Slow folder listing with SolidWorks files

Perhaps Paul’s lag is much more than mine, but for me, WE renders icons or thumbnails in a about 2 seconds max (and always has for the 16 years I have used SW). That is hardly torturous when compared to the 15+ second lag in DO. And again, the DO lag is every time you go to a folder with SW files. At least with WE, there is no lag when returning to previously opened folder.

I know the folks at DO always point back to SW as the problem, but how is it that every other 3rd party explorer program (that I have tried) has managed to crack this nut? FreeCommander, Q-Dir, Explorer ++, xplorer2, etc. None of these free programs has the problem. In fact FreeCommander instantaneously displays the list AND icons/thumbnails.

I don’t want to sound like I am bashing DO, after all, I first bought DO10, paid for the upgrade to DO11, and will do so again when DO12 is released. I constantly tell others about how awesome DO is (and demo it using my thumb drive DO install), and I imagine some of them have purchased the program as a result. But this continued “defect” when working with SW files is enormously irritating. Sorry for the rant, but the fact that other (free) explorer replacement programs have solved the SW issue (or more accurately, their programs just don’t have the problem) is very frustrating to deal with in a paid-for program.

I also agree with the Paul that it is highly unlikely SW will ever address the issue. The number complaints have to reach a critical mass to gain any traction. And even then, it may be years before it gets incorporated. SW has many tens of thousands of users, so getting them to move is an inertial challenge.

Please wait for the change and see if it helps. If it does then the rest becomes irrelevant. (And many other file managers behave like Explorer because they are thin wrappers around the same components as Explorer. We could equally point out that every other 3rd party icon extension does not take several seconds to supply an icon when asked by Opus or anything else, if you want to assign blame to where it really belongs.)

The change is that we think we've found a place where SolidWorks (and other extensions) may have been called when requesting the generic icon for a file, which is displayed as a placeholder while Opus waits for the proper icon (which is done on a background thread, and will continue to call extensions including SolidWorks).

That doesn't make it our responsibility, if the underlying issue is still in SW.

We can make improvements to Opus, and sometimes add workarounds, but we cannot fix everything that is caused by other software. Just don't expect us to fix all the problems in other people's software, and complain if we don't or can't, while you don't complain to the vendor who is responsible because you're already sure they will ignore you.

Frankly, sometimes it feels like vendors who ignore everyone are rewarded for doing so, while we get punished for listening, engaging, and trying to help even when it is not our problem.

I for one am happy with what GPSoftware has done, and is doing with regard to this issue and I'm certainly not apportioning blame on GPSoftware. I firmly believe this is a Solidworks only issue.

With regard to this statement, I'm on your side. When dealing with large multinational companies such as Dassault Systèmes (Solidworks parent company) the little man counts for nothing. GPSoftware is to be commended for the help and support it provides; even when the problem lies outside of your hands. I'm more than happy with the service, support and product that GPSoftware provides. I wouldn't part with my hard earned readdies to upgrade to the latest version if I wasn't.

I anxiously await the potential fix – do you know when that will be rolled out?

Sorry if I hurt anyone’s feelings in my previous post, but I thought I had made it crystal clear I think DO is a fantastic program, and will continue to use/buy/recommend to others regardless of whether this issue is resolved or not. As far as my not complaining to the VAR or SW directly because I am sure I will be ignored – you must have me confused with someone else. I HAVE brought it to the attention of both! When I find some time, I will try and track down the SPR (their equivalent to a ticket number). I just don’t have any faith it will ever get addressed due to the lack of complaint volume.

BTW - your statement that other replacement programs are merely “thin wrappers around the same components as Explorer” is helpful. That intuitively makes sense as to why they would not have the lag issue (as I imagine DO is complete standalone code).

Finally, you are not wrong that interacting directly with your user base can lead to feeling unappreciated. A thousand apologies if I made you feel that way. So let me state for the record – I love you man! And that love will only grow if this issue goes away.

@hpbeme

If you can find the SPR i'll certainly add my support to it. Although, if their support in fixing it is anything like them sorting out their other bugs then we're doomed! Solidworks 2016 STILL has a bug in it from as far back as version 2010 to do with renaming display states. I have often told them via their crash dialogue box that their software sucks!

The new beta is out now. Please let us know if it helps!

Just downloaded and installed. Certainly seems to be an improvement over the previous version. The lister populates near instantaneously with the icons drawing after the lister has populated. Navigation between folders of solidworks models is certainly alot more responsive. I'd say you've cracked it! Thank you! :smiley:

No, thank you :slight_smile:

I must mention, as i didn't in my previous post, I tend to only have my listers set to detail view. The previously reported problems with high CPU usage when listing a folder in thumbnail view still persists. But like I said, I rarely use thumbnail view for solidworks files so isn't an issue for me personally.

Just installed 11.17.2 beta. Sadly, no luck for me. It actually seems slower. It took 16 second to load a folder with 38 SW files, and 22 seconds to load a folder with 141 SW files. I also rebooted with same results.

In addition to that, after the list and icons populate, I was unable to scroll the list at all for another 30 or so seconds. I when it did start to scroll, it would only go a few lines and hang for 10 seconds or so before it would scroll another few lines and hang again. There was also a lengthy delay when changing the sort column. All this is new behavior (for me).

I don’t know if this detail is important, but… when I click on a folder that has SW files, it just sits there for the 15 seconds or so as if I did not click on it at all, and then suddenly jumps to the list. I mention this because I am pretty sure that is the opposite of how it behaved before, that is, when I clicked on a folder containing SW files previously, it went into the folder immediately but showed nothing until the list would finally populate.

I also use single click to launch folders/files, so maybe that matters. Nope, I just switched to the standard double click to launch folders/files – no difference. That is all the time I have for testing right now. Maybe I should try a full uninstall using Revo Uninstaller clear the registry and do a clean install of the new DO beta. Will update with any other discoveries later tonight.

Thanks so much for making the effort. Please do not give up the fight. I hope the info I provided above has shed some light as to where the gremlin lives. Let me know if there anything you would like me to try in order to help you diagnose the issue.

We recommend against using Revo Uninstaller (or similar) on Opus. Outside of special situations it will, at best, do the same as the normal uninstaller, and at worst could create additional problems.

Try removing all file display columns except Name to see if that helps. See if turning off the folder tree makes a difference. Make sure nothing is in thumbnails or tiles modes when testing. Also check that disabling the SolidWorks shell extension still removes the slowdown, in case the problem is being caused by something else this time.

Also, rebooting after installing the update is vital, in case that was skipped.

Hello Leo, here is a testing summary per your suggestions:
• I rebooted after the beta install prior to my previous post.
• I never use the folder tree, so that does not apply for me
• All file lists were in list mode (i.e., no thumbnails or tiles)
• Disabling the SW shell extension still solves the delay/lag issues

Things are loading much faster in my testing tonight – approximately 2 to 5 seconds for file lists containing from 40 to 200 SW files. I have confirmed that Object Dock and CursorFX are the culprits for the extremely lengthy delays that I reported in my previous post. I was able to reproduce the behavior, so I am quite confident about that. So… we are getting much closer! But…

Scrolling the file list still hangs for 5 to 10 seconds (time increases with list length) after entering a folder containing SW files. After that, it appears to scroll normally. But if you navigate away from the folder and then return, you have to wait things out again before the scrolling returns to normal. And in case you are wondering, I do not have the “smooth scrolling” option checked in DO, or Logitech’s mouse settings either.

Now for a completely non-intuitive result: the delay and hang times get MUCH worse when I ONLY use the name column per your recommendation. I would estimate it quadruples all the times noted above... very weird.

I have not tried a reinstall yet – I wanted to report my findings first to see if you glean anything useful from them. I look forward to your next post.

Object Dock and CursorFX being involved seems odd, although I'm not too familiar with them so perhaps they are involved in ways I don't realise, but AFAIK, one is an app launcher and the other changes the mouse cursor. The cursor might be changing while the folder is read but that's the only connection I can imagine.

Which columns are you displaying when it seems to speed things up? It's possible that populating certain columns will triggering the shell extension's slow operation, but in the background, and then that information may be cached for the next thing that asks for it. (That's not the only possibility, but example of how the counter-intuitive result might make sense, although it's not what I would have expected either.)

@hpbeme. Is it possible that you can send me a copy of your opus settings so I can try on my setup and see if I can reproduce your problems as I have solid works setup on my home computer ? This might help to rule out something peculiar with your setup.

You are correct Leo, one program is a launcher, the other is used to apply custom cursors.

Object Dock has caused issues with other programs in the past, so that is why I experimented with unloading the it. To quantify its impact: The load time for a folder with 38 SW files went from 16 to 2 seconds. That delay was very repeatable in my testing.

CursorFX is not as clear cut. It appears to add about 2 seconds to whatever the baseline time is, and is fairly repeatable. However, it might be attributable to just the natural variations in load times.

Scrolling lists still hangs/glitches whether CursorFX is loaded or not. Hard to say if CursorFX is making the scroll hang-up longer before it returns completely back to normal. When I test for this, it will scroll fine for a second, then stop, stutter some, then scroll again for a second, etc, making it impossible to time this event in a consistent manner.

The columns I display in addition to Name are: Extension, Size, Modified Date/Time, Folders (Total), Files (Total). Removing all those columns except NAME drastically increases load times, and is also very repeatable.

This last bit is for Paul – I would gladly send you my settings file… thanks for your offer to help! How should I get it to you? I did not see an option to attach a file to a private message.

@hpbeme sent you a private message.

@hpbeme Ok, tried your opus setup and it performs exactly the same way that my opus setup performs. That is to say that the listers populate almost instantaneously with a generic non-solidworks icon and then this generic icon is replaced with an icon representing the model, drawing or assembly's contents. I should mention that the mouse pointer does flash back and forth between the ordinary pointer and the wait pointer on both setups. Scrolling up/down is near instantaneous even while the icons are being populated and so is traversing folders. I'm not sure how many solidworks files you have in your most populated folder; I have 247 in my most populated and that is the one i've used to report these results. I use Bitdefender antivirus which I find is very light on hogging the system as opposed to other AV software ive tried which really make the computer's general performance suck! I'll email you my setup just so you have a comparison. Personally, I'd be looking elsewhere for the problem than DOpus. AV software maybe?

If the Solidworks shell extension keeps causing the mouse cursor to change (which is interesting; maybe it is launching a helper process each time an icon is requested?), that could explain the tie-in with CursorFX. Maybe Solidworks is putting the machine under a lot of load to generate the icons and that's making CursorFX slow to load its cursor resources, which then blocks the UI thread. Just a theory, though.

Of the columns you mention, Folders (Total) and Files (Total) both cause the entire subdirectory of each displayed folder to be read, recursively, so they could be causing additional disk access in the background which may have some effect, either positive (the directory listings will be cached, if something else then requests them) or negative (the extra disk access could slow something down that's also using the disk). (If the subfolders only have a few files, or there are no subfolders, then I would not expect those columns to have much effect at all, on the other hand.)

AV may well be involved, as in any performance issue.

How to find components causing high CPU usage may be worth a try.

Hey Paul, thanks for taking the time to check out my settings on your machine. Your outcome was expected, as it is for when I loaded your DO settings on my machine… that is, it had the same delays/glitches as when I used my own settings.

I have a question though – you have said in several posts, the “icon representing the contents” – I take that to mean you have the SW option checked “Show Thumbnail Graphics in Windows Explorer” in System Options/General page… is that correct? I ask, because I only use the three basic SW icons for model/assembly/drawing. I personally never use that option since it attempts to show the file “contents” as a teeny-tiny icon. It is checked by default when you install SW, but I always uncheck it. If you are using that option and are still getting fast file list loads then that is indeed impressive, because loading those style icons definitely takes longer, regardless of machine setup or whether you use WE or DO.

Since Leo or Jon have never used SW, I fear that when they read this I will have confused them with the “thumbnail graphics” reference. I worry, since this whole thread is about SW icons, and SW does something when this particular option is checked I have not seen in any other program. But since I NEVER use that option, I had forgotten about it as yet another variable. Do you want to take a shot at describing for the non-SW user what I am talking about?

As for my AV software, my Cable Company, Comcast, provides Norton Security Suite for free. I have to say, it is the most unobtrusive AV I have ever used – its CPU usage is zero every time I check task manager (except when I ask it to perform a task real-time of course). I did turn it off though and run the same tests as previously, and there was no difference.

I have more info in response to Leo’s post, but I am heading out now and will reply to his questions/comments tomorrow.

Yes, that is correct.


As an experiment, i turned off this option to see what happens; same result as before

Capture2.PNG

Both Solidworks settings cause the lister to populate more or less instantaneously and then the icons are drawn with the mouse pointer rapidly changing from normal to wait pointer.

I have EXACTLY the same behaviour happen in Windows Explorer as well as Opus with the setting "Show Thumbnail Graphics in Windows Explorer” on or off. To me, if Opus behaves like Explorer does now, then GPSoftware have fixed their side.

Personally, I'd be inclined to uninstall Object Dock and the CursorFx program and see how you get on then.