Without the option "Use generic icons" absolutely unusable

[Robbson]

Hi,

I'm still pretty new to XYPlorer and I'm sorry that my first post in this forum is a bug report. But well, this issue was the first and most disappointing I had some weeks before when I started to use XYPlorer on my computer at work.

When the option "Use generic icons for super-fast browsing" is not activated (which is the default setting) then browsing folders with executables (or archives with exe extension) is very poor. So what does it mean? When there are even only some files of several 100MB in size, the program is freezing from 5 up to 40 seconds or even longer.

Well, I can tell you the reason: The Microsoft Forefront Security software is taking nearly all the CPU time (or at least one of the 4 cores) when those files are shown in a XYPlorer list view.

So why those Anti Virus and security tools get triggered when the program just wants to show the icon?
I've tested this with other file managers like Total Commander, Free Commander and DOpus where the problem doesn't exist at all and they also display all the icons correctly without using generic ones.
So I think XYPlorer does something special when reading files so the Anti Virus Tools get triggered.

And no, there's no way for me to deactivate those security tools because it's a company environment where it's prohibited to disable those things for good reasons (and by the way the setting can only be modified by the domain admin).

Of course, I could try to live with generic icons but it's hard to find specific files that way and it feels like a file manager from the age of DOS where colors and bitmaps were luxury.

On my home computer I have Avira AntiVir installed, I use it with its default options. There, it also affects browsing folders with a lot of files (like my download folder) and makes scrolling cumbersome but far not by the extend I experience at work.

Thanks,
Robbson

[admin]

I've tested this with other file managers like Total Commander, Free Commander and DOpus where the problem doesn't exist at all and they also display all the icons correctly without using generic ones.

That's interesting and makes me very optimistic that I can fix this issue.

Welcome to the club,
Don

[Enternal]

I've tested this with other file managers like Total Commander, Free Commander and DOpus where the problem doesn't exist at all and they also display all the icons correctly without using generic ones.

That's interesting and makes me very optimistic that I can fix this issue.

Welcome to the club,
Don

That's good to hear! I also have the same issue but I remedied it simply by disabling AVG Anti-Virus whenever browsing network shares that has a lot of executables (why don't they even include an option to exclude network scanning. It's simply annoying even though it's a requested feature for quite some time). Of course, Robbson does not have that option since it's on a company computer.

[admin]

At the moment I don't see anything I could do. (Of course, here on my system everything is super-fast.)

Ensure that this is ticked:
Configuration | Refresh, Icons, History | Icons | Cache specific icons

[Robbson]

The option "Cache specific icons" is always activated.

You could try to activate the "Real time protection" feature of Microsoft Forefront on your computer if you have it. But I'm going to test a stronger access protection in Avira on my home computer this evening to provoke that issue. Or I just find another tool which does a lot of background processing that way.

Robbson

[admin]

1) Is the slowness reproducible on each listing of a folder, or only on the first listing? In other words, is a folder fast once it is in the Windows read cache?
2) Is this happening on normal local hard drives?

[Robbson]

In the mean time I did some tests with XYPlorer, xplorer², Free Commander, etc.

Also there the Microsoft Forefront software is pretty active but the program never freezes.
I noticed in Free Commander that it first shows the generic icons while the real icons need some time to show up depending on which part of the list you are looking at the moment.

But those tools never freeze like XYPlorer.
Could it be that you do all this file access and reading in the same thread as the UI? This would explain why the UI (and so also the scrolling and user input) freezes.

I'm using local hard disk drives. It's always reproducible for the very same downloads folder.

[admin]

Yep, same thread. No chance to change that.

Did you try the last beta version? (v12.20.0202)

[Robbson]

No chance to change this? Why?

There seems to be no related news to this topic in the newest Beta so I didn't tried it yet.

[admin]

No chance to change this? Why?

There seems to be no related news to this topic in the newest Beta so I didn't tried it yet.

No multi-threading possible here.

Nevertheless I changed something (w/out many hopes).

[m48tx]

V12.20.0202, Win7 64-bit. MS Security Essentials.

Tested by going to "C:\Program Files (x86)" (or any folder structure with a lot of .exe files) and selecting branch view. I tested both local folders and network folders (over gigabit wired network).

My observation ...

MSSE Real-Time on.
DirectoryOpus and XYplorer both display the lists quickly but are both slow displaying icons (especially .exe files). However, XYplorer randomly freezes (much worse when working on network folders!) for many seconds at a time working through the list. DirectoryOpus never freezes as it works through the list (even on network folders).

MSSE Real-Time off.
DirectoryOpus and XYplorer quickly display the icons and neither program freezes at any point.

[admin]

Thanks for testing! It all points to threading as problem and solution.

[admin]

In v12.20.0203 I wave another dead chicken at it. Please try.

[Marco]

Don, I think you fixed it!
I was experiencing the same behaviour with CIS, but with 0203 icon are acquired super-fast.
Thank you.

[admin]

Don, I think you fixed it!
I was experiencing the same behaviour with CIS, but with 0203 icon are acquired super-fast.
Thank you.

Wow. not bad for starters. Let's see what the others say...