Olórin said:
You need to be prepared to wait longer than just overnight for an answer!
Many thanks, appreciate your help. (And apologies for my impatience!)
In Windows Explorer's Status Bar the size count I believe you're looking at
doesn't include files in sub-folders. Are these 1300 files all in the root
of the one folder you're looking at, or are they structured in subfolders?
OK, you're right. (That seems flawed design IMO. The Status Bar shows
the number of objects *including* folders, yet the storage size
excludes them.) I had a mixture of folders and files.
re the crashing, what exactly happens when it "crashes"? What I'd try is:-
Since my post I've re-organised a little (along the lines of your
'repeated division' suggestion below) so the status now differs,
although the problem remains. Pending further splitting, I currently
now have 3 folders and have been examining them individually.
#1 has a mixture of folders and files, and is 4.90 GB. At the top
level it opens in Thumbnail view OK. The largest individual folder is
780 MB and that too opens OK. There are no AVI files in #1.
#2 contains only individual files,635 and 2.55 GB (correctly shown in
the status bar as well as via Properties). It does contain AVIs. On
opening it in Thumbnail View it gave the crash described, i.e.
'Explorer has to close...etc' and also 'DrWatson Postmortem Debugger
has encountered a problem and needs to close...'
So it looks like you're homing in on the likely cause, one or more AVI
files? Thank you!
#3 is similar to #2 so I won't cover it here.
Oddly, when I did a prior search for *.avi, the results were displayed
automatically in Thumbnail view, and there was no crash.
BTW, while testing and composing this post I recovered Explorer.
Trial/error revealed that I can do so by using Task Mgr > End Process
on drwtsn32.exe.
(1) checking Event Logs (Start > Run > eventvwr.msc) for any clues from
events logged at the time of the crash;
Coincident with this last crash, I see the following 2 entries in
Event Viewer:
"Faulting application drwtsn32.exe, version 5.1.2600.0, faulting
module dbghelp.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x0001295d.
Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.3156, faulting
module mcmpgdmx.ax, version 1.0.47.60321, fault address 0x0006b888.
(2) in details view, deleting the Thumbs.db file and letting it get
recreated by the next switch to Thumbnail View, see if that fixes it;
I have checked the box 'Hide protected operating system files
(Recommended)' so I don't tend to see those. I've now removed that
restriction (do you think it's necessary?) so #2 folder now shows 636
files. I deleted Thumbs.db and re-opened. But after many thumbnails
had appeared the crash still occurred ("Windows Explorer has
encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the
inconvenience.)
(3) if you're not using subfolders (which you might want to consider anyway
just for organisational purposes), create a subfolder and put half the files
in it, see if the Thumbnail View of that crashes, ditto the remainder in the
original folder with Thumbs.db deleted. If one works okay but the other
crashes, you might have a corrupt file - hunt it down by whittling away at
the bad batch in similar fashion. Alternatively, in a non-Thumbnails view,
Right-click > Preview the first one and right-arrow your way through them
all in the Picture and Fax Viewer, see if any of the files throws up an
error.
Is any of the files an .avi file?
I'll try further narrowing down and report back.
