My windows 8 is randomly logging off on its own, bug?

Anonymous
2012-10-31T12:06:22+00:00

This is really frustrating. It's happened twice now, in the past 24 hours. I'm just doing my work, and suddenly the screen goes black for 2 seconds, flashing black, then goes to the 'metro' screen saver screen, where you start when you first boot the computer on. so it appears that it is logging off. I log back on, and a FEW of my open programs (skype, dropbox, few others) are still there, but most of my programs (wordpad, browser) simply terminated and I have to start them again, restore chrome session, lose work that I didn't save in WordPad, ETC.

Windows 8 Pro here.

Please help, it would be good to get to the bottom of this. 99% sure it's no virus, I'm careful and an experienced computer user and have MSE monitoring things so it can't be a virus.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-09T00:14:32+00:00

    I have this problem also...  Windows will randomly log off and lock. I think it may be a graphics card driver error related to Adobe flash. I believe I have isolated an example on my local newspaper website, SFGATE.com (The San Francisco Chronicle) while using internet explorer. Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox does not cause this problem, it has only been expearenced on Microsoft internet explorer 11. Also youtube can cause it some times but not so often, SFGATE will crash windows 90% of the time (while using iExplorer).

    To recreate the crash use the following hardware and software setup

    OS: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (did not ever happen on 8)

    Hardware: Lenovo Thinkpad W510

    GPU: Nvidia Quadro 880M

    GPU Driver: 341.44 (I rolled this driver backwards and forwards and that did not make a difference.

    Software: Microsoft internet explorer 11; Adobe Flash; SF chronicle sfgate.com

    At the time of the crash I found this entry in the event viewer:

    4:52 PM "initLock" NVWMI

    I would investigate more, and try the myriad of recommended tweaking Vinod N @ Microsoft listed below, but I have a headache and need to redo the last 2 hours of work before I can eat tonight... I was almost done for the day too...

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-04-15T22:16:13+00:00

    I'll try it... but do you think it can be this causing the random 'logoff'? I've not noticed any memory issues, and the times that these events ocurred was when I was just typing a text on texmaker. I'll also check this GDIView when I get back from work.

    It can cause the random logoff, and is what causes it for me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-04-15T18:35:25+00:00

    If you haven't already, increase your shared heap sizes, as outlined here.  Mine looks like: 

    %SystemRoot%\system32\csrss.exe ObjectDirectory=\Windows SharedSection=1024,65536,2048 Windows=On SubSystemType=Windows ServerDll=basesrv,1 ServerDll=winsrv:UserServerDllInitialization,3 ServerDll=sxssrv,4 ProfileControl=Off MaxRequestThreads=16

    If like me, you've already done that and you still run up against the limits, the best you can do is to monitor your GDI handles with GDIView and try to stay under the limits. Browsers in particular use a lot of handles.

    Oh, and search for "GDI", "resources", and "instability" in the Windows 10 feedback and vote up the ones related to system resources, so that maybe the powers that be at Microsoft will pay some attention.

    I'll try it... but do you think it can be this causing the random 'logoff'? I've not noticed any memory issues, and the times that these events ocurred was when I was just typing a text on texmaker. I'll also check this GDIView when I get back from work.

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