Constant file thumbnail generatrion in folders

[eddman]

Let's see if I can explain this properly.

 

I have a folder with a lot of, more than 180, rather sizable images in it, ranging from 400-500 KB to above 1 MB.

 

The problem is that most of the time that I open this folder, windows starts generating thumbnails for the images from scratch. It fails to remember/store them.

 

I think it happens with all folders, but is only noticeable in this one, because of the amount and size of the images.

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

Windows 8.1 64-bit

[Anibal P]

Let me guess, you happen to turn off indexing perhaps? 

[FiB3R]

Try truning thumb.db caching off.

 

Thumbnail views will still work, as Windows 7 Explorer and above now actually stores its thumbnails in a local database for its own use.
 

Windows 7 apparently generates these files for compatibility with older software that may expect such files to exist in folders with, for example, photos in them.

Unless you're running such old software, you can just turn this off without consequences (except that your system won't be fooling with your photo files to make Thumbs.db files in the background).
 

Open the start screen, type gpedit.msc and hit Enter. 

 

The Editor will open to the top-level Local Computer Policy, so you will have to expand the User Configuration item in the left-side pane of the Editor window. 

 

Drill down through Administrative Templates, then Windows Components, and click on the File Explorer item.

 

 

 

Near the bottom of the list in the middle pane of the Editor window you will find the setting ?Turn off the caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files? (NOT turn off caching of thumbnail pictures.)

 

To edit this policy setting, either double-click on the title of the policy or click the link titled ?Edit Policy Setting? to the left of the setting list after you select the policy.  It is interesting to note that below the Edit Policy Setting link it indicates that the requirement is "At least Windows Server 2003 operating systems or Windows XP Professional". 

 

To change the policy, merely check the ?Enabled? radio button and click OK

 

Close the Local Group Policy Editor and you will notice that all of those thumbs.db files have disappeared.

 

[+BudMan MVC]

So is your problem that the folder is slow when accessing it?  Just change it to general vs media or videos,pictures, etc..

 

[eddman]

Let me guess, you happen to turn off indexing perhaps? 

No.

 

Try truning thumb.db caching off.

This could be it. I need to do more testing. Thanks.

 

So is your problem that the folder is slow when accessing it?  Just change it to general vs media or videos,pictures, etc..

Not exactly. Folder opens fine and files are visible and can be opened, but their thumbnail/previews are not present and file explorer starts generating them from scratch, as if it's the first time I'm opening that folder.

 

Changing it to general didn't help.

[eddman]

Try truning thumb.db caching off.

 

...

Ok, it didn't work.

 

 

Does that every time. Is this normal? Is it the same with everyone?

[+BudMan MVC]

So its not creating the thumbs.db in the folder your files are in right, you disabled that. You sure you didn't disable the local cache that is stored

c:\Users\User-Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

You should see files thumbs_"size".db in there. Now a problem you can have is any time content is changed the cache is rebuilt.. You could try the trick of changing permissions on the folder so windows can not recreate the caches.

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/stopprevent-windows-7-from-deleting-thumbnail-cache/

Windows to be honest has always been slow in this sort of thing, which is why I normally change video/picture folders to just general and view via details so there is no thumbnails created or have to be loaded, etc..

Your other option is to use a 3rd party tool for viewing your photo folders. I use picasa for example, or something like http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm which is much much faster than explorer.

[eddman]

So its not creating the thumbs.db in the folder your files are in right, you disabled that. You sure you didn't disable the local cache that is stored

c:\Users\User-Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

You should see files thumbs_"size".db in there. Now a problem you can have is any time content is changed the cache is rebuilt.. You could try the trick of changing permissions on the folder so windows can not recreate the caches.

Yes, Last night I did some research myself. It seems that in some cases the caching related files could become corrupted somehow.

 

I deleted the "*.db" files and also "IconCache.db" as mentioned in these pages:

 

http://www.askvg.com/fix-thumbnail-cache-automatic-deletion-problem-in-windows/

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-files/how-do-you-stop-windows-8-from-deleting-the/bd4186f5-a79b-4b80-9a23-2205b5810a05

 

It seems to be good, for now. Let's see how long it'll stay that way.

[eddman]

It still happens. Not after every restart, but it's not solved yet. Could be that maintenance thing mentioned in that link.

 

Are there any photographers here? Does this happen to you too? It can be a huge problem for those who work with a large number of big photos.

[+BudMan MVC]

I don't think anyone working with photos as business or hobby use windows explorer to browse their pics ;) You could try the file permissions thing to prevent windows from recreating the cache.

Or use 3rd party software to browse your photos, there are many good free ones.. Picasa I like, windows live gallery also works - not sure on its caching, I don't use it that often. Or the faststone viewer I linked too.

[eddman]

I don't think anyone working with photos as business or hobby use windows explorer to browse their pics ;) You could try the file permissions thing to prevent windows from recreating the cache.

Or use 3rd party software to browse your photos, there are many good free ones.. Picasa I like, windows live gallery also works - not sure on its caching, I don't use it that often. Or the faststone viewer I linked too.

Yes, perhaps, but it's still quite bothersome. I'm not going to use a separate software just to browse one or two folders. The file permissions thing seems to be too much of a hack. I'd rather not do it.

 

IMO it's very illogical for a maintenance task to just reset the stored thumbnails for no apparent reason and I'm amazed that we cannot turn it off (we can only set the time) or at least be able to customize it and exclude thumbnails from deletion.

 

It cannot be a storage preservation issue, because I checked the size of the thumbnails folder, which was about 50 MB (quite small), then ran the maintenance task and it still reset the files.

 

I cannot believe that MS is not aware of this. They probably are but just don't care enough to change it.

[+BudMan MVC]

Again I don't think its a real issue since anyone having large amounts of photos doesn't use explorer to browse them.

You can turn off the task I believe if you have some maint deleting it

http://www.askvg.com/fix-thumbnail-cache-automatic-deletion-problem-in-windows/

Don't see it as suing 3rd party to browse 2 folders - use it as photo software.