“A JavaScript error occurred in the main process” — Azure Storage Explorer

Updated 18 August 2026

Storage Explorer will not start. Instead you get a dialog titled A JavaScript error occurred in the main process, usually with a stack trace behind it. It is an Electron crash during startup, not a problem with your Azure account.

First: the settings change that fixes the common case

One recurring cause is the telemetry disk-retry cache failing to write. Turning it off gets the app to start:

1. Quit Storage Explorer.
2. Open its settings.json in a text editor.
3. Set "application.other.enableAppInsightsDiskRetryCache" to false. If the key is not there, add it.
4. Save and start the app.

If the dialog mentions a file that already exists

An EEXIST in the message points at a leftover file or lock in the app's data directory. Quit the app, rename its data folder so it starts clean, and sign in again. You lose attached accounts, not data in Azure.

Other things that have worked

• Install the previous version. Several releases have shipped startup crashes; the version before yours is usually fine.
• Update instead, if you are behind — some of these were fixed in later builds.
• Reinstall after removing the data directory, if the app never starts at all.

If you keep hitting this

This class of failure comes with running a full desktop application for what is often a read-only task. Browsing containers and reading a blob only needs the storage REST API, which is why lighter tools do not have a main process to crash. Ours is listed below.