My whole system is lagging

[nas8e9]

I did a quick look at the backup .dat file sizes for the latest changed files, and action.dat is 146K; most of the rest are the same sizes of the ones in the new install.

That sounds excessive. Do you have Configuration > Undo & Action Log > Remember the logged actions between sessions, enabled?

If not, the backup was probably taken while XYplorer was running and you had done many file operations.

[admin]

The "Various Information" analysis (with Ctrl key) should tell if there would be anything else.

tag.dat can potentially slow down the app notable but only if it has lot of MBs resp. 100,000s of tagged items.

[DaveD]

OK. I restored all of the .dat files from my backup, including those from the Application Data\XYplorer folder and from the Catalogs folder, one at a time. That's a total of seven files. I am now running with all of these .dat files from when XYplorer was having its problems, and there are no problems evident now. It is running fine.

So what else might have caused the problems other than the XYplorer executable becoming corrupt?

DaveD

[Trasd]

Thirdly, I somehow believe that the whole issue has nothing whatsoever to do either with .net elements or the virus scanners.

I suspect you are right, but as my system started working correctly without my intervention (strange, as it had been going on for awhile and I waited to report it) and DaveD is 800 miles away, I have no way to further diagnose the problem(s), nor the time or ambition right now. What caused the problems on my system? We may never know.

My virus scanner did have some corrupt files, but unlike my pop, I do not keep nightly backups. This may or may not have had anything to do with my symptoms, but as my lag went away when the other virus problems were fixed, it is just too big of a coincidence for me.

The .NET elements would not not have been specific to XYplorer problems, but other problems that could have caused a lag in the whole system that XYplorer was especially prone to, thus making it appear to be XYplorer's fault. From my understanding, XYplorer is written in Visual Basic, and as far as I know, VB does not use any of the .NET elements.

This is all part of the diagnostic process. All possibilities must be eliminated - fortunately, the problems were fixed before it went any further.

If I could reproduce the problem, I might very well, for the sake of Don and the community, track down the cause, but I am just happy I am running right again and I left it at that.

[ogroeger]

I found that autorefresh might result in high cpu load under some circumstances. I suspect that TortoiseSVN was involved in my case. TortoiseSVN is a shell extension that shows the status of files and folders as icon overlay. Therefore it scans the folder hierarchy. This might interact with or counterattack the autorefresh somehow.

[admin]

I found that autorefresh might result in high cpu load under some circumstances. I suspect that TortoiseSVN was involved in my case. TortoiseSVN is a shell extension that shows the status of files and folders as icon overlay. Therefore it scans the folder hierarchy. This might interact with or counterattack the autorefresh somehow.

You can use a non-documented script command to track all auto-refresh notifications that Windows sends to XY:

Code: Select all

::logchange 3;

[nas8e9]

You can use a non-documented script command to track all auto-refresh notifications that Windows sends to XY:

Code: Select all

::logchange 3;

Stupid question: how to access this log?

[admin]

You can use a non-documented script command to track all auto-refresh notifications that Windows sends to XY:

Code: Select all

::logchange 3;

Stupid question: how to access this log?

It's just message boxes that pop up. They access you.

[Gandolf]

...You can use a non-documented script command to track all auto-refresh notifications that Windows sends to XY:

Code: Select all

::logchange 3;

Just to see what happened I tried it.

Browse flat on Temporary Internet Files (my download manager uses the I.E. engine), then cleared the cache.

XY displayed the wrong number of files in the Temporary Internet Files directory after it was cleared, it showed 41.

T.C. (branch view on the same directory) showed only 7.

I then got the message:

---------------------------
XYplorer
---------------------------
HandleShellNotifyEx 4: SHCNE_DELETE
Path1: C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Owner\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\S0AVZ3FA\favicon[5].ico
File1: favicon[5].ico
Path2: C:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-2664555379-458402745-3198577438-1008\Dc69837.ico
File2: Dc69837.ico
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

[admin]

The logchange command is only for debugging. Using it will at them same time affect the behavior of auto-refresh since it interrupts the Windows notification chain. Observer's paradox.

[Gandolf]

XY's autorefresh should have finished, so logchange should not have affected it. The cache had been cleared, T.C. displayed the six desktop.ini files and index.dat, but XY still displayed some temporary files as well. I executed logchange after all files had been deleted, not during the deletion. I hoped that would give some clue as to why XY was displaying files that had been deleted.

[admin]

XY's autorefresh should have finished, so logchange should not have affected it. The cache had been cleared, T.C. displayed the six desktop.ini files and index.dat, but XY still displayed some temporary files as well. I executed logchange after all files had been deleted, not during the deletion. I hoped that would give some clue as to why XY was displaying files that had been deleted.

How did you do that. With a script?

[Gandolf]

...How did you do that. With a script?

No.

I opened XY and T.C., both viewing Temporary Internet Files in branch view. They both showed the same number of files.
Then opened I.E. and selected to delete the temporary Internet files.
Watched XY and T.C. as the files were deleted. When everything had stopped and was stable XY showed 41 files, T.C. 7.
I then entered ::logchange 3 in XY's address bar and hit Enter - the message was displayed.

[admin]

Cannot repro.

Next version you can do

Code: Select all

::logchange 5;

It will log change notifications to memory without popping any interfering msgboxes. Later at any point in the session you can view the memory log by

Code: Select all

::text get("debuglog");

[Gandolf]

I've tried this numerous times now on several different machines. I've been staying with friends near San Jose (Silicon Valley Country) for the last month or so, hence the machines are ones I've never used before, and most have never had XY on them.

Browse Flat on the Temporary Internet files repeatedly gave the wrong number of files after the cache was cleared (XY 32, should be 10; XY 28, should be 10; XY 36, should be 12; XY 27, should be 13 etc... No pattern to it that I can see). Running ::logchange 5; followed by ::text get("debuglog"); displayed a blank window.

However, Process Explorer was running on one occasion and gave the answer:

XY - wrong display.png (13.91 KiB) Viewed 2313 times

I've repeated it several times now when XY is giving incorrect file displays (both in Branch View and Detail View) and Process Explorer shows the same tool-tip. When XY is running correctly the display is:

XY - correct display.png (12.28 KiB) Viewed 2313 times

When the error occurs, as you can see, XY does not display the correct icon or program description. The two screenshots are of the same instance of XY (PID is the same), the second one is after XY had, without any action from me, refreshed and displayed the correct number of files.

Why is XY not finishing, in this case I assume, a read process? What is it doing? Worse still, what if it was a write process that XY had not finished?

I'll be back home in a couple of days and don't expect I'll have much time then (you'll be glad to know!) to pursue this problem further.