New version (May 31, 2004) is very slow when listing folders

[champ]

Hey. I'm getting this too. It has apparently nothing to do with number of files for me. Sometimes it's just fast and other times just slow. Seems pretty random. And not only folder listing, but also updates in general. Like deleting a file can take up to 5 seconds before it registers on screen or it can be instantaneous from instance to instance.

For me, the slowness only seems to be for folders. For instance, this folder loads in a split second:
C:\WINNT\system32
It contains 29 folders and 1714 files

My problem folders have less "objects" than that folder, but they read slower.

I didn't experience any other "general" slowdown that eXpiation mentioned, such as deleting a file/folder.

[nikos]

I'm not certain what you mean by go "deaf"

i meant that it wouldn't take notice of any changes in the folder, e.g. copying in or deleting files (other than those from the F7 command). That's how you can tell autorefresh has been turned off for good

[JRz]

[...] I didn't experience any other "general" slowdown that eXpiation mentioned, such as deleting a file/folder.

@deleting being slow
There can be many factors that influence the speed of deletion. For instance, if you are using the recycle bin, slowliness may be caused by the bin being full before a delete action, so the first thing that has to be done is make room for the items to be deleted to go into the bin. That can be a significant factor in the delete 'performance' (most of the time this is the main reason for delete actions to be sluggish).

@eXpiation
Try to empty the recycle bin (or disable it) and test again if deleting items shows significant sluggishness.

[eXpiation]

Hey.

When I said deletion, that was an example. It's actually got nothing to do with the speed of how fast it deletes, but rather the speed of the update. eg. Deleting 5 big files take up to 5 seconds to show on screen while deleting a tiny one takes the same amount of time and doing this in 2xExplorer is instantaneous.

[JRz]

Hey.

When I said deletion, that was an example. It's actually got nothing to do with the speed of how fast it deletes, but rather the speed of the update. eg. Deleting 5 big files take up to 5 seconds to show on screen while deleting a tiny one takes the same amount of time and doing this in 2xExplorer is instantaneous.

It can have something to do with the speed of deletion. The display only gets updated if the delete action (or any other action for that matter) is completed.

I mean by updated that the consequences of the action (a delete for instance) are reflected in the actual view of the pane. So, for a delete, the file is no longer displayed in the pane.

For example: deleting 25 files from a floppy disks (deliberately chose slow medium to demonstrate impact on X² behaviour) takes about 15 seconds to complete (on my machine that is). So X² has the pane updated after that amount of time has elapsed.

But then again, since you say that 2xExplorer does the same action faster, that is puzzling...

So what takes 5 seconds in your case:

- time elapsed before displaying a dialog asking for confirmation to delete the specified items (you may not see this dependent on whether you have confirmation enabled or not)
- time elapsed before displaying the dialog to show deletion progress (again dependent on whether you use the recycle bin or not)
- time elapsed before the pane in X² is displaying the changes resulting from the deletion

Can you elaborate on this?

[fgagnon]

I have noticed a pattern now for slow display of a folder (5-10 seconds)
It is only upon "first use" of My Documents
(and it can be after an hour of using x2 everywhere else)
After "first use", redisplays are nearly instantaneous.

Columns are the stock params:
Name, Ext, Size, Attrib, Modified
(with sort on Modified)
System is XP-Pro, sp1, 750MB RAM

Folder statistics (Thanks for importing this feature from 2xExplorer ) are as follows:
"My Documents" [530.103MB]: Sub-Folders=22, Files=529
- "Mail" [203.035MB]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=8
- "My Music" [67.454MB]: Sub-Folders=3, Files=30
- "My Pictures" [63.124MB]: Sub-Folders=2, Files=137
- "radclass" [17.525MB]: Sub-Folders=1, Files=31
- "debuglogs" [15.923MB]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=8
- "crime2002report" [6.842MB]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=28
- "sippy" [4.041MB]: Sub-Folders=1, Files=57
- "x2_topix" [2.508MB]: Sub-Folders=1, Files=12
- "My Albums" [232.656kB]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=1
- "mon_stuf" [118.5kB]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=5
- "SnagIt Catalog" [30.634kB]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=1
- "shortCutz" [17.915kB]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=23
- "scrap-alogs" [1.5kB]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=1
- "My eBooks" [0B]: Sub-Folders=0, Files=0
- 149.25 MB in 187 local file(s)

Closing and restarting x2 will not cause problem to repeat ...
but a reboot will.
(Feels like something to do with a memory cache.)

[nikos]

is explorer slow the first time you read that same folder?
and is this something that only started with 1001?

[fgagnon]

I'll have to check the explorer timing (but a pain to reboot for each chack)

No, this has been going on for a while (certainly since 1.0.0.0 & probably earlier); but not reproducible enough to report & self-healing after first encounter, so it's generally tolerable.
It's also often buried in boot-up process delays when x2 is auto-start & had been last used in My Documents.

[edit+add:] first check is Start | My Documents displays contents from scratch in 1-2 seconds on first encounter. Second try is 0.5-1 second.
Following that, with no further restart, I opened x2-Pro [1.0.0.1] and found it with My Documents up in inactive pane. Following a click in the inactive pane, it took about 6 seconds for it to become active.

(x2 did not open where I had left it , maybe a phantom instance had been left open & I missed it --- subject of a different discussion ) [/edit]

[mbkintner]

This my first post but for quite awhile I've been a die-hard user of 2X and an avid reader of these forums. I'm currently evaluating X2 Pro. It's taken me a little while to get used to it (I'd become quite comfortable with 2X) but overall it's an excellent product.

The only thing stopping me from registering at this point is a problem that I feel is/may be related to the slow display of folders that's been described. The contents of my folders display almost immediately, however the application specific icons for each file don’t display immediately. Instead the icons are displayed as the generic windows icon that is shown for a file with no extension or an extension that is not recognized. Then the icons update to the correct icon for each files extension. This happens regardless of how many times I have been into and out of the same folder.

I’ve done some forum searches but haven’t found any information on this. Is this related to the folder problem?

Thanks!

[nikos]

icons and other slow information (columns) is "delay loaded"
you can start working with the folder immediately while icons etc are fetched in the background. Its all for the better!

[fgagnon]

Frustrating lack of reprodicibility:
reboot does not guarantee being able to reproduce the slow first display of My Documents problem.
-- even cold boot / power off for a minute.

PS: I suspect the problem occurs with other large folders, but I noticed the (more or less) pattern with this this one.

PPS: Just had a case where mydocs opened at once from tree activation, but after one intervening folder it took 5-10 seconds to reopen mydocs with my "usual" method: from toolbar bookmarked button
(& lots of free resources & no heavy duty apps running in parallel)

[mbkintner]

What exactly is better about this information being "delay loaded"? I never noticed this in 2X so I'm curious what benefit was deemed important enough to make this change between products.

The delayed loading is not a big deal it's merely an annoyance but you know how those annoyances can get.........well.........annoying.

Has this been discussed in another thread that I can't find? I don't want to rehash anything thats already been "hashed".

[fgagnon]

mbkintner,
2X doesn't have the extra columns. x2 permits working right away as a feature once the basic info is displayed, which fetching the additional column data in a background thread, & displaying it as it is acquired.
you can use search tool (above) to find a couple of other threads that also discuss column handling features & issues. try delay column for search query and require all terms.
-----

nikos,
I pulled v57 out of archival dust bin & find same behaviour
First visit of mydocs had a delay of 4 seconds to display & activate.
Intantaneous display after that. Same for list view style, no details.

& for first test I did NOT have to reboot after using v1.0.0.1 & got the delay with old v57 (using a separate registry "key", of course).

So the roots of the behaviour are not recent, in case it makes any difference in where to "look" for cause.

[nikos]

mbkintner, this delay loading is a change for the better
think thumbnails for example. Although they take a long time to extract, you don't have to wait for all the folder to be thumbnail'd as the old 2x would have done. You can start working immediately, scrolling selecting or whatever, and as thumbnails become available you'll be presented with them. This is definitely an improvement!

[Robert2]

Greetings--
Obviously, display speed of any application is heavily dependent on the system hardware. Plenty of video memory and a fast quality video card with adequate settings most certainly help. An adequate amount of memory banks might help too. Windows XP needs 512 Mb to work at ease. The video card should have at least 64 Mb. A fast processor might help too.
This said, even on a pretty fast system, the 2xplorer display update was significantly faster than is that of current xplorer². 2xplorer opened big folders (1300 files+) in the blink of an eye. Now xplorer² opens these same folders in 2 or 3 blinks of an eye. This is fast enough but the difference is perceivable. By the way, the Windows Explorer opens these same folders marginally slower than xplorer² on my system.
But then, there is an area where xplorer² is significantly slower than 2xplorer. This is when I move a file (or a group of files) from one folder to another (from one pane to the other) by drag & drop. In 2xplorer, the target pane listing got updated in the twinkling of an eye. Now in xplorer², the update is significantly slower. It can take up to one full second. Of course, this is nothing to grumble about, but it is still quite noticeable. Maybe there is much more code to process in xplorer²?