Why does dllhost.exe Com surrogate consumes memory untill crash

In my case, I needed to turn of multi-sampling anti-aliasing in the Intel graphics control panel under 3D. after that, com surrogate worked fine for me!

This is really bad advice. It is basically a generic response for any Windows problem. Running 15 malware checkers, especially one with "super" in the name is unlikely to fix anything. And the "if all else fails do a clean install of Windows" is Windows 95 advice. Do not pay any attention to this "solution."

There are vulnerabilities to outside attacks and internal malfunctions that are described here;

https://media.blackhat.com/bh-dc-11/Larimer/BlackHat\_DC\_2011\_Larimer\_Vulnerabiliters%20w-removeable%20storage-Slides.pdf

The presentation also helps put the issues into a context for me.

dllhost.exe COM Surrogate is the thumbnail handler that can't seem to do its job right but keeps trying.  Boy, is it trying.

It could be that the handles on 3D videos are misinterpreted or absent, so they are generated again and again but just fail to stick.  There is a chance that some Java window (in a browser or within Explorer or other application) has terminated,closed a window,  and shut down the thumbnail process, only to restart and fail again.  It seems likely that whatever process is failing it re-initiates because the file that it is looking for is not there, or a link in the process is not functional.

There are possible contribution factors for me.  The 3D video file types, icons, or thumbs, may not in an acceptable format due to the presence of tags that indicate that they are 3D.  Sony may not have worked that part out.   Editing the file type descriptor could determine if that is the issue if one knew how to do that.

Another possible factor for me is that my folders with jpg and tiff images are very large (50-meg to 2gig @) , and the thumbs take a while to generate.   Thumbs take a while appear, and often new thumbs are being generated each time a folder is opened.  I also have issues with my ASUS mother board forgetting that it is supposed to continue to operate the USB3 ports.

Task manager has now stopped showing the task what it is running and the memory use,   Only the processor load is now displayed.  The accessory "System Resources" temporarily showed what else is running but it has stopped showing it now too.

This has driven me to allow Windows updates again.   But it does not seem to have any positive influence on my system or this issue.  Maybe there is a virus.  Or perhaps it is simply not practical to produce large panoramas or 3D videos on Windows based systems.  Some of us have spent days chasing this and have become reluctant to try things that take time and often make things worse.   

If I have to do a clean install I might want to do a dual boot and try Linux. The red herring for today is this one;

http://malwaretips.com/blogs/dllhost-exe-32-com-surrogate-removal/

Sisyphus

If you can boot in normal mode, try setting up the clean boot.  It might help!

" I can't even boot into safe mode"

• If you can start your computer, you should be able to press F8 and boot into safemode... do you mean it still gobbles up RAM in safemode?

-Here are things that have worked for me so far:

1. Remove all temp files, and any malware using favorite tools (malwarebytes, eset online scanner, etc.) while in safemode
2. Setup Windows Clean Boot: msconfig.exe, selective startup (uncheck load startup items); services tab: hide, Microsoft services, then disable all
3. Change file folder options (organize > folder & search options > view) and check ONLY "Always show icons, never thumbnails" uncheck the rest.

Reboot - should work now.  Booting in clean boot is really only helping diagnose, but it gives you most functionality, you can add things one at a time to isolate the source.

When the system is booting up and I hit F8, as usual it will take me to the screen where I can choose which version of safe mode I want.  The problem is that no matter which option I choose, after I select a safe mode option it automatically goes to shutting down the computer and restarting.  In essence, I never get to actually start the computer in safe mode at all.  The only options that seem to work are a normal boot up, or System Repair - and trying to use System Restore even under the Repair mode doesn't work either.

I don't know that the issue with safe mode has anything to do with this particular problem with dllhost, but as I haven't had to start my computer in safe mode since installing Malwarebytes (almost 2 years ago), I didn't realize it was a problem until I just tried using safe mode.