Thumbnail Speed

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meteorquake
Posts: 501
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:44 pm

Thumbnail Speed

Post by meteorquake »

When I do an everything search and use a thumbnail grid view, it is sluggish to display them, even when trying high priority settings in the options. I am usually viewing JPGs.

However if on one of the undisplaying ones I do Ctrl-Enter to jump into the windows folder, windows is able to display the thumbnails of the entire folder nearly instantly.

It seems to me everything has two sources of thumbnails - the file's internal thumbnail, and windows' cache, but if these are being used they are not being used in an efficient way. I would think wherever windows is able to do a near-instant display of the thumbs then Everything should too?

Any thoughts?

Cheers, David
void
Developer
Posts: 16746
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by void »

What version of Everything and what version of Windows are you using?
meteorquake
Posts: 501
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by meteorquake »

I'm on 1.4.1.1005 (x64) - Win10 :)
meteorquake
Posts: 501
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by meteorquake »

Just checked 1.5.0.1300a (x64) and the same issue.
A folder of 401 images displays rapidly in Explorer but relatively chugs along in Everything.
Can I check what the basic algorithm for coming up with the thumbnails is, as it may give some clues?
David
raccoon
Posts: 1017
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:24 am

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by raccoon »

By default, Everything only displays thumbnails on-demand as you scroll, loading just the thumbnails of the objects currently visible on screen and not for objects further down the scroll.

If you want to pre-load more thumbnails without having to scroll first, use this command in the search bar and pick a value that is appropriate for you. Examples:

/request_extra_fileinfo_end=500

/request_extra_fileinfo_end=10000

(default) /request_extra_fileinfo_end=
NotNull
Posts: 5461
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 9:22 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by NotNull »

Are you running Everything as administrator?
meteorquake
Posts: 501
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by meteorquake »

Both as service (1.4.1.1005 (x64)) and administrator (v 1.5) with the same situation.
I'll have a look at the options you suggest and report back! My thinking is that if the thumbnails are already available either in the jpg files or the windows thumb cache, it should be possible to give a fast display :)
Thanks!
David
raccoon
Posts: 1017
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:24 am

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by raccoon »

We strongly recommend that nobody ever runs Everything 'As Administrator' unless they desperately need to. Just FYI. Run the service unless you are in a special situation.
void
Developer
Posts: 16746
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by void »

Everything is loading thumbnails instantly for me on Windows 10 x64 21H1 with Everything 1.4.1.1015 and Everything 1.5.0.1299a.

Everything uses IShellItemImageFactory::GetImage with SIIGBF_BIGGERSIZEOK|SIIGBF_THUMBNAILONLY to load thumbnails.



Please ensure Everything is running as a standard user.
  • In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
  • Click the General tab on the left.
  • Check Store settings and data in %APPDATA%\Everything
  • Uncheck Run as administrator.
  • Check Everything Service. (Please make sure this is tick-checked and not square-checked)
  • Click OK.
  • Exit Everything (right click the Everything tray icon and click Exit).
  • Restart Everything.

Please try resetting your thumbnail cache:
  • In Windows Explorer, type in the following address and press ENTER:
    %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
  • Shift + Right click an empty area on the right and click Open Powershell here.
  • Terminate any Explorer.exe processes with Task Manager.
  • In Windows Powershell, type in the following and press ENTER:
    del thumbnail*.db
  • In Task Manager, from the File menu, click Run New Task.
  • Type in explorer and click OK.


Try disabling IShellItemImageFactory::GetImage:

To disable IShellItemImageFactory::GetImage calls in Everything:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /shell_item_image_factory=0
  • If successful, shell_item_image_factory=0 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.
When disabled, Everything will fall back to IExtractImage::Extract



To re-enable IShellItemImageFactory::GetImage:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /shell_item_image_factory=1
  • If successful, shell_item_image_factory=1 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.


IShellItemImageFactory::GetImage might be failing in Everything.
With IShellItemImageFactory::GetImage enabled, try disabling IExtractImage::Extract:

To disable IExtractImage::Extract calls in Everything:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /extract_image=0
  • If successful, extract_image=0 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.
With IExtractImage::Extract disabled, does Everything continue to show thumbnails?
Press F5 to refresh thumbnail cache in Everything.



To re-enable IExtractImage::Extract:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /extract_image=1
  • If successful, extract_image=1 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.


shell_item_image_factory
extract_image
meteorquake
Posts: 501
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by meteorquake »

Many thanks - trying all those the results are the same - Explorer too rapidly shows the files as thumbs to count whereas Everything is hugely slower in doing so (2 a second at a guess), including after Explorer has created all the necessary cached thumbs, but has bursts where it fills up short stretches near-instantly.
I do regularly check the integrity of the windows system using DISM and SFC. I also tried putting Everything as high priority, and out of curiosity switched off Controlled Folder Access.
Perhaps it will remain a mystery until someone thinks of it. But I may check a few other programs to see if they are encountering the same difficulty or not as it's certainly the ideal that Everything should be able to do this as rapidly as Explorer.
David
meteorquake
Posts: 501
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by meteorquake »

Can I add here I tried on my wife's laptop and found the same issue - Explorer is instant (presumably using EXIF thumbnails) but Everything Sluggish (each seems to be read file fully ignoring any thumbs, even though Explorer has already processed them).
Files are typically 6 Mb jpg photos.
d
void
Developer
Posts: 16746
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by void »

Thanks for the reply meteorquake,

IShellItemImageFactory::GetImage should be loading thumbnails from the system thumbnail cache.

Please confirm Everything is running as a standard user:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /debug
  • At the top of the newly shown debug console should be the following line:
    IsAdmin x
  • Is x a 1 or a 0? (1=admin, 0=standard user)
To close the debug console:
  • Type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /debug


Windows Explorer does load EXIF thumbnails.
This might be happening outside IShellItemImageFactory::GetImage.
I have put on my TODO list to add EXIF thumbnails to Everything.
Thank you for the suggestion.
meteorquake
Posts: 501
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by meteorquake »

Yes IsAdmin 0
Important to consider but I'd hope that the system thumbnail cache is general rather than user specific!
EXIF thumbnails would be fantastic :)
David
Oblomov228
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:57 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by Oblomov228 »

raccoon wrote: Tue Feb 15, 2022 5:31 pm By default, Everything only displays thumbnails on-demand as you scroll, loading just the thumbnails of the objects currently visible on screen and not for objects further down the scroll.

If you want to pre-load more thumbnails without having to scroll first, use this command in the search bar and pick a value that is appropriate for you. Examples:

/request_extra_fileinfo_end=500

/request_extra_fileinfo_end=10000

(default) /request_extra_fileinfo_end=
Just tried this, it does nothing...
EDIT: not in the normal version, as opposed 'Everything 1.5a'.
Oblomov228
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:57 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by Oblomov228 »

To add to this. Thumbnails load super slowly for me due to Dropbox. My external hard drive, where I keep most of my files, is backed up to Dropbox and is about 4 TB, 5400 RPM.
Terminating Dropbox, returns the loading of the thumbnails to normal... though it would be nice if it could be faster still. Some sort of option, that is akin to https://github.com/bruhov/WinThumbsPreloader, which more or less displays all thumbnails without loading.

That of /request_extra_fileinfo_end=10000 (not sure what the limit to it is rn) does however help, in regards to 'Everything 1.5a'
void
Developer
Posts: 16746
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Thumbnail Speed

Post by void »

Everything is only limited by available memory.

/request_extra_fileinfo_end=10000 will quickly eat a lot of RAM.

request_extra_fileinfo_start
request_extra_fileinfo_end
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