can still use Macrium without having the UI Watcher or the Utility Service lurking in the background.

Interesting idea about the video drivers. I use Nvidia Experience to update those regularly and just let it do its thing. Perhaps somewhere something got updated oddly, or didn't get uninstalled correctly.

I also had that thought about Macrium. While I've had that installed on my PC for years to no ill effect, there was an update for it recently that may have introduced some kind of bug. I'll investigate this too.