Folder formats set for offline network folder cause hangs when navigating to ThisPC

Help & Support
1

Every time I navigate to "This PC" in DOpus 13 it pops up this dialog while attempting to read some network path while the network machine which it belongs to is offline:
image

Trying to pinpoint the problem I did a search for files containing the Item text (from the screenshot) inside of /dopusdata which matched the path only inside two files: folderlabels.xml and folders.off.

The text search from within dopus seems to trigger some protection fault and kills/then restarts/dopus when scanning it's own config dir so it was a mess to remember what showed in the results for a few seconds. Ultimately the contents were the following:

folderlabels:

	<entry type="folder">
		<pathstring>\\OMEGA.x\C$\Users\User\Desktop\[Plugins &amp; Add-ons]</pathstring>
		<labels>
			<label label_id="95D05ACA-A2A5-4B36-A90A-823C5F844861">
				<filter changed="yes" desc="Root Folder" name="Blank File + Name">
					<clause item_type="dirs" match="yes" type="type" />
					<clause link="and" match="yes" type="name" wildcards="yes">$*</clause>
				</filter>
			</label>
		</labels>
	</entry>

folders.off:

     <format folderssortalpha="yes" getsizes="default" group="12" groupfoldersattop="yes" inherit_labels="yes" numericname="yes" override_image="yes" sort="dirsfirst" sortnewfiles="default" threshhold="25" v="3" view_mode="details">
			<field id="status" size="25" size_dpi="125" />
			<field fill_width="yes" id="name" manual_resize="yes" size="475" size_dpi="125" />
			<field auto_size="yes" id="size" size="95" size_dpi="125" />
			<field auto_size="yes" id="created" size="139" size_dpi="125" sort="1" />
			<field auto_size="yes" id="extdir" size="58" size_dpi="125" />
			<field id="cdaterel" size="25" size_dpi="125" />
			<hide>
				<files>*folder.jpg*</files>
			</hide>
		</format>
		<dir>
			<pathstring>\\OMEGA.x\C$\Users\User\Desktop\[Plugins &amp; Add-ons]</pathstring>
		</dir>
	</path>
	<path>

Removing the folderlabels part did nothing.
Removing the folders.off entry made it so the dialog no longer appears but loading the "This PC" virtual folder still takes a few seconds which makes me think it still reads all other network folder specified formats and attempts to access them albeit with no problem since the others are always online.

To clarify a few points:

  • Local disks which appear in this PC are all M2 drives, nothing mechanical, nothing ever sleeps.
  • Nothing else is listed inside This PC in dopus aside from these drives
  • Vanilla explorer opens This PC without any delay
  • The OMEGA.x domain is a static DNS entry specified in the router and is resolved instantly
  • There is no tab or lister with this path open
  • There are no mapped network drives in windows
  • Folder tree on the left is off

Just the presence of a folder format should not try to access the folder every time we navigate to This PC.

2

Trying to do anything with a path pointing to an inaccessible network drive can cause a delay of up to 30 seconds in Windows, which is what the message is telling you (and allowing you to cancel). Avoid putting those paths in your config if they aren't always available.

More likely a bug in an IFilter installed on the system than Opus itself. Searching inside the config files would not be any different to searching any other files as far as Opus is concerned, but for some reason a lot of IFilters have bugs with XML data (including ones that are part of Windows in the past, and recurring a few times, so maybe they still have issues).

If any crash logs were created, we can look at them if you send them to us, to check if the issue is something in Opus itself.

3

Avoid putting those paths in your config if they aren't always available.

That's like saying don't use half of dopus functionality (itc folder formats) since 80% of all my files are on network shares. I'm not putting them in the config files, they're just saved folder formats for shared network folders. A saved folder format for a network path is hardly supposed to be anything so taxing. It should not be polled unless the actual folder is accessed.

More likely a bug in an IFilter installed on the system than Opus itself.

I doubt it's an IFilter issue as it did not occur in latest DOpus12 (or any before that even) and nothing else was changed on the system (no software installed recently). It started happening after I switched to the DO13 beta which points me to think it's a 13beta issue.

4

It does seem odd that a folder format for an unrelated folder would affect directory loading speed.

6

Was there any chance you also had a tab open to that network drive as well? I've been trying to reprodce this and simply going to This PC doesn't seem affected at all by other folder formats.

7

Negative, I made sure of that just in case prior to reporting. Persisted through 3 restarts until I removed the folder format from the XML and on next restart it didn't occur anymore.

In this case I exported full backup from 12 and imported in 13b. It could be somehow related to the old configuration. If the beta didn't replace 12 completely and somehow could be run alongside it, then I could've started clean.