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Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 05 Sep 2015 02:02
by armsys
I've done extensive tests and still can't get the "Flatten Folder" function to work as described in the manual. I also found the warning message:
folder contains no files: C:\Temp\Folder\
All folders and files are not read-only and can be accessed with full Admin privilege.
Does anyone encounter the similar anomaly?
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 05 Sep 2015 20:40
by admin
Could you elaborate a bit on the "Failure"...
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 06 Sep 2015 01:52
by armsys
admin wrote:Could you elaborate a bit on the "Failure"...
Failure = the Folders flattening magic didn't happen.
When I logged my initiating post, Flatten Folder didn't work.
Now, mysteriously, all folders can be flattened fine.
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 06 Sep 2015 04:59
by armsys
Actually, it succeeds randomly.
When it fails, just exit XYplorer and start it again. Then Flatten Folder function will be restored yet once again.
Very weird!!
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 06 Sep 2015 11:09
by admin
Looks like a refresh issue. Try F5 to refresh Tree and List.
Is auto-refresh enabled?
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 06 Sep 2015 14:01
by armsys
admin wrote:Looks like a refresh issue. Try F5 to refresh Tree and List.
Is auto-refresh enabled?
Auto-refresh is always active but Flatten Folder still fails randomly.
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 06 Sep 2015 17:26
by admin
Are you the only one? (That's a question to the others.)
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 06 Sep 2015 23:52
by armsys
admin wrote:Are you the only one? (That's a question to the others.)
Appear to be I'm the luck one here!! But why me?
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 07 Sep 2015 08:55
by admin
I don't know. Note that it also works fine with Auto-refresh OFF.
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 07 Sep 2015 09:19
by armsys
admin wrote:I don't know. Note that it also works fine with Auto-refresh OFF.
Not sure if the failure has anything to do with Windows services such as Volume Shadow Copy and ASP.NET State Service.
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 07 Sep 2015 09:35
by highend
I've just tried to flatten a folder (with two subfolders, the deepest one containing a RUNNING XY instance) and I still didn't get a failure message (but ofc the subfolder with XY in it wasn't removed).
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 13 Sep 2015 20:43
by xman
You are not alone, this happened to me too. After it happened, I tried to flatten the folder repeatedly, even moved it, moved stuff inside and may have tried it on some other folder too. Nothing worked, only restart

helped.
That was on my second attempt to use this feature, so it's probably not that uncommon

.
Volume Shadow Copy and ASP.NET State Service are not the problem, I don't run these services (to the best of my knowledge).
Still, this is a cool feature!
edit:
After sending this post, I tested the feature again, and got the problem again. This time, I really tried to flatten different folders, even on a different drive. And yes, I also used F5 to refresh stuff. Flattening didn't seem to work no matter what I did.
I also tried F4, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F5 and other refresh options in "View" menu, didn't work. Turning off autorefresh didn't work as well.
Another observation. I get this message on a folder with subfolders, on an empty folder (where this message seems appropriate) and also on a folder with just one file in it. If this makes any difference.
It seems like there is some variable somewhere that gets set and isn't updated when it should be (and is only regenerated on restart).
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 13 Sep 2015 23:20
by armsys
Thanks for confirming my observation.
To resolve the Flatten Folder failure, the only workaround is to to exit and restart XYplorer. Then , mysteriously the Flatten Folder works as advertised, even no XY config has been altered.
Also, try to install the latest Windows updates.
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 13 Sep 2015 23:24
by Papoulka
I'm trying to test this. First results indicate that there is something strange, at least on the C: drive. After running XY all morning, I tried to flatten a folder in C:\Temp (which had real files in it) and the operation did nothing. In a fresh instance, the operation worked fine. Then I restarted my personal XY. After that, flatten worked fine within C:\Temp, in both personal and fresh versions.
I'll try again later. FYI, SC flattenfolder() has worked great hundreds of times, mostly on external drives but also in C:\Temp.
BTW, it may help if armsys or xman will post a specific folder structure that fails - something like:
- C:\Temp\Folder1\Folde2\dummy.txt
and be clear about which folder is being flattened.
Re: Flatten Folder Failure
Posted: 13 Sep 2015 23:42
by xman
While I can't prove it, it seems this bug works on any folder. The last one I tried
C:\a\
C:\a\b\
C:\a\b\c.txt
Flattening either C:\a\ or C:\a\b\ doesn't work. Nor does any other folder I try, on any drive.