Regular XY winkouts and preview permission failures

[VinceS]

There is something wrong with my Win 11 pro system wrt file handling. It may not be XY's fault as I note Solidworks seems to get stuck in interminible file addressing loops before getting control back.

What I am seeing is regular short freezes followed by a winkout of XY. Many times a day now. Culprit / victim? Also, XY has stopped playing well if the Preview is on, as in it will not copy or move files that are currently showing their previews. A year ago, that XY didn't have this issue but Win Exp did, it was a great boon with XY. I could see what the file was and move / rename it without having to click on another file (to move focus) then turn off preview, then move / rename the file; alas that is what I need to do now, over the last several XY versions. Sometimes, even this doesn't work and I need Unlocker to give me control back, which it does just fine. Sometimes, very rarely of late, it works fine. Go figure...

From the winkout of a few mins ago, had a look in Event Viewer straight after and found this:

Faulting application name: XYplorer.exe, version: 27.10.0.500, time stamp: 0x689e2a7e
Faulting module name: pdfprevhndlr.dll_unloaded, version: 11.0.3.37, time stamp: 0x518e10a7
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00008fb7
Faulting process id: 0x5104
Faulting application start time: 0x1DC0EF39ED335FD
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\XYplorer\XYplorer.exe
Faulting module path: pdfprevhndlr.dll
Report Id: 701a2354-2a68-40fe-ad07-7338c3fe2ea4
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

What I was doing is I intended to delete 4 files in Downloads folder. I had highlighted the first one OK. Put the cursor over the 4th one and held Shift and clicked, but there was no graphical response, instead about 3 secs later XY was gone. It is typically this sort of benign operation when it winks out and it can even do it when it doesn't have focus, as in I just find it is gone when I go to use it, no idea when it left the station...!

Just realised, there was a prior error. This may help:

XY_EventLog.jpg (165.17 KiB) Viewed 5111 times

[admin]

I can't draw any conclusions from these data. Did you already check the sanity of your disk?

[VinceS]

I have not done any disc checking. Given this is a 3 month old build on a MSI ACE Z890 285K with C: being a Crucial T705 4TB CT4000T705SSD3 M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 5.0 and the lesser drives being Samsung 990 Pro 4TB PCIe 4.0 M.2's, hardware weakness is not where I would go FIRST.

If the Event Viewer record is no help, what can I do after a crash to get meaningful data? Is their other diagnostic software you might suggest for decent system diagnostic review?

I doubt checkdsk / f is going to get me anything worth having, but have set it to run on all drives on next restart...

SFC /scannow comes up clear.

[admin]

If this always happens:
- if XY is listing the Downloads folder
- and the Downloads folder is busy (i.e., downloads are happening)
- and XY's auto-refresh is enabled
then there would be some blood in the trace.

[VinceS]

The circumstances of XY winking out are very benign. No downloads occuring, or any other activity. The folder is fully listed. I just decide to tidy it up and get rid of the 4 things just needlessly downloaded by 'helful' sites, eg reports I didn't need or whatever. Simple pdf's. As per that specific example when I tried to run it down after the inexplicable winkout, steps as described.

Auto-refresh is enabled. Where is "the trace", to inspect for blood?

Anything on Preview becoming problemmatic after months of effort-free use? This gets in my way 30-40 times a day, the winkouts, may go a day or two with none.

Can I ask if searching sub-folders can be done anywhere? I revert to Everything for that, because I can find no way to turn it on in XY.

[admin]

1) Is the shell context menu (from right-clicking a file) involved at any point?

2) Searching sub-folders? Of course, tick "Include subfolders" on the Find Files | Name & Location tab.

[highend]

And you did try to use a different pdf preview handler?

Can I ask if searching sub-folders can be done anywhere?

2025-08-18_09-28-43.png (20.89 KiB) Viewed 5036 times

[VinceS]

And you did try to use a different pdf preview handler?

No. It is the same issue with .jpg, .mp4 and 'other stuff', like Solidworks. If I have preview on and drag them to an email or simply to another folder, I get an ambiguous can't do error which, usually, just clicking Preview off allows the operation to complete, either on retry or re-doing it. Not always, then Unlocker lets it happen. Yesterday I had a frustrating set of opens followed by winkouts within a few seconds with no input from me. Or get one file moved (all .jpg's) and the next highlighted one winks it out.

Bizzarre and frustrating behaviour, I know. Abandonment feels like an option. But I would MUCH RATHER do decent diagnostic work. Yet am not getting given any clue on how this could happen, and my one attempt turned into lolly water.

Whatever is tying it in knots could come down to a rogue previewer it feels it needs to consult and gets a fatal flaw on. Without scattergun guesses, how does one approach this problem with some rigour? Is the TB 64 bit version sufficiently mature that simply switching to it and seeing how things go is a sensible strategy?

Thanks for the pic of the bottom file box, I had forgotten about it. I expected the search in the top search box to do sub-folders (as per WE), which it doesn't; the choice in the lower menu box area with the specialised search input works, of course.

[VinceS]

1) Is the shell context menu (from right-clicking a file) involved at any point?

No, and when I use the 64 menu (several times a day) it always performs flawlessly, eg to combine files in Acrobat (of which I use an old Acrobat XI, from the days before SAAS kicked in; it does everything I need).

[admin]

Doesn't sound like it's XY's fault.

[VinceS]

Re the permissions issue, it is always replicable (winkouts aside), that I have preview on (to see what the files are) and drag it to an email (per the below example) to copy it or to another location to file it.

Permissions fail Note.jpg (33.52 KiB) Viewed 4971 times

Always now, I get this type of notification, click OK, Click Preview (to turn it off), repeat the operation and it completes.
Previously, it just used to copy or move, regardless of Preview status. Do others still get that?

I do have custom copy on, settings all seem fine. Can't remember why I turned that on but it was because something wasn't happening as intuitively expected, and this fixed it.

[VinceS]

After many further crashes I am convinced the primary culprit is an incompatibility between XY and Adobe X1 Pro. Here is a composite of a typical Ctrl drag to copy a file from one folder to another, having preview on:

XY64_Acrobat_Failures.jpg (427.48 KiB) Viewed 4414 times

The most common fix is to leave the dialogue box open, click on the Preview icon to turn it off, then select to try again, which works, then turn preview back on and pick the next one to copy out. However, about 20% of the time, it is going to crash, a wink-out, no error style. It always freezes for about 3 secs before, then gone. Annoyingly, it hasn't saved the tabs I was on, despite having the instant save option ticked, so I have to re-do them too, to suffer the same fate. 4 times trying to get this example done. Once I got the in-use error and was just contemplating how to take the best screenshot and it winked out; hadn't touched it for a few secs - that was new!

Only .pdf causes the crashes, and other file extensions misbehaving seems to be related to if I have been moving pdf's around prior. Except Solidworks files which don't preview properly due to some as-yet unresolved XY issue.

I stick with this 15yo Acrobat 11 as it is paid for and lets me edit, sign and manipulate .pdf files just fine. Can't see any good reason to turn that into a SAAS ongoing $bleed, but would contemplate a more modern pay once alternate that is compatible with XY and does the basic stuff needed; suggestions welcome.

Today is the first time the message has referred to XY64; I thought this meant today's update was the 64bit release, but seemingly not.

[admin]

For many years, problems related to Adobe products have been one of the curses of our time. I don't see any way for XYplorer to fix this. There's a theoretical chance that the 64-bit version will change things, but I wouldn't count on it.

As for recommendations: PDF-XChange Editor -- https://www.pdf-xchange.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor

[VinceS]

Eek and (oh no) - installed PDF-XChange Editor Pro (trial), set it as default for all .pdf related formats, restarted XY, saw the new icons, ctrl dragged a .pdf to a nearby folder and got the same "in use by XY64" pop-up, for which Retry worked after clicking on the Preview icon to turn it off. Dang it! Maybe a PC restart could help...

Obviously I will happily fully remove Acrobat (with Revo Uninstaller Pro, to be sure!) once I have got used to PDF-X as it looks like an excellent suite (thanks for the rec) and bought a license.

Is ctrl dragging previewed .pdf's normally fine for others and I am the only one with this issue? Now across packages (recognising that the prospective culprit still resides herein)?

[admin]

"in use by XY64" ... I don't think the 64-bit process is necessary here.

Untick Configuration | Other | Shell Integration | 64-bit Windows | Use 64-bit preview handlers for preview, and just tick Configuration | Other | Shell Integration | 64-bit Windows | Fall back to preview handlers of the other bitness.