File Explorer (Win 10) behaving strangely

[Lord Szechenyi]

When i launch file explorer, thumbnails for .jpg don't appear anymore

Also, certain folders make explorer take up to 30% CPU usage (I3-10100) for about half a minute then it goes back to normal

WTF is going on? i had no issues yesterday so what happened? 

And as far as i know, no Virus as Defender says it detects none (after I did 2 full scans)

[emosun]

Do a system restore to a point when it was working. 

 

However it may not fix the issue permanently if you have windows just doing whatever it wants update wise itll probably return.

[Cheeki]

If you have a folder with alot of files then it has to load and display all of them. That can use your cpu by quite a bit. If your previews have disappeared, then at the top, this also works on windows 10. It's also called view, in the drop down. Click on the preferred size you want, with icons. 

[Lord Szechenyi]

1 minute ago, Cheeki said:

If you have a folder with alot of files then it has to load and display all of them. That can use your cpu by quite a bit. If your previews have disappeared, then at the top, this also works on windows 10. It's also called view, in the drop down. Click on the preferred size you want, with icons. 

Spoiler

 

"lot of files"

 

Does 20 files count as a lot?

[Cheeki]

Just now, Lord Szechenyi said:

"lot of files"

 

Does 20 files count as a lot?

I said if. Large files can cause this to happen as well. Here for example, I copy pasted my os's folder a few times, it has 20, but each file is fairly large. I recorded a small video to demonstrate. Now I have a fairly fast cpu, but you can notice the usage go up, on slower cpu's and drive the usage is more noticeable and might have a bigger impact as you navigate

[Lord Szechenyi]

Solved it!

 

There was a process called "COM Surrogate" that took 15% CPU usage, killed the application and now file explorer works properly

[Cheeki]

3 minutes ago, Lord Szechenyi said:

Solved it!

 

There was a process called "COM Surrogate" that took 15% CPU usage, killed the application and now file explorer works properly

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090212-00/?p=19173

 

I mean you are literally doing the exact opposite of what you want. That program is what is fetching your thumbnails.. It'll re open itself because it's a default windows process. You can't have your cake and eat it too in this case. You gotta choose if you want your thumbnails, if it's lagging you or not. If you can't handle the lag, then force check always show icons in the 4th screenshot of my last message.

[Lord Szechenyi]

Just now, Cheeki said:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090212-00/?p=19173

 

I mean you are literally doing the exact opposite of what you want. That program is what is fetching your thumbnails.. It'll re open itself because it's a default windows process. You can't have your cake and eat it too in this case. You gotta choose if you want your thumbnails, if it's lagging you or not. If you can't handle the lag, then force check always show icons in the 4th screenshot of my last message.

Well all i know is, after i did that, thumbnails re appeared and File Explorer worked at normal speed

[Mavendow]

7 hours ago, Lord Szechenyi said:

Well all i know is, after i did that, thumbnails re appeared and File Explorer worked at normal speed

This happens because the COM Surrogate fails to load within the expected timeout, usually due to permissions or corrupt indexing data. The former is unlikely since these hangs are pretty consistent if the problem is due to invalid permissions. So, what's probably happening is one of the "thumbs.db" somewhere on your drive has gone rogue. If it happens again try a program like Glary Utilities to dump the thumbnail cache. Windows Cleanup can do it too but it kinda sucks since that app is from like 1990.