"BitLocker Application Not Found" After Running Repairs

[serrato]

Hi all,

I've used the repair tool several times to save my system but this time after running and restarting, I can no longer double-click to unlock a drive. I have to go manually into manage bitlocker and unlock it from there. Otherwise it gives the error in the title. Any ideas why?

Meanwhile my main issue is that explorer crashes randomly, black screen comes, nothing shows, everything disappears except running program windows. No taskbar. Shortcut keys for task manager only work and only work once, but task manager never actually loads, it crashes immediately before even rendering list of apps. Only windows that open are if I use an app and try to set location of something or try to open a file (except in a browser, that crashes the browser). I have posted in various forums, reddit, etc. no solutions yet and I seem to be the only one who is having these issues. I have not messed with the system as I used to way back in the day, because I wanted to avoid all of this and yet this has happened. In addition, Spotlight also has broken itself. That's how I got back to the repair tool, but that is causing the bitlocker issue.

Series of frustrating events.

Thanks

[Boggin]

Can you boot up into Safe Mode with Networking, open Windows Repair - go to Backup Tools and use the Registry Restore option.

Click on the Registry Restore tab and use the dropdown to select the back up then click on Restore Now.

Boot back into Safe Mode with Networking and download and create a Kaspersky Rescue disk.

https://support.kaspersky.co.uk/viruses/rescuedisk

You will need to change the boot order to boot up with this disk and while your system boots up, it may be prudent to run it to check that you are infection free.

The scan can take a while to complete.

It can also correct Windows anomalies.

You will need to be connected to the Internet when you run this disk as it needs to update its Definitions.

Does Explorer still crash in Safe Mode ?

Black screening is usually indicative of memory problems but given that an open program will still run would eliminate that as a cause this time, but doing a memory diagnostic check wouldn't harm anyway.

Do I assume you are running Win 10 ?

After restoring the registry I would normally advise a repair install but that could be problematic if Explorer is crashing.

Depending upon which version of Windows you are running, the next best thing if running Win 10 would be to back up your personal stuff onto external media and then boot up to the advanced boot options and use the Reset option that retains your personal stuff but will remove any 3rd party programs you have installed.

[serrato]

Hey Boggin,

Sorry I should've given a bit more info.

Windows 10. The BitLocker drive is a non-OS drive. I simply reverted to the restore point before the repair tool's changes when I saw that BitLocker broke.

I recently did an in-place upgrade hoping it would fix the crashing explorer issue. Since there's no pattern to reproducing it, I can't see if it crashes in Safe Mode. If all hope fails I'm looking to just reinstall Windows from scratch, except I've done that once. Some background:

I had a laptop with Win8 that was upgraded to 10. But once upgraded, I faced this black screen stuff occasionally. I recently built a new PC, just a few months ago and installed Windows 10 from scratch. No such crashes happened until I think after Anniversary Update. Maybe once or twice. But most definitely it was happening every few minutes after the Fall Creators Update. At that time it was whilst watching something on VLC in full screen, or when playing a game. But there were no faults reported regarding the video card drivers. So I reverted back to whichever earlier restore point I had. I uninstalled the Creators Update from settings as well. What's strange is that even though it uninstalled it and went through the whole system restore sequence, it reported that the restore failed. Yet the crashes stopped, until yesterday when it crashed again in the same manner whilst watching in full screen in VLC. After this I carried out an in-place upgrade/repair install. Kept all files. However, post-upgrade explorer crashed at least once from just clicking on the taskbar (but not the permanent crash, so it restarted on its own). Windows Spotlight is still broken. Makes me wonder whether the upgrade/repair worked at all.

If I were to really find some sort of common variable, then the only one I can think of that has some weight is that the crashes usually happen after 3-4 days without shutdown (I have a few tasks and NAS downloads that require continuous use). I can understand explorer crashing a bit but not restarting at all? Very weird. And across two completely separate machines and installations? Extremely odd.

Do you think the registry restoration will avoid breaking BitLocker? If so I'll try that.

[Boggin]

Using the registry restore may resolve the Bitlocker problem if it was okay before running WR but have you checked for any video driver updates ?

You can eliminate the video drivers though by using VLC or doing what you normally do in Safe Mode with Networking when it does happen, where the machine will then use the on board VGA.

The fact that a repair install didn't resolve suggests that it could be an update to driver compatibility problem.

Have you tried Windows Media Player or the K-Lite Codec Pack ?

https://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

Have you run a memory diagnostic check ?

This is best done on just one RAM stick at a time as Windows can only map 4GB at a time and one dodgy module can be masked by a good one.