Preview seems to block fileoperations

Hello,

I am experiencing problems with opening, moving, deleting, etc. of files when this file is being previewed in Directory Opus. Often this can be remedies by clicking try again (sometimes that needs to be preceded by clicking on another file so that one is previewed). When I turn off the preview, this issue occurs very seldom (at least I cannot reproduce it). Not an enormous problem, but it is annoying.

I work with version 12.28.

This issue occurs with all kind of files: zip, MS Word, PDF, etc. The strange thing is that it does not occur always.

Is there something that I can do to prevent this?

Thank you very much for the effort!

Kindest regards,
Rob

Those are all things which involve 3rd party viewers when displayed in the preview pane. Viewers are not meant to lock files, but sometimes they do anyway. (PDF viewers are especially bad for this.)

The ActiveX + Preview + Office + Web plugin (which acts as a proxy/intermediate for third party viewers designer for File Explorer etc.) has a per-viewer option to open temporary copies of files instead of opening the real files directly. That can help with some viewers. You can configure it under Preferences / Viewer / Plugin.

(Of course, the file is going to be locked briefly when it is being opened, whether that's to load it into the viewer or to make a temporary copy of it. There will always be a small window of time where the file will be in use, but it should be small, unless the file is huge or antivirus is chewing on it for a long time.)

This issue is still vexing me and I encounter this problem several times a day. For example, just now, I tried to open an Articulate Storyline file. The program warned me that opening this file was impossible because it was in use of a different program. So, I decided to turn off the option at the plug-in section of preferences (ActiveX + Preview + Office + Webplugin Configuration) and restarted Directory Opus. See 2023-01-10_13-24-12 - TechSmith Screencast - TechSmith Screencast

But unfortunately that did not help.

Then I tried the same file in File Explorer (waited about the same time for the preview) and the software could open the file without difficulties.

It is not only these Storyline files that are problematic to open, but various files have issues with opening, moving and renaming. For example, I have several pictures (mixed file format: jpg, png, gif) that I would like to rename one by one. Then often I receive the error as shown in this screenshot: 2023-01-10_13-47-31 - TechSmith Screencast - TechSmith Screencast

I can only fix this be retrying, turning off preview and 'wiggling' until I succeed. Normally, not such a problem, but this happens several times per day. And it vexes me more and more.

Is there a way to resolve these issues?

Thank you very much.

Note that you can add images to forum posts via drag & drop, which is much better than links to an external site.

Is the file still being opened in the preview pane by another viewer? E.g. the text or hex viewers?

How large are the files?

Does the problem only happen if you double-click them when something else is in the viewer? What if you click them and wait for the viewer to load them, then double-click them?

Most viewers won't keep a file locked (some do) but even then, they have to open the file to read and display it (or to create a temporary copy of it), which will mean there is a (usually) brief period where the file is locked for reading. If the other software wants an exclusive or write lock and doesn't wait a moment and retry then having the viewer open could interfere with it.

That's rare, in my experience, but could be what's happening. Although I don't leave the viewer on when I'm not actually wanting to view files, which could be why I don't run into it.

I've never seen that happen, and the renaming code in Opus should cooperate with the viewer pane to avoid conflicts like that. Makes me wonder if something else might be involved, e.g. antivirus or search indexing locking the files in addition to the viewer, when they are opened or modified.

I only use Directory Opus so there is no other program previewing the files when I try the file operations. The main problematic activities are copying, moving and renaming. Occasionally, the problem is also opening (as with the storyline files). The filesize is between a few kb and 150 Mb. I turned off several plug-ins, but still, the problem kept occurring.

I tried your advice to wait some time before I did something with the file, sometimes more than a minute and still the issue existed. Waiting, by the way, is not an option when you want to rename a list of files. Then you just go from one file to the other.

The last couple of days I turned off the metadata pane. I often add tags to files, so I can find specific groups of files, not based on name or date. That might seem to do the trick. For a couple of days now, I do not seem to experience these issues any more. But I need some more time because the issue is not reproducible with the exact same files, specific circumstances, etc.

I did not yet turn off antivirus or search indexing, but I will try that next when this issue is not cleared by hiding the metadata pane.

I will respond as soon as I know more.

For a while now, I have been turning off the metadata pane. It is not on by default, and I turn it on when I need it and immediately turn it off when I am finished with it. The number of problems while renaming and moving/copying files has reduced significantly. It appears that the files are not in use any more.

Once in a while the issue occurs, but the frequency is significantly less.

I have not changed anything in my antivirus and indexing.

So, it appears that the metadata pane might be the culprit. But it is unfortunate that I cannot reproduce the issue 100%. Then I would be able to test it with more certainty.