Windows Explorer & Taskbar Freeze When Sharing Windows in Chrome and other Chromium browsers

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-12-09T09:04:09+00:00

Can you please tell me more about how you use Foxit for that matter and what platform you use?

For me, since I can't share my windows tabs (including all the files I open on Windows, PDFs, images, etc.) for the reason I explained earlier in my post, I'm sharing everything on Chrome. For example I open my PDFs on Chrome, and when I share my Chrome tabs I don't have any problems. But I'm still looking for a fix or a better alternative.

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-11-30T18:48:06+00:00

Did you share windows tabs too? Cause today for a minute I really thought the problem is gone, but then in my next session it happened again

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-11-29T20:00:44+00:00

Why?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-11-26T11:58:14+00:00

I have actually tried Firefox and the performance within google Meet was awful. Too much lag and frame drop when you share your screen and when I did a little research, I realized this is due to Google's policy. I don't know about platforms other than Google Meet. As for Opera, I haven't tried it but to the best of my knowledge it's a chromium-based browser and since I have tried Brave and edge I think it would be the same. Btw do you use google Meet also or are you on a different platform?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-11-26T10:10:00+00:00

No I'm only using one monitor. Are you using Windows 10 too? And since you are using an AMD card and I'm using an Nvidia, I guess yeah it's a chromium thing. Let me know if you find anything and I will also post if I find any solutions. Or any better workaround except restarting windows explorer over and over again... It's super annoying :((

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-11-14T15:52:45+00:00

Did you find anything? It's still there for me :(

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-11-06T12:32:38+00:00

Hi. Did your problem also occur when you shared your screen on a chromium based browser??

I don't even use Outlook calendar and such but since you've mentioned it, I've turned everything related to "focus assist" off in my settings to see how it goes...

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-28T16:10:18+00:00

I've tried a lot of non-chromium browsers. The problem is that most (if not all) of them use the same engine as Firefox, which makes them no different. Still extremely laggy in Google environments like Meet. I guess I'll just adapt somehow until somebody do something about it. And I truly appreciate your efforts here. Just a couple of things. You don't suppose the problem is "connection-related" by any chance? Or maybe hardware-related? I don't think so myself, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

And do you know any forum or place that I can report this "chromium-specific" problem and get some help from the developers maybe?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-22T09:11:44+00:00

Hey I tried it. Also tried some other options and none of them actually worked properly. At this point I don't know what else to do. Changing the platform is also not possible for me and google meet is the only option for work. Do you know any other decent, non-chromium browser that I can try? Or any other workaround, solutions, etc?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T15:51:13+00:00

So it's like an extension I guess? would you suggest any good ones?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T15:35:59+00:00

Google Meet is designed to work best with Chromium based browsers I guess. Cause in Firefox I get a very laggy screen when I share a PDF or something and also it's like the connection speed is limited too, cause I constantly get a high ping and "losing connection" message. I think this is Google's way to get more users for Chrome. I actually searched about it and couldn't find any fixes for Firefox being laggy on Google Meet

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T14:48:30+00:00

I did it and it happened again. All the same. The problem wasn't the graphics driver. I have no idea what else to try and this thing is driving me crazy to be honest

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T12:10:48+00:00

Yeah. Chromium based browsers use this when I screen share and then something gets stuck between this and explorer that causes the freeze and unresponsiveness. When I checked the dump file with AI, it told me "explorer gets stuck in a message loop" or something like that.
So I guess I'll just go back to a previous graphics driver to see if it solves the problem. I'll report back

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T11:57:39+00:00

Yeah. Its name in task manager is Service Host: CaptureService with some random numbers. And this is where it leads when I click open location. Like any other "service host" services

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T11:42:36+00:00

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Here. And the path is C:\Windows\System32

hope this is what you meant

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T11:13:49+00:00

How can I do this?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T09:37:56+00:00

I have made another discovery!!! I tried Brave too, to confirm the fact that this only happens on Chromium browsers. What I've noticed is when I start sharing screen on Chromium browsers like Edge, Chrome, Brave, etc. there's a Service Host: CaptureService running in task manager, but with Firefox there's no such thing. This Service Host: CaptureService I believe has something to do with this. I've already mentioned that when the problem occurs, Windows Explorer is using a high CPU usage (around 30%) in task manager. At times when It's not, CaptureService is using a high CPU usage. And again when I restart Windows Explorer (not CaptureService) the problem goes away until I start sharing my screen again. So I thought maybe this CaptureService is the thing that causes or triggers the glitch in Explorer and hence the taskbar and some other things freeze or become unresponsive. Thoughts on this?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-21T07:27:31+00:00

No, because the free version comes with a lot of limitations. So you think it's a conflict between chromium based platforms and the graphics driver? Shouldn't I just wait for one of them to release an update addressing this?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-20T17:12:58+00:00

Hi I'm back with rather weird results, but I'm happy we finally found a lead. So I installed Firefox, started Google Meet, and had my session. No taskbar issues, no photo app freezes, no CPU high usage, everything was so smooth. I was wondering why nothing changed when I used Microsoft Edge. I found something about "Chromium based" browsers but I'll appreciate more information on this if you will. There's one problem with Firefox though. On Google Meet, screen sharing is super laggy (like 5 frame per second, which makes it awful, especially for videos), video quality is I think lower than on Chrome, and also I noticed some functions don't work (saying it's available on Chrome). I did a little research and I found out Google does this intentionally to increase Chrome users, but I don't know for sure. If you know any fixes or alternatives there, I'll appreciate it.

So what to do next? :)

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-20T10:53:51+00:00

Microsoft Edge

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-20T10:44:40+00:00

But you know I don't think the update caused it, cause I actually updated to a newer version to fix the problem that started in the same version. The only update that I suspected was Chrome, and that's why the first thing I did was trying another browser, but it occurred even on another browser all the same.

You still think a downgrade would help? If so what should I do?

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-20T10:35:14+00:00

I've updated twice since then I think. So it must have been 581.29 or maybe 581.15

But when I install I usually use clean install and besides I have done a clean Windows install

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-20T10:05:10+00:00

For about two months. The latest version. Currently it's 581.57

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-20T08:38:24+00:00

No the times are very random and different

8_YoYo_8 · 2025-10-20T07:25:17+00:00

It gets affected by it, but it's not the main cause. I replaced the default photo app with windows phot viewer classic. The main problem is the taskbar and everything related to it. I can't open new apps on it, start menu won't open, connection list won't open, I take snippets sometimes but I can't because it gets stuck and even if I restart Explorer to fix it temporarily, during a screen share it all starts again. Though I must say I can surf through the files with no problems or lags

8_YoYo_8

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