Total Commander

I don't exactly know how to reproduce it, but I've faced it again. I've opened MTP phone folder in TC and it was empty, but Explorer displayed its contents it properly.

Approximate steps to reproduce:
1. Connect a phone to PC in charge mode.
2. Enter virtual phone folder in TC (empty).
3. Switch to MTP file transfer mode.
4. Phone folder in TC is empty but Explorer shows its contents properly.

When I've written this, I've refreshed phone folder in TC once more time, and it opened it properly. But I wonder why it doesn't show it immediately after enabling MTP like Explorer.

Windows 7 x64, TC 9.21a, Samsung Galaxy A320F

This is a known Windows 7 bug which is apparently fixed on Windows 10: When you try to access the virtual phone folder too early after connecting your phone, e.g. before allowing access to the file system, you get an empty folder. No refresh will help then, only closing and re-opening TC. I couldn't find any solution although I tried many things for several hours. The only thing which helps is closing and re-opening TC.

Maybe there is some notification that TC misses? Explorer opens device properly somehow...

No, I completely re-read the virtual folder via IShellFolder (via OLE2), but always get an empty result. It seems to be cached somewhere in the program's copy of the OLE subsystem.