Removable drives locked by XYplorer

[blackbit]

When you select a removable drive (for example USB stick) in the tree view, XYplorer "locks" the drive for removal (due to monitoring for file system changes probably). When you try to "safely remove" the usb device using the system tray icon, you get a message "This device can not be stopped right now" as long as you have a tab open for a folder somewhere on the removable.
Maybe it would be a good idea to introduce an extra option for monitoring removable drives, just as for the network drives...

[serendipity]

Well, its the same in WinExplorer. If you have the USB path open it wont let you close from tray because its still accessing it. How do you think you need a monitoring thing? should XY automatically stop accessing USB when you click on the tray for removal?

[blackbit]

I can be mistaken, but I thought that if you safely remove a drive in windows XP, the explorer window just closes...

[serendipity]

OK checked again on my XP Pro PC. I opened explorer and had my USB path displayed in it. I tried the tray to remove USB but it slapped this popup on my face:



Note: XYplorer was not running when i did this.

[blackbit]

Ok. So I was mistaken after all ;-) Maybe it's still a good idea to be able to switch monitoring on or off for removable drives?

[admin]

Ok. So I was mistaken after all ;-) Maybe it's still a good idea to be able to switch monitoring on or off for removable drives?

It is.

[jacky]

Ok. So I was mistaken after all ;-) Maybe it's still a good idea to be able to switch monitoring on or off for removable drives?

It is.

And, I thought that simply switching to a different location (ie not on the USB drive) was enough, and if not that the command "Suspend Auto-Refresh" would take care of it...

[admin]

Ok. So I was mistaken after all ;-) Maybe it's still a good idea to be able to switch monitoring on or off for removable drives?

It is.

And, I thought that simply switching to a different location (ie not on the USB drive) was enough, and if not that the command "Suspend Auto-Refresh" would take care of it...

I use two totally different auto-refresh mechanisms. The one for removable drives is independent of the current location. It's always monitoring the drives. It is not suspended by the "Suspend Auto-Refresh". The latter only applies to the auto-refresh of the current file list.

[admin]

Ok. So I was mistaken after all ;-) Maybe it's still a good idea to be able to switch monitoring on or off for removable drives?

It is.

And, I thought that simply switching to a different location (ie not on the USB drive) was enough, and if not that the command "Suspend Auto-Refresh" would take care of it...

I use two totally different auto-refresh mechanisms. The one for removable drives is independent of the current location. It's always monitoring the drives. It is not suspended by the "Suspend Auto-Refresh". The latter only applies to the auto-refresh of the current file list.

Correction: it is all true what I said, but: the removable drive monitoring does not lock the drive! And, you are right jacky!, simply switching to a different location or "Suspend Auto-Refresh" does take care of it.

[TheQwerty]

Sorry to resurrect a two month old thread, but I've recently been annoyed by the locking when attempting to remove my portable drives. After reading this thread and noticing the behavior seemed erratic, I decided to experiment a bit.

From my quick playing around using Unlocker to check the drive's locking handles it looks like XYplorer only ever completely unlocks a drive if you navigate away from it, not if you close the tab or turn off/suspend auto-refreshing.

The only difference between the auto-refresh states that I was seeing is with auto-refresh on there are six handles locking the drive if it is open. Closing the tab, suspending auto-refresh, or navigating away in any manner (except the following) would remove all but one handle.

The only way I could remove all locks without closing XYplorer was to navigate to a different drive using the location bar and hitting enter to go to a location different than the present one. One handle would remain even if I used the buttons, favorites, catalog, or location bar dropdown list to get to a different drive and then hit enter in the bar, but the second I typed a path that I was not currently at and hit enter it would completely unlock the drive.

Is this behavior desired?

I can't see any reason that XYplorer needs to keep the drive locked if it's not in use, but perhaps there is one.

EDIT: I should add I did this testing with version 6.10.0042, and as this is my first post here, I do love the product, even when Windows yells at me for trying to disconnect the locked drives. So thank you for the coding (past, present, and future!)

[admin]

Is this behavior desired?

Certainly not.

What you reported sounded very interesting! I immediately got me Unlocker and tried it myself (XP SP2). The surprising result: I see only five (not six) handles locking the drive (or folder) -- and they all are removed when auto-refreshed is turned off.

So: where does the 6th handle (sounds like a movie) come from?

[TheQwerty]

So: where does the 6th handle (sounds like a movie) come from?

It does indeed sound like a movie.

Well your report of only seeing five handles got me wondering if perhaps some change I made to the configuration was acting funny, so I got 6.10.0077 (and I'm on XP SP2 as well), tried playing with the default settings, and found out some more about this mysterious handle.

If I click on the drive in the tree, favorites, or catalogs to get to it I end up with five locking handles.
If I use the Go to dialog or the location bar I end up with six handles.

Then from that point I have what I described above with the only way to remove that sixth handle is to use the location bar to navigate somewhere new. Interestingly enough, using the Go to dialog to get to a new drive only removes five.

Don't have much more time right now to experiment but I might play around some more in a few hours and see if there's any other methods that are producing similar results.

[admin]

So: where does the 6th handle (sounds like a movie) come from?

It does indeed sound like a movie.

Well your report of only seeing five handles got me wondering if perhaps some change I made to the configuration was acting funny, so I got 6.10.0077 (and I'm on XP SP2 as well), tried playing with the default settings, and found out some more about this mysterious handle.

If I click on the drive in the tree, favorites, or catalogs to get to it I end up with five locking handles.
If I use the Go to dialog or the location bar I end up with six handles.

Then from that point I have what I described above with the only way to remove that sixth handle is to use the location bar to navigate somewhere new. Interestingly enough, using the Go to dialog to get to a new drive only removes five.

Don't have much more time right now to experiment but I might play around some more in a few hours and see if there's any other methods that are producing similar results.

I still can not a find a way to get the 6th handle.

[TheQwerty]

Well I was really hoping I'd get home from work and the case would be different, but my desktop (also XP SP2) acts just like my work laptop.

Clicking on the drive through the tree gives me five handles.
Typing it into the location bar gives me six.

I've tried it with a portable hard drive and a pen drive on both machines as well as a different external drive on the desktop. All with a copy of 6.10.0077 that has not been changed after extracting from the archive. Each time I'm getting the exact same results.


I had another thought that will add to all this, but I'm not sure it's much of a help, especially if you can't reproduce the sixth handle.

To make this easier my portable drive is G:\ with a folder G:\New

If I type G:\New into the location bar and check with Unlocker five of the handles are locking G:\New while one of them is G:\

If I type G:\ into the location bar and then navigate via click to G:\New I get the same thing.

If I select G:\ from the tree I get only five handles for G:\

If I select G:\New from the tree I get only five handles for G:\New

It's this lock on the root that I'm getting when using the location bar or go to dialog that is sticking around in the previously discovered states.


I'm not sure what else I can do to isolate the issue at this point, any ideas?


EDIT: Something else interesting: if I use the Go to dialog to go to G:\ and then use it again to go to G:\New. I end up with seven locks, two on the root, five on G:\New. I use the dialog again to go to G:\New2, I end up with another lock on the root. It just keeps adding another. I navigate away from this drive and these locks (however many I've accumulated) on the root remain, while the ones for the path get removed.

[admin]

Clicking on the drive through the tree gives me five handles.
Typing it into the location bar gives me six.

I have no idea what's different this morning but now I can get 6 handles the way you describe. So let's see what I find...