Disable Caching of One Directory

[phred]

I have lots of photos in lots of directories. I have those directories set to Thumbnails #3 and have enabled "create all thumbnails at once." I would like to have an option to -not- cache the thumbnails for one directory, but still display the thumbnails?

Thanks for considering.

[admin]

May I ask why?

[phred]

Of course.

I've got a directory (with a number of sub-directories) that has about 4,000 files in it (not counting the subs.) Every time I go to that directory XY starts building the thumbnail cache and it's slow. And at some point XY hangs and I have to three finger salute to end the XY task. I've got 16gb RAM with an Intel i5 CPU.

This doesn't happen on any other directories, some of which contain up to one thousand files. Perhaps the issue is a corrupt file, but it's difficult to go through 4,000 files looking for a possible culprit.

Thanks for thinking about this and let me know if you need any other information.

EDIT: Typo

[admin]

Is that a branch view?

[phred]

Is that a branch view?

No it is not. I've never used branch view before and just enabled it. 6,316 files in 25 folders and when disabled there are 4,187 files in 10 folders. Whenever I hit the top level directory I usually hit ESC to stop the cache building.

[admin]

Did you let it run all the way through and finish the entire cache? If not, try doing so and verifying that the cache file exists.

[phred]

Did you let it run all the way through and finish the entire cache? If not, try doing so and verifying that the cache file exists.

Are you asking if I tired it with branch view enabled?

When attempting to build the cache with branch view disabled, as I have done before, XY slows down and eventually hangs. I can't exit XY and have to end the task. This has happened every time I go to that directory.

[admin]

Yes, I meant with branch view disabled.

You have to find that one file that makes it hang. Then send it to me. That way I can fix it.

[phred]

You have to find that one file that makes it hang. Then send it to me. That way I can fix it.

I will do my best to find the offending beast. Give me a day or two.

Thanks.

[highend]

You only need 13 tries to find a bad file for 6316 entries (move 50% of all files out in a completely different folder, test the remaining ones by letting XY doing its thumbnail work).
If it is working, move the existing files away, move the old 50% back.
And then rinse and repeat with 50% of the files to test and you should be good to go in no time...

[phred]

You only need 13 tries to find a bad file for 6316 entries...

Thanks highend.
Were you (are you) a math professor?
I will do this tomorrow after I hear back from Don on today's findings. (Next reply.)

[phred]

You have to find that one file that makes it hang. Then send it to me. That way I can fix it.

I started the process and am now thinking it's my problem, not yours (XY's.)

After about two thousand files I noticed my RAM dropping rapidly. My 16gb got down to about 750mb and Windows went to a black screen. Escape didn't bring it back. Task Manager launched but only stayed on the screen for less than a minute. I tried to get a screenshot and ShareX (screenshot application) threw a "no memory" message and that was the end of everything. I had to reboot the PC.

Tomorrow I will follow highland's fifty percent at a time and see if there is in fact a corrupt file or if all this is due to running out of RAM.

[admin]

Yes, find the corrupt file.

[phred]

I have attempted to locate the corrupt file and I can't. Using Professor Highend's suggestion of going through half the files, and then half again and then half again until the corrupt files shows up. But each time, the cache was successfully built. With the first 50% RAM got to 1gm with about 1900 files scanned. I stopped the scan at that point, exited and restated XY and continued the scan. The subsequent scans did not deplete the RAM and completed successfully. I then moved all the files back to the original directory and built the cache again, this time stopping the scan with 1gb RAM left, exiting and restarting XY and continuing. No corrupt file and no issue as originally reported as long as I halted the cache rebuild before I ran out of RAM.

I'm going to attribute the issue to running out of RAM. Now that all 4,100+ files have been cached, I don't foresee the problem appearing again as I'll only be adding a dozen or so new files a week to that directory.

I suppose I could add more RAM to my PC, but this is/was the only time I've seen this behavior, so at this point I'm holding off doing that.

Thanks for the help. And sorry for (what I believe is) a false alarm.

[admin]

4,100 files is not much. The cache should be able to handle them easily. Well, good, it's working now.