Infopackets Reader Dave T. writes:

" Dear Dennis,

Brave Browser (version Brave 1.93.129 / Chromium: 151.0.7922.71) suddenly stopped launching on my Windows 11 computer. When I click the Brave icon, the Brave window no longer appears. I need Brave because it has all my bookmarks, extensions, etc on it. I loaded Task Manager and launched Brave and I can see it loading for a few seconds, but then the task disappears. The strange thing is that I have Windows Updates disabled, my computer runs 24/7, and Brave was working fine last night. I need help! "

My response:

I asked Dave if he would like me to connect to his system using my remote desktop support, and he agreed. Below I will discuss my findings.

Brave Won't Launch: What I Tried Initially

First, I'll tell you what I tried and what didn't work:

1. Reinstalling Brave using the standard install (stub file) and full version (BraveBrowserStandaloneSetup.exe) did not work.
    
2. Restoring the C drive from a complete disk image backup did not help.
    
3. Launching Brave with a completely new browser data directory with extensions and hardware acceleration disabled did not help:
   
"%ProgramFiles%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --user-data-dir="%TEMP%\BraveCleanTest" --disable-extensions --disable-gpu
 
4. Launching Brave with the Chromium sandbox disabled did not help. I used the same command as above but with the --no-sandbox option.
    
5. Renaming Brave's Local State file did not help. Local State controls global startup parameters and houses the local cryptographic binding state. Renaming it to something like Local State.bad acts as a non-destructive reset for global configurations:
   
taskkill /F /IM brave.exe 2>nul
ren "%LOCALAPPDATA%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Local State" "Local State.bad"
"%ProgramFiles%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe"
 
6. Running DISM and SFC did not resolve the Brave startup failure. DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) repairs the underlying Windows recovery image by downloading healthy system files from Microsoft servers. SFC (System File Checker) fixes your actual, active Windows files by copying them from that recovery image. You should run DISM first to ensure your recovery source is clean, then run SFC to repair your operating system.
   
   DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

I didn't seem to be getting anywhere, so I decided to try something else.

Creating a New, Temporary Windows Account

The most important early clue was that Brave worked normally under a newly created Windows user account named "Test":

net user Test /add
net user Test .
net localgroup administrators Test /add
shutdown /l

The commands above do this:

1. create test user in Windows
2. assign test user with password '.'
3. add test user to administrator role
4. sign off current user to sign in as test using password '.' (i.e., a single period)

Quite often I do this kind of thing when nothing seems to work, because sometimes the unexplainable is due to a corrupted Windows user account, which happens more often than most people think. Even so, it would be a tremendous amount of work to move data over from a corrupted user Windows account to another (assuming this was the only option), but it definitely beats reinstalling Windows from scratch.

I decided I needed to do more testing!

Reviewing Brave Crash Logs

I should also mention I tried looking under Application logs in Event Viewer to see if I could find anything about Brave crashing, but it didn't give me much info - maybe I wasn't looking in the right spot. This time I asked ChatGPT if there was another way, and it gave me a Windows PowerShell script to launch Brave and immediately retrieve any new Windows Application event-log entries involving brave.exe. I opened PowerShell as Administrator under the affected account and pasted the following script:

$start = Get-Date

Stop-Process -Name brave -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

& "$env:ProgramFiles\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe"

Start-Sleep -Seconds 5

$events = Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{
    LogName = 'Application'
    StartTime = $start
} |
Where-Object {
    $_.Message -match 'brave\.exe'
} |
Select-Object TimeCreated, ProviderName, Id, Message

$events | Format-List

This script recorded the time, terminated any leftover Brave processes, launched Brave, waited five seconds, and then displayed Windows Application events created after the launch attempt. The resulting logs finally identified the actual DLL that was crashing Brave.

Brave Browser Windows Crash Log

The Windows Application event log recorded the following primary crash:

Time Created: 8/1/2026 12:43:49 PM
Provider Name: Application Error
Event ID: 1000
Faulting application name: brave.exe
Faulting application version: 151.1.93.129
Faulting application time stamp: 0x6a6ab95a
Faulting module name: ShellEh6055x64.dll
Faulting module version: 6.5.5.0
Faulting module time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000000cfe2
Faulting process ID: 0x3D9C
Faulting application start time: 0x1DD21D4ECA27ADC
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe
Faulting module path: D:\Utils\4t Tray Minimizer\ShellEh6055x64.dll
Report ID: 342e1b16-fc29-4e62-bd67-78844093dbbd

Windows Error Reporting also recorded the following APPCRASH signature:

Event Name: APPCRASH
Application: brave.exe
Application version: 151.1.93.129
Faulting module: ShellEh6055x64.dll
Faulting module version: 6.5.5.0
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000000cfe2
Fault bucket: ccb11a9876baecebce2dc3133d58f3ee

The same crash occurred more than once with the same module, exception code, and fault offset.

The Culprit: 4t Tray Minimizer

ShellEh6055x64.dll is not part of Brave and is not a standard Windows system file. It belongs to a third-party program called 4t Tray Minimizer.

Basically, ShellEh6055x64.dll is the 64-bit window-hook component used by 4t Tray Minimizer; it works by loading the DLL (dynamic link library) into other 64-bit applications so it can monitor and modify their windows behavior. This allows 4t Tray Minimizer to provide features such as minimizing an application to the notification area (which is what Dave used it for), changing what happens when the Minimize button is clicked, adding title-bar controls, keeping windows on top, hiding windows, changing transparency, and rolling windows up.

In this case, ShellEh6055x64.dll was being loaded into brave.exe and caused an access violation with exception code 0xc0000005.

That failure occurred before Brave could display a browser window, which then caused Brave to crash instantly without giving an error message.

Adding Brave to 4t Tray Minimizer Exclusion List Did Not Work

4t Tray Minimizer includes an application exclusion list, which in theory is supposed to stop it from attaching itself to a specific application. Unfortunately, ading Brave to its exclusion list didn't work. What did work as closing 4t Tray Minimizer completely, then launching Brave. So this told me that 4t Tray Minimizer had to go. See ya!

A Modern Alternative: RBTray

Dave's primary use of 4t Tray Minimizer was to force-minimize applications to the system tray. I asked ChatGPT for an alternative and it told me "RBTray" would do the same thing. I tried it and it works great. All that is needed is to left click on the minimize window button on a window to force the application to the traybar. Basically, RBTray works the same as 4t Tray Minimizer (which hasn't been updated since August 2017).

The maintained version of RBTray is available from the official RBTray GitHub repository.

I hope that helps and saves anyone else from pulling out their hair because this took me hours to figure out.

About the author: Dennis Faas is the CEO and owner of Infopackets.com. Since 2001, Dennis has dedicated his entire professional career helping others with technology-related issues with his unique style of writing in the form of questions-and-answers; click here to read all 2,000+ of Dennis' articles online this site. In 2014, Dennis shifted his focus to cyber crime mitigation, including technical support fraud and in 2019, online blackmail. Dennis has received many accolades during his tenure: click here to view Dennis' credentials online DennisFaas.com; click here to see Dennis' Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science (1999); click here to read an article written about Dennis by Alan Gardyne of Associate Programs (2003). And finally, click here to view a recommendation for Dennis' services from the University of Florida (dated 2006).