Disappearing Columns

[smcpherson]

For more than a year I've been finding when I open xplorer2 that some of my selected columns have disappeared. Sometimes I can just re-select them, sometimes they are missing from the list of available columns, the list being (temporarily) a lot shorter than it usually is.
"Name" and "Comments" are OK, the problem always occurs with "Title" and "Date Picture Taken": these are the columns I use most often.
I'm currently on 2.4.0.1 [Ansi} LITE 16/12/2013 with XP but I've had the same problem with several previous versions.
What am I doing wrong?

[nikos]

for XP i cannot understand how columns got missing... try using the [S]tock columns e.g. there is one for date picture taken (not for title though)

[smcpherson]

Thanks for your prompt response. I have 17 Stock columns to choose from and Date Picture Taken isn't one of them. There are columns for Date Created, Accessed and Modified: Modified is usually within an hour of Date Picture Taken unless, of course, the picture has actually been modified by re-sizing or editing in which case it is entirely different. Title is probably more important to me as I have made extensive use of the title field.
The disappearances are more of an annoyance than a showstopper: I just thought that there might have been some sort of quick fix that I had missed.
Thanks again.

[nikos]

right, the stock "date taken" column is not available in the lite version, sorry.
as for the disappearing, I don't know why it happens, especially as you say when they disappear from the list itself (ALT+K command)
do you have TSVN installed on that computer?

[smcpherson]

No, until you mentioned it I had never even heard of TSVN. I use AVG anti-virus: could that have anything to do with it?

[nikos]

i don't think your AV is to blame

[Kilmatead]

(Just thinking out loud...) it would be interesting to know if these same columns disappeared from explorer's column-list as well at the same time (which admittedly, would be pretty weird), and would suggest a deeper problem of unstable COM registration - which would probably be the equivalent of finding life on Mars and then having it bum a cigarette off you out of spite just for interrupting its nap. Stranger things have happened.

Again, just thinking out loud...

[smcpherson]

I'll check the Windows Explorer column list the next time the problem arises. The difficulty is that I only encounter the problem around every fourth time that I use xplorer2, and having encountered the problem around three times out of four I can re-select the missing columns straight away from the full column list. It's therefore only very occasionally that I see the shorter list without "Date Picture Taken" etc. Today xplorer2 is working perfectly.

Nevertheless, something is indeed unstable. My gut feeling is that the root of the problem lies in how xplorer2 and XP boot up: could it be that xplorer2 on occasion starts up before the column list has had time to load properly?

I'm going on holiday tomorrow and my desktop machine will be staying at home. It may, therefore, be some time before I can investigate further.

Many thanks for all your comments.