OK so tonight I edited a filename on a lister where there should've been several files labeled purple. Maybe I didn't notice when I first brought up the lister if they were there or not, I'm guessing they were, but after I edited that filename and tried to label it purple there wasn't one file on the lister with purple. About 3-5 minutes later the missing file labels had come back and my newly added file was also labeled purple.
What happens when you try the things discussed earlier in the thread?
I have a lot of files in a single directory but only a few of them are "labeled". After I get so many categorized I move them off to other drives. I only label file by file. I didn't even realize there was a way to use wildcards or alternative ways to label files.
I changed the switch that you referred to from false to true. This might resolve it based on my understanding because temporary files are being written to this directory most of the time. Pulling files from the internet and depositing them into this directory. It's not accessing the labeled files just writing new data into the directory. Of course then I wonder why would it work initially and then disappear for the next 5 minutes. The writing process is consistent so that's a bit strange to me.
I was the one that found the last problem with these labels not updating properly in the prior release. I had to physically scroll from the top of the directory to the bottom to get the files to update. But once they were updated they didn't disappear that I had ever witnessed. I was attempting to sort them based on the label and I knew I wasn't getting all the files that should've been labeled. There was a fix put in to correct the problem it may be that there's still something not quite right?
I'll also add this bit of info. These are on networked drives. In some of the other directories that have labeled files they are static for the most part however you can see the coloring of the filenames being done almost like you're on a slow modem as you first display the directory. The few files outside my view don't appear to be colored because when you scroll you can see the remaining files being colored. It always starts at the bottom of the list and works it's way up initially then when you scroll down however it works the other direction adding each file as you go down.
When I add the label column to these static directories and attempt to sort on it the direction indicator turns red while sorting and then back to black when it's down so you can see even though I'm only working with 60 files all the same color it takes a bit longer to sort than other columns if you haven't scrolled through all the files. Once the attribute has been picked up by all the files then it sorts as fast as any column.
"Does the problem still happen after setting Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced: no_external_change_notify = True ?" Yes!
In fact what I've found out is that when I opened the lister (which just for info opens several tab locations) the labels were missing. No color showed at all and I even closed and reopened the lister several times to see if that would make any difference and it did not. However, when I went into the task manager and terminated dopus and dopusrt and then opened the same lister the label colors appeared.
In between the first time I opened a lister with blank labels and prior to the "restart" I also attempted to sort on the label column thinking maybe that would expose the labels by force but it didn't do anything. I tried several times sorting in both directions and nothing was successful. I also did a lot of scrolling from top to bottom and bottom to top - nothing. Then I went back to the original sort, by creation date, that also did nothing. I also did several reloads/refreshes to see if that would force the labels to be exposed but again nothing.
Initially when I went into the lister I opened a few using Irfanview to go through the pics until they were either moved to another directory or deleted through Irfanview. Of course since the switch was set to TRUE the lister still showed the pictures as existing so I had to do a refresh to update the directory. Again no labels showed.
Switch is still set to True.
This time when I opened the lister the labels were there. When I renamed a file (changed the entire prefix) and then went to label it purple they all disappeared. There's something that's different in the way this data is accessed verses the file name or other parts because it always flickers when you add a new label. You get a flash and sometimes the labels come back and sometimes they don't.
I also went to another drive this time. One where all the files are one color in a particular directory. The same directory I talked about earlier. These labels are all missing as well on a completely different drive and I haven't done anything on this particular drive. Like I said before it's all but static data. Files go here once they're going to be retained.
Next time the labels disappear, please open Task Manager, right-click the main Opus process and choose Create Dump File.
Zip up the result and email it to leo@gpsoft.com.au
It's possible the thread that works out the labels is getting stuck somewhere, which that should reveal.
OK
There seems to be some trigger that happens by editing the filename and then attempting to label the file, although I can't cause it consistently, as soon as I click the label then all the labels disappear. It may be related to the first edit but I'm not sure.
Anyway I'm zipping up the DO dump and sending it your way.
Dump is going to have to wait. The file got picked up by a disk cleanup utility.
DMP sent.
OK so more on this front. I don't know if you found the issue or not but it may be causing some problems that aren't evident at first. First off I'm not sure why any files/folders appear in the Files, Folders & Labels section of the settings because I've never added a file to that section I've always used a button to label files or folders in place. I am using NTFS drives. What makes it appear here if it's maintained by the OS?
By accident the other day I labeled something "green" and copied it over to another drive and I realized that for some reason "green" does not copy at least not from a networked drive to another networked drive so for folders/files listed in the Files, Folders & Labels on one machine it shows "green" and on the other it shows "no label". I don't know if this is a timing issue related to this whole problem of missing and reappearing labels or something specific to "green". Typically I use purple, red and orange and I've rarely strayed from that usage. Obviously for files and folders that are labeled and for whatever reason maintained in under the Files, Folders & Labels settings I don't know without doing a comparison on the two files how many are out of sync but of course if I could just delete these files that would be the best solution but I don't know why they're being created.
Out of curiosity I made 9 text files all of different colors and attempted to copy them across from the same two networked drives and I also attempted to move them as well then I created them on a local drive and attempted to copy/move them to another local drive. For whatever reason not a single label copied. I've never noticed this problem before so maybe something got introduced in 11.19 x64 or even earlier like I said it seems something special with "green" labels is happening.
Other than adding my name to the list of affected users I'm not sure I can provide much insight but I'll do my best. In my case this is a recent affliction. I don't recall it happening before v12.3.4. The only recent Prefs change I am certain about is switching on Load all thumbnails in a folder automatically.
I use label highlights and descriptions on a variety of files and file types in numerous folders. When Opus starts they are always present. Some variable time later they are all gone and they don't come back until I restart Opus with DOpusRT /restart.
Now that I have reported it, I'll try to keep a close eye and hopefully narrow down possible triggers. Nothing springs immediately to mind. In my case this is happening on a Windows 7 system and I'm running the latest Beta.
Regards, AB
I may have been able to catch this in the act. I'll attach a before image of a labelled file which also has a description. When I attempt to change the label colour from amber to black, the colour and the description disappear per the after image. If I then restart Opus the new colour and the label appear as expected. I'll send a zipped Process Monitor log to @Leo. If more debugging is required let me know what you need. This is now happening often, usually starting within 30 mins of a full system reboot.
Regards, AB
Have you seen this on any other type of file (e.g. a plain text file)?
One idea that springs to mind is your virus checker is detecting the change in the file, opening it to check it, which is blocking Opus from reading the new metadata from it.
I would have thought pressing F5 would be enough to refresh the label - needing a full program restart is odd.
Yes. It happens on plain text files too. It's perhaps also worth noting that once it has happened to one file, attempts to label other files also (apparently) fail. After restarting Opus they all show up correctly.
And to confirm, F5 or even closing and re-opening the Lister doesn't help? You really have to restart the program?
Confirmed. Neither F5 nor a close/reopen brings labels and descriptions back. I have to restart Opus.
That suggests the background thread that reads the metadata has got stuck on something.
Can you use Task Manager to make a dump of the dopus.exe process when it's in that state, zip the file and send it to crashdumps@gpsoft.com.au (or via dropbox etc)?
Thanks!
Done. Dump and PM Log Dropbox links sent to crashdumps.