Win11 file explorer keeps resetting to the top at random moments

Ever since i upgraded from win10 to win11, i have had this extremely annoying problem where win explorer will suddenly reset to the top of the folder. E.G. If i scroll halfway down, win explorer will suddenly reset to the top of the folder, as if i had scrolled all the way up.

It does not manually scroll up by itself...its not like my mouse is broken and causing it to scroll up. It just instantly jumps all the way to the top. Its like something has reset the folder view. I attached a screenshot to try and explain it. Importantly, this folder view reset happens even when i am not using win explorer, so it happens in the background, at random intervals. I cannot reproduce this consistently. It seems to mainly happen shortly after i resume from hibernation, and at random intervals throughout the day.

It has nothing to do with icons and thumbnails as far as i can tell. The folder view reset happens in ALL explorer windows that i have open, at the same time, even if the folder is a bunch of files set to "details" view mode.

When it triggers, no errors or anything are logged in event viewer->windows logs->system or application. There are no error popups or anything, the folder view just resets to the top silently in the background, even when i am not using explorer.

I have tried a ton of things to fix it :

• Uninstalled OneDrive and purged the registry and policies of everything OneDrive related that i could find. I saw some posts saying that OneDrive was responsible because win explorer keeps trying to connect to OneDrive, but this has not fixed it for me. I am not using any network drives, cloud drives, or anything of that nature.
• Set explorer to "launch folder windows in a seperate process"
• Set "FolderType" to "NotSpecified" in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell. This was meant to disable the feature where windows tries to automatically set the folder type
• Cleared the thumbnails cache
• Cleared the folder view cache in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags
• Disabled "allow files in this folder to have contents indexed" in properties
• Set NoSimpleNetIDList, NoRemoteChangeNotify and NoSimpleNetIDList to 1 in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
• Disabled "show recently used files", "show frequently used folders" and "show files from office.com" in view options
• Disabled everything under Options -> View -> Navigation Pane except for "Show this PC"
• Made sure i am not running any kind of network drive, cloud sync, etc, software or services.
• Unchecked "Automatically pick an accent color from my background option" in display personalization.
• Made sure slideshow was disabled for the windows screensaver
• Set explorer to default to "This PC" instead of "Home"
• Used ShellExView to see if i had any network or cloud sync stuff affecting the shell...nothing that i could see.

Those are the only the ones i can remember off hand.

I also tried using process monitor to see if anything might be causing it...but it eventually closed by itself after running for a few hours, presumably because it was logging too much stuff. And since the folder view reset happens randomly, i cannot check the log at a certain time anyway, because i have no idea what time to check the log at.

I found an old post talking about what seems to be a similar issue : Windows 11 File Explorer jumps to top when scrolling - Microsoft Q&A, except that it jumps to the top when i am not using explorer. It never jumps to the top when i am actively using explorer. None of the solutions posted in the thread worked for me.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? Its very obviously something related to win11 because it was not present in win10, but i cant narrow it down and windows wont tell me what is causing it. It just seems to be some kind of folder/UI refresh that keeps triggering but i cant tell what is triggering it, when it triggers or how to turn it off.

The forums wont let me edit my original post anymore : I tried using an alternative to file explorer, called the "Files" app : Files • Home and i can confirm the "folder jumps to the top" bug does not happen there...so whatever is causing it, only affects win11's file explorer.

Run

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

then reboot, see it it helped.

Scott said:

Run

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

then reboot, see it it helped.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, sfc scannow and dism did not work. I also tried this :

• NoNetCrawling
• NoRemoteRecursiveEvents
• NoRemoteRecursiveEventsEx
• NoResolveTrack
• NoPinnedSiteSync

in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer, they did not work either.

Just saw that the folder view had reset again. No indication of what caused it though.

Anyone? This is driving me crazy.

Setting file explorer to "always show icons, never thumbnails" did not work either.

Still not fixed...i did manage to find someone else who was experiencing the same problem, but he had no fix for it either.

just discovered another weird thing...if i pin or unpin something to the start menu, it will instantly cause folders to scroll up in file explorer...

Pinning or unpinning any icons to the taskbar also causes folder scroll position to reset.

It just instantly jumps all the way to the top. Its like something has reset the folder view.

Click to expand...

I am having this issue on a brand new Lenovo laptop.
Open to any ideas on how to fix it.

I've had this issue forever on both my computers. My workaround is simple - when you open file explorer, wait 10 seconds or so for it to read all the drives before actually using it for whatever reason you opened it.

Have you tried this?

Spunk said:

Have you tried this?

Solved! File Explorer Jumps to Top of Folder Windows 10/11

If File Explorer jumps to top of folder automatically and frequently, you can try the solutions listed in this post to fix it.

www.minitool.com

Click to expand...

All were tried (or already set), except re-install windows.

Crazy that OP never got a response. Try either of these to see if issue is reproduced:

FE as Admin

FE no extensions (disable them manually):

Thanks to all that posted suggestions... Aside from this issue, I had a few other odd things going on. I ended up taking the nucular route (re-installed OS from Lenovo recovery media). All is well now.

After trying all the suggestions from others without any luck, I finally came across the one thing that actually worked for me.

Automatic accent color may lead to frequent visual changes, which may cause display problems in File Explorer. You can solve this problem by disabling the system from automatically selecting an accent color.

Step 1. Press Windows + I to open Settings.

Step 2. Select Personalization > Colors.

Step 3. In the right panel, untick the option of Automatically pick an accent color from my background.
In Windows 11, you may need to select Manual instead of Automatic in the Accent color section.

I figured the issue might be because I have a lot of desktop wallpapers set to change every 30 seconds, so each time it switched, it would pick a new accent color, causing the issue.