Hang on Startup with Mapped Drives and File Access

[jdgvt81]

Good morning (or maybe afternoon for you!) - I'm experiencing some strange hangs/freezing/delays recently that I'm hoping you might help me investigate.

The program opens fast, but then hangs for 8-10 seconds (with an hourglass icon). It only occurs when I have mapped drives and it occurs whether the drives are mapped to actual network folders or even to local folders (I have drive letters mapped to a local folder structure that mimics the folder structure on our company network that I use for testing).

When I checked load times (I forget the command I found in these forums), the whole startup only took 1,800 ms - so the hang occurs after that.

Also - maybe related - I'm also getting hangs while trying to focus the XYplorer window after file operations OUTSIDE of XYplorer. For instance, I save a file in Excel, then try to switch to XYPlorer to browse for the saved file and there is a 5-10 second lag before my clicks on the task bar will bring it to the foreground. This also does not happen when no drives are mapped.

Configuration | General | Startup & Exit:
- No network browsing on startup is CHECKED
- Reconnect mapped network drives at startup is UNCHECKED

Configuration | General | Safety Belts, Network
- Assume that servers are available is CHECKED
- Cache network servers is CHECKED
- Assume that mapped network drives are available is CHECKED
- Skip calculation of free space for mapped network drives is CHECKED

I did create a ::fresh instance from another suggestion you made to someone in the forums and that seems to work just fine - no hangs. So I think maybe the issue is in my configuration and I'm wondering if there is a way to narrow down the issue without rebuilding my config from scratch.

Win11 Pro 23H2
XYplorer 27.20 (32-bit) Lifetime License Enterprise
Screen scaling 100% on 1920x1080

Happy to provide any other information that might be helpful! Thanks!

[jdgvt81]

Hm, I've been messing around with turning on and off a lot of different options to try to pinpoint the issue, and this may be related to the "Respond to file system notifications" option in Configuration | General | Refresh, Icons, History. When it's unchecked, I do not get any hangs; when it is checked I can reproduce at least the hang-on-startup issue. The issue with other file operations seems to be more hit-and-miss.

Here's what I have checked for other options in that section:
Auto Refresh is CHECKED
Include removable drives is UNCHECKED
Include virtual folders is UNCHECKED
Include network locations is CHECKED (though I've had this both ways, usually off)
Refresh during file operations is UNCHECKED
Detect portable devices is CHECKED

[jdgvt81]

I think your tweak in slow browsing on network drives for

Code: Select all

SHChangeNotifyExcludeNetwork=1

may take care of the hang-on-startup issue.

Jury is still out on other file access hangs.

Not sure why this seems to have become a major issue for me in just the last month or so, since that post was just over a year ago. :-/ Although I began to notice some hints of this around the time of v27 back in March or April.

[admin]

You can get closer to the source of the freeze by looking into the Load Log after startup is finished: llog;

I can't see how SHChangeNotifyExcludeNetwork would affect startup times. This is getting interesting.

[jdgvt81]

Ah yes, that's the command I ran before that I couldn't remember... here's the output. Doesn't seem to be an issue with anything shown here; it must be happening after this is finished. And I just turned back off the SHChangeNotifyExcludeNetwork flag in order to capture this and it definitely now hangs.

Code: Select all

XY ver: 	XYplorer 27.20.0000 (32-bit) - Lifetime License Enterprise
OS:     	Windows 11 Pro, 64-bit, Version 23H2, Build 22631.5909 (10.0)
Locale: 	1033 (en-US)
DPI:    	96 (100%), 1920x1080

Loaded: 	2025-10-01 16:02:22 in 1,627 ms
Threshold: 	10 ms (shorter tasks are skipped below)

     0 ms:     150 ms - Start Load
   152 ms:      30 ms - Load Language
   187 ms:     719 ms - Init Custom File Icons
   908 ms:      32 ms - Init Controls
   940 ms:     134 ms - Init Graphics
 1,074 ms:      19 ms - Init Tabs
 1,093 ms:      37 ms - Create Info Panel
 1,130 ms:      42 ms - Set Interface Font
 1,172 ms:      14 ms - Init Panes
 1,187 ms:      10 ms - Init Tree
 1,269 ms:      34 ms - Init Custom Toolbar Buttons
 1,378 ms:      79 ms - XY64 Init
 1,471 ms:      25 ms - Layout List
 1,499 ms:      67 ms - --- Show Window ---
 1,574 ms:      11 ms - Layout List
 1,585 ms:      39 ms - Layout Status Bar
 1,627 ms:            - Load Done

MiniTree: Rows=28, Nodes=70, Expanded=4, Mapped Drives=12, Servers=3
Network on Startup: Browse=No, Reconnect=No, CacheServers=Yes, CheckForUpdates=No
Command Line: /script="C:\Portable\PortableApps\XYPlorer\Data\Scripts\default.xys"
Pane 1: Items=36/13, Pane 2: Items=1/13, Catalog: Items=45
Tagged Items in Database: 0

[admin]

Are you starting right into a network path that has a lot of action (files being downloaded to it, renamed, modified)?

[jdgvt81]

No, just a local directory in my Documents folder. (And not one that's mapped as a drive).

[admin]

1) Is there any network path that has a lot of action?

2) Does any of your mapped drives point to an unavailable network location?

[jdgvt81]

1. Not sure what you mean by a lot of action... as in, are there a lot of filesystem events going on all the time? If so, then no, especially when the drives are mapped to folders on my local machine.

2. Nope, all of the locations exist and are available (always, but especially when the drives are mapped locally).

[admin]

Did you already exclude XYplorer.exe from antivirus?

[jdgvt81]

No, it's never been excluded and hasn't been a problem. With that said, I just excluded it (Windows Defender) and tried again and it still hangs. I added both a File exclusion and a Process exclusion, just to be sure.

[admin]

Try a fresh instance: paste fresh; into the address bar and press ENTER.

[jdgvt81]

I already tried that and everything works as expected with a fresh instance. (And I just confirmed it again) I mentioned it in the first post, but the post was long - sorry - but that's why I was thinking maybe it's a configuration issue?

At this point, the SHChangeNotifyExcludeNetwork=1 flag change fixes the issue for me, but I'm more than happy to keep digging on my end if it could help remove a potential bug somewhere or at least give some insight as to why it's happening.

[admin]

OK, try v27.20.0004 with SHChangeNotifyExcludeNetwork=1: viewtopic.php?p=233057#p233057
Now whatever is excluded is listed in the debug log which you can look at using dlog; in the address bar. Maybe it will create some ideas.

[jdgvt81]

Here's what it shows...

What do the numbers on the left represent?

Code: Select all

XYplorer 27.20.0004 (32-bit)  -  Lifetime License Enterprise  -  Windows 11 Pro, 64-bit, Version 23H2, Build 22631.5909 (10.0)  -  2025-10-03 09:56:37
======================================================================================================================================================

           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.152  LMN  fully loaded
          75  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: F:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: G:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: H:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: K:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: L:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: M:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: R:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: S:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: U:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: V:\
           0  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.227  LMN  Blocked network location update: W:\
         452  -  2025-10-03 09:47:20.679  LMN  Blocked network location update: X:\