Bridge freezes when opened from a folder that is not part of the Windows "Pictures" tree

I have been having a lot of problems with Bridge freezing when it opens. By freezing I mean that after the program opens, I get the busy circle and it will show "Not Responding" either right away or as soon as I click on anything . No erorr messages. Task manager shows 0% CPU and 0MB/s Disk activity.

I typically open Bridge as follows: in Windows explorer, navigate to target folder, right-click, select "Show more options" then "Browse in Adobe Bridge 2024". I first thought that it had to do with which hard drive the folders were located on, but with more testing  I discovered that the hard drive has nothing to do with this: when I open Bridge from the Windows "Pictures" folder, or any subfolder of that, it works just fine. When I open it from a folder that is not a subfolder of "Pictures" (whether on the same hard drive or a different hard drive) it almost always freezes. The exception is (i.e. it works) when I open a folder with very few images in it. Note, that once Bridge starts successfully, I can navigate inside of it to any folder anywhere and it works OK. However, if I exit Bridge from a folder not in "Pictures" and then start Bridge from the Start Menu, it also freezes.

Other relevant info:

* I reset Bridge settings incl. clearing all caches - no effect.

* System info: Windows 11 - up to date, Bridge 2024 - up to date, 32 GB RAM.

==> Why does Bridge (almost always) freeze when being opened from folders outside "Pictures"? Can this be fixed?

Thanks, Adriaan