I have a dual pane setup with the viewer pane permanently showing.
In v12 this wasn't a problem and the viewer pane didn't interfere with other processes using the file being previewed.
In v13, however, the viewer pane often keeps a handle to the file open. This means the file can't be deleted by another process, e.g. the command line, which reports the standard windows message, "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process".
If I close the Viewer Pane, the handle to the file is released and another process can delete the file.
It would be very good if this problem could be resolved, please, if it hasn't already.
Videos can't really be played without keeping the file open, as they're generally too large to read the whole file into memory or create a temporary copy.
Deleting the file in Opus will still work, since Opus knows about its own viewer and will ask the viewer to close the file if you ask Opus to delete it.
I don't want to use Opus as a video player. I just want the viewer pane to display a preview image as it did in v12. I use a fully-fledged media player for playing videos. If I click a video in Opus to open it in my media player, the Viewer Pane won't let the media player delete it and maintain its own playlist properly. I certainly don't want the Viewer Pane to hold open every video it's previewing.
The "preview image" you're talking about is just the paused video sitting there ready to play. Opus has never generated a static image as a video preview (by default, anyway - plugins could potentially change things, but in that case the same plugins could be used in Opus 13).
Go to Preferences / Viewer / Plugins and turn off all three Playback Methods in the Video & Audio plugin in that case. You'll get a static preview image via the Shell Thumbnail system, assuming that's enabled.
That's probably what was happening in Opus 12, if you hadn't installed the codecs the old video player needed (which is normal, as Microsoft stopped including them in Windows, so the old video player didn't work out of the box).
Thanks Leo, I've disabled the three playback options. I now get just a thumbnail of my video player's icon (i.e the default icon from the app associated with the video file extension). How do I enable the Shell Thumbnail system so Opus displays that instead, please?
Thanks, that's already ticked, unfortunately, but no thumbnail. My media player supports HEVC natively so I haven't had to install a specific HEVC codec for any of my videos. Would I need to start installing codecs in order for the Windows shell to generate thumbnails that Opus can display?
Possibly, although it's unusual if playback works but thumbnails don't, as they'd usually depend on the same codecs (but won't always, e.g. if you've installed old-style DirectShow codecs but not new-style MediaEngine ones; the plugin can use either but I'm not sure if the shell thumbnails can).
Ok, I'll maybe install one particular codec and see if that fixes it. I can experiment with Windows File Explorer (ew!). Currently for those .mp4 files it's saying no preview available, so I assume if I can get a preview showing in File Explorer it should then show up in Opus. Thanks for your help.
Just fyi, I installed the latest Icaros Shell Extensions (media previewer) from Github and now both Windows File Explorer and Opus are displaying thumbnails for all my videos.
Mhh.. I was thinking the issue was trying to get around the locked files?
In v12 this wasn't a problem and the viewer pane didn't interfere with other processes using the file being previewed. ..
In v13, however, the viewer pane often keeps a handle to the file open. This means the file can't be deleted by another process
I just came here, because the topic caught my eye (and I reported a similar problem) and I try to find a solution of some kind (being not able to playback files anymore would not be a solution of course).
Please don't take this personal or something, you are doing an amazing job, but as nice as the new viewer pane handles, configures and looks, ending up with locked files is a bummer problem! o)
Hi tbone. Yes, I have foregone all chance of playing videos in the viewer pane. I just get a thumbnail (via the Icaros shell extension). It's a shame, but my media player opens videos (and images very quickly) and it's better than Opus holding open a file "just in case" I might one day want to play it in the viewer pane. It also begs the question as to why the viewer pane (or the video plugin) seemingly hasn't opened the file as shared, deny none, or whatever the appropriate Windows constants are. Apps shouldn't be requesting exclusive access unless they're going to write to them.....in my opinion. Maybe there's something else going on that I haven't considered. Happy to be corrected if I'm making assumptions beyond my pay grade
Opening files shared for deletion isn't really in our control, as it's the Windows video playback APIs and associated demuxers and other components which are opening the files, not us. (We could hook the file-open APIs, but that could also cause problems.)
It'd also result in confusing situations, since that lets you "delete" a file but the file doesn't actually go away, but also cannot be opened by anything, until it's closed. You end up with a strange phantom file, which has confused people in the past.
Some of the DirectShow demuxers do open the files shared for deletion, but I don't think all do. MediaEngine doesn't seem to do that at all, at least that I've seen.
