Creation of file lists in the panels slow

[JOUBE]

The routines that have recently emerged around icon handling are making the creation of the file lists in the panels (incredibly) slow.
Or is it something else? For me, this is now a bug.

[ghisler(Author)]

What do you mean with creation of file lists? Something like Mark -> Copy selected names to clipboard?

[white]

What do you mean with creation of file lists? Something like Mark -> Copy selected names to clipboard?

...the creation of the file lists in the panels...

"in the panels" suggests that it is about filling the file panels with entries.

[AntonyD]

I think I agree with the topiс-starter that there is a problem.
Sometimes I can clearly see how the panel fills up with lines with file names, and only then - after some and
very noticeable seconds - the sequential process of replacing empty white icon in the lines with icons corresponding
to this particular file in processing begins.

[Horst.Epp]

I miss a lot of info for these types of problems.
What columns are shown (Default or Custom) ?
Local drives or network shares ?
TC setting of Display / Icons ?

Typical system load while using TC ?
Antivirus solution ?

Nothing has changed for me, on showing local file lists in TC.

[ghisler(Author)]

I don't have any such problems either. It could be a lot of things, like
1. Sorting by a custom column - in this case, TC would have to load all the custom fields before it can show anything
2. Slow loading of certain icons - you can check this by disabling all+exe/lnk in configuration - options - icons (change it to "all")
3. The source you try to list could be slow, e.g. a network drive

[white]

2. Slow loading of certain icons - you can check this by disabling all+exe/lnk in configuration - options - icons (change it to "all")

On my system, the loading of icons from .exe files is very slow due to Windows Defender Antivirus. If I add an exclusion for the TC process, it is no longer slow.

[JOUBE]

What do you mean with creation of file lists? Something like Mark -> Copy selected names to clipboard?

...the creation of the file lists in the panels...

"in the panels" suggests that it is about filling the file panels with entries.

yes, exactly.

An example is:
- A folder with around 4000 file, all are small files with the extension *.sha256. *)
- No Defender / antivirus problem.
- Network shares of SSD drives with enough net high speed.
- The computers should also be fast enough.
- It's simply annoying when the panels fill up, comparable to flipping through a book. (Like flipping through a PDF advertising brochure on the web).

After creating this report, because it's been bothering me for months, I finally had to run some tests and discovered the following:
- There's a limit of about 400 files, up to which the panels fill up so quickly that you almost don't notice it. *) (see the however...)
- Above that, there's a significant difference whether it's—oh dear—a Samba share or a Windows share:
- With Windows, the panel list builds up at virtually the same speed.
- With Samba shares, the list builds up slower significantly from the start.
- Since I mostly work with Samba shares (e.g., samba_4.21.4), I didn't notice this difference.
- So it must be more to do with the SMB communication between the TC/Windows and the Samba share, than with the TC icon handling.
- However, I must say that the panel list structure has noticeably lengthened in the last few years of the TC, but not as significantly as I had assumed.
- It remermbers nowadays a little bit at the early years of Tc (with the name Wc) long ago.

Joube

Edit:
*) and there were problems with the icon of exactly this file type recently within Tc.

[ghisler(Author)]

Total Commander calls FindFirstFileEx with parameter FIND_FIRST_EX_LARGE_FETCH to read directories more quickly. I have googled this and it seems that it can cause problems with some Samba servers. Total Commander only calls it on Windows 7 or newer, so for test purposes you can enable Windows Vista compatibility mode for totalcmd64.exe to check whether it makes any difference. This should not be used for every day work, though, because all programs launched from Total Commander would then also inherit this compatibility mode.

[JOUBE]

Windows Vista compatibility mode

Does this mean the "Use compatibility mode for the following drives:" option in the configuration?

If I enable this for a samba share, (in Tc64) the panel list does indeed load quickly (as fast as with a windows share)

However, when I change to a directory with many files, there's a brief "pause" before the list is displayed. And with Tc32 - which I normally use - it unfortunately doesn't work at all (as you have already described indirectly: "for totalcmd64.exe").

What exactly is the problem with Samba (is it a problem with a specific samba version)? Does it make sense to raise this issue in the Samba project, and how do I describe it well ( @ghisler(author): please include a few keywords for that, thanks).

Why doesn't this option work at all in Tc32?

Overall is it a shame that this problem exists and I would be happy if it could be solved (because it is annoying as I descript above).

Joube

[ghisler(Author)]

Does this mean the "Use compatibility mode for the following drives:" option in the configuration?

No, that's for the copy function.

What I mean is that you right click on the Total Commander executable file totalcmd.exe/totalcmd64.exe for about one second until the context menu appears, and then choose "Properties". On the Compatibility tab, choose the compatibility mode for Windows Vista. Then close and re-open Total Commander. After testing, make sure to turn it off again because it will cause other problems.

[JOUBE]

Okay, that does it, but unfortunately it doesn't solve it. What can be done?

[ghisler(Author)]

You can try to reduce functionality, e.g. not loading EXE/LNK and other per file icons on network drives ("EXE/LNK not on net" in settings).