Slow on one machine (was: Slow after W10 Update)

I need to apologize - I just rechecked the laptop and it is fine. Not certain why I thought the problem was duplicated there, but it is not - it's only on the desktop. Also, JUST AS A TEST I installed Directory Opus on another desktop system running W10 and upgraded that system to Threshold - and there were NO problems (I then ununstalled the app so as not to violate the EULA).

It seems the issue is isolated to the one desktop. It is virtually a clone of the 2nd desktop I just tested (same startup items, AV, new high-powered systems, etc). I'm fairly technical (on staff at multiple Windows support sites) and am stumped.

Did you try disabling all shell extensions, or booting into safe mode yet?

The problem is probably caused by a shell extension, so you need to either rule that out or find out which one is causing it. There's no avoiding that.

Safe mode works fine. I do understand the implications of that, so.....

  1. Tried disabling all shell extensions - no change

  2. Changed some services to manual as appropriate

  3. Tried selective startup (msconfig)

  4. Disabled everything (except key windows services) in Task Manager

  5. Even tried changing screen resolution

No Change.

Did you reboot after disabling all shell extensions? A reboot is needed after disabling them, since they'll already be loaded into the process in some cases.

Is Windows Defender running in addition to your anti-virus?

Uninstalling the anti-virus is worth a try, in case it does not disable properly. We've seen this a few times, and it's also usually one difference between safe mode and normal.

If there's high CPU usage during the delay then Process Explorer can be used to see which DLL's code is using the CPU. Ask if that seems applicable and you need instructions.

If the slowdown only happens with particular folders (e.g. ones full of .exe installer files, or full or archives, or video files) then that can point to certain things over others.

Yes, of course. I rebooted after every change.

No, Windows Defender is disabled.

I've disabled KAV with no change. KAV also provides the ability to completely close the app within the gui and I've also tried that (no processes remain in Task Manager). Uninstalling serves no purpose.

CPU usage spikes slightly when Dopus loads, then settles down immediately. The process that jumps is Dopus.

The slowdown occurs with only a few of the favorite shortcuts, but one of those folders is empty. And again, please remember this is tied to the fact that the folder tree is slow to populate. There is a spinning blue circle in the upper right of the lister as the default drive (or other selected drive) populates.

Unisntalling serves the purpose of checking if KAV actually disables itself properly.

Several AV tools do not and still cause slowdowns even when disabled, as I said. There's only one way to find out if that is the case. If it isn't, install it again and we can move on. But if it is, and we don't test it, then we will never get to the answer as we're intentionally avoiding testing a possible answer.

How to find components causing high CPU usage has instructions on how to find out which component is using the CPU within the dopus.exe process. That may point in the direction of a particular driver or DLL.

However, it the CPU usage is not high for the duration of the slowdown, then this is probably not worth trying.

Try turning off everything under Preferences / Folder Tree / Contents to minimise what's shown in the tree. Does that make any difference?

Also, try turning off Preferences / Folder Tree / Options / Automatically expand to current folder.

If you hover over the spinning circle, what does it say?

That circle usually means the file display is being populated. Which columns are shown in the file display?

Does the spinning circle show even in the empty folder?

Sorry leo, guess I'm seeing things that aren't there. The blue circle spins for only a few seconds, and only when the lister first opens. Hovering over shows nothing.

I've already tried fiddling with all of the folder tree preferences with no success.

Not to be obstinate - especially since you are being so kind with your time, but I'm certain KAV has nothing to do with the issue. If it did, it would effect all favorites, not just a few. And again, the cpu spike is minimal (goes from 2% to 12% and then back to 2% within seconds). It does NOT spike when clicking on a problematic favorite.

An additional question if I may. How do I display the Homegroup? Thanks.

And out of respect for the time you are spending with me I did uninstall KAV, rebooted, opened a lister and had exactly the same problem. I then reinstalled KAV. Any other thoughts? Thanks.

Sorry to keep posting, but here's another update - I restored an image to a point just before I upgraded to Threshold and low and behold the problem was there then too. It looks as though I've given you some bad info at several points in this thread and I do apologize for that. Bottom line, however, is that I still have the problem and have tried everything you've suggested with no improvement. Oh, and I was able to check the message over the spinning blue circle: "Querying File & Folder Information"

It might be worth running Process Monitor to see which files and registry settings are being accessed during the delays.

If you run ProcMon and save a log in .PML format, we can look at it for you. (They are often large, but zip down to fairly small sizes.) Make sure ProcMon is set to monitor file and registry, and don't filter out any processes as the delay could involve waiting for a second process to do something.

Logfile attached. Candidly, not sure I did it right - hope I did.

[I removed the log after downloading it, just in case there's anything private in the file paths, usernames, etc. --Leo]

Thanks for the log file!

When you say the file display expands slowly, do you mean it takes a long time for the names of all the files and folders to appear, or for other details like the folder sizes?

Most of the Opus activity in the log seems to be it calculating folder sizes, which are presumably set to be calculated automatically and all the time on your setup. It's normal for that to not be instant, if the directory listings are not already cached by the operating system, but it should also happen on the background so you can see all the folders and work with them while the numbers are being calculated and updating on the fly.

Another detail I notice from the log is that the E:\ drive is extremely slow to respond when asked for directory listings. (This is affecting other programs that access it as well.) I'm guessing E:\ is a network drive, either over a slow link or on a very slow device (or possibly a non-Windows device running a badly configured version of Samba that is very slow to generate directory listings).

There's is also some activity from 3rd party components that may be worth investigating, but I'd stuck to the things above first and see if they are the cause. Try turning off folder size calculation, and eliminate anything that might causing access to the E:\ drive (e.g. folder tabs pointing at E:\ or below).

In response to your questions:

  1. I don't think I sayd the file display expands slowly. It's the folder tree that populates slowly. I have the lister set to open at c: drive with c: opening in the file tree and the c: folders displaying on the rights side.

  2. Yes, I have folder sizes enabled. But before I posted the problem on this forum I tried disabling that option and there was no difference - the same problems occurred.

  3. E drive is a logical partition on the local hard drive. I have two physical drives. Drive one (2tb) is partitioned from C: through G: drives and drive 2 is partitioned as H: through M: plus X: (x: drive being my pagefile parition).

I know this thread is a bit long, so let me again describe the specific symptoms:

  • When the lister opens (to c: drive, my default setting), the files & folders show quickly in the file pane. In the folder pane, all folders show immediately but c: drive expands and populates VERY slowly.

  • When I click on CERTAIN favorites (specifically e:\download, H:\download, E:\My Documents\My Tivo Recordings and perhaps one or two others) Directory Opus stalls for several seconds before performing the operation. HOWEVER, if I just go to the main parent drive (ie, the root of E: drive) and THEN open E:\ any folders, the operation is instantaneous. Note that I moved My Documents to E: drive (something I've always done on all of my systems for the past 30 or so years). Dopus does not have any issues with that in and of itself.

Just fyi I've attached the backup config file for my current settings - though it works fine on the laptop (almost exactly the same except there is only one drive) and it worked fine on my other desktop (a virtual clone of this one) when I installed Dopus for testing purposes last week.

I think those are the primary problems Leo.

[Attachment downloaded removed in case of anything private. --Leo]

*should read "said", not "sayd" obviously. apparently I can't edit posts once they are up.

Please open Resource Monitor, switch to the Disk tab, expand everything and take a screenshot. What does it look like?

Got most of it in the capture (see attached).

Thanks again for all of your time - and Happy Holidays to you and yours :slight_smile:


Many thanks!

That looks perfectly normal to me, so scratch that idea.

Does setting Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced: no_external_change_notify = False make a difference? You would not want to leave it that way, but if it improves performance then it might be something we can fix.

No, no difference. And to make matters worse, I'm on my laptop right now and the same issue IS present on the laptop - and to a greater extent than the desktop. Dopus has crashed a couple of times already and I've only been logged on for an hour. I'm going to uninstall and reinstall shortly.

You can email crash dumps to leo@gpsoft.com.au and we'll see what they reveal.