Systray hook injects into Explorer but the DLL never connects back — hangs forever with no timeout/error ("Waiting for DLL to connect" never resolves)

[lucasrubo]

Windows version

Windows 11

Windows OS build

version 25H2, build 26200.8875

YASB version installed

2.0.5

Describe the bug

Environment

• YASB version: 2.0.5
• Windows: 11, version 25H2, build 26200.8875
• Antivirus: Windows Defender only (no third-party AV)
• Smart App Control: Off / not supported on this device
• systray widget with default use_hook: true (also tested use_hook: false, same end result — no icons besides a fixed few)
• Companion tools in use: thide and EusingSoftware.TaskbarHide, used to hide the native taskbar so only the YASB bar shows

Summary

With debug: true, yasb.log shows the systray hook sequence starts normally but never completes:

No further log line ever appears after "Waiting for DLL to connect" — no success confirmation, no error, no timeout — even after several minutes. Meanwhile, directly enumerating explorer.exe's loaded modules (Get-Process explorer | select -expand Modules) confirms YASBTrayHook.dll is never actually loaded into the process, despite the log claiming injection was attempted.

Net effect: the systray widget only ever shows a fixed handful of icons (its own, Task Manager, and the taskbar-hiding tools' own icons) and never picks up ordinary tray apps (AV, GPU/audio utilities, Discord, Steam, etc.), because the hook that's supposed to report them never actually attaches.

Steps to reproduce

1. Set debug: true in config.yaml.
2. Fully quit and relaunch YASB (hot-reload via watch_config does not re-init the log level / hook — a full restart is required to see debug output for this).
3. Watch yasb.log: hook injection is attempted once per YASB startup, but "Waiting for DLL to connect" is the last line ever logged for that thread.
4. Confirm independently: explorer.exe's module list never contains YASBTrayHook.dll.

What I ruled out

• Windows Defender: no threat detections, no ASR/Controlled Folder Access blocks, no Code Integrity blocks in the event log around injection time.
• Smart App Control: off / unsupported on this machine.
• No third-party AV/EDR installed.
• Not a timing/boot-race issue: reproduced identically on a completely fresh explorer.exe (freshly restarted, not the original boot instance) and after multiple clean YASB restarts.
• Not specific to use_hook: true: setting use_hook: false (legacy monitor-window fallback) also never picks up these icons.

Expected behavior

Either the hook connects successfully and all tray icons populate, or — at minimum — a failure/timeout should be logged so this is diagnosable instead of hanging silently forever.

Additional environment note

The native taskbar (Shell_TrayWnd) had been hidden via SW_HIDE by a companion taskbar-hiding tool (thide, made by the same author, intended to be YASB-compatible). Not sure if related to the hook connection failure, but flagging in case the hook's pipe/DLL handshake has any dependency on that window's visible state.

Relevant log output

[DEBUG] [systray_hook/systray_hook.py:137]: Creating pipe \.\pipe\yasb_systray_monitor...
[INFO]  [systray_hook/systray_hook.py:193]: Injecting into Explorer (PID: 4064)
[DEBUG] [systray_hook/systray_hook.py:200]: Waiting for DLL to connect

[amnweb]

How frequently are you seeing this issue? Are you able to reproduce it consistently?