ACDSee Pro 3

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Progress tracker in the lower right

(17 posts)

  • Sinbios
    Member

    Hi, this topic seems to have come up a bit but I haven't found an answer for my problem.

    Like the topic says it's concerning the little progress tracker in the lower right corner of the file browser. Whenever I enter a folder with a few thousand files ACDSee would thrash away for five minutes or so while the progress runs up to 100%. Clicking on it stops the process but whenever I leave and return to the folder it starts up again.

    I figure it's processing the contents of the folder, but what exactly is taking so long? Is there anything at all I can do to speed this up? The folder only contains archives, not images, and I don't have the folder excluded from the database, so it shouldn't be generating thumbnails or anything like that.

    The thing that bugs me the most is, if I click the progress bar the process stops and I can do everything I need to do just fine. The entire exercise brings me no benefit, just pain. All I'm asking is an option to cancel that operation whenever I enter the folder, or make the cancel persist through a session. If there's anything else I can do to speed this along, like cataloguing every single file in the folder or disable thumbnails or something, I'm all for that too. But nothing I've tried so far seems to help rid me of this annoyance.

    Posted On October 17, 2009 - 03:45 PM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Heidi
    Moderator

    If I were you, since these folders don't contain images, right before you enter one of these folders switch to the details view.  Then you will only see filenames.  The process you are talking is basically "cataloging" the files and part of that process is it tries to build thumbnails.  I am hoping that when it is details view it will skip the latter process of thumbnail building and speed it up for you.   Cataloging the folders would probably help also.

    Posted On October 17, 2009 - 03:53 PM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sinbios
    Member

    Thanks for your first suggestion, but I do default to details view already.

    For your second suggestion, I always assumed that if a folder is not excluded from the database it is automatically catalogued. Does manually cataloguing override something and store some extra info? I'll give it a try and let you know if it works.

    Posted On October 17, 2009 - 04:03 PM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sinbios
    Member

    I tried cataloguing the folder but it seems archive files aren't processed by the cataloguing. Anything else I can try?

    Posted On October 17, 2009 - 05:09 PM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Dand
    Member

    Sinbios – I have had similar problems with Nikons raw format (NEF). But only when the files are developed in ACDSee.

     

    It’s the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. As long as they are undeveloped there is no such problem. But when developed they are nearly impossible to work with in large folder. And the folders does not have to be that large… A hundred NEFs are enough to make med go craaazzzzy…

     

    I’ve discussed it in two treads:

     

    1. http://community.acdsee.com/forums/topic/nikon-shooters-problem-with-the-nikon-nef-format

     

    1. http://community.acdsee.com/forums/topic/how-to-get-more-speed-out-of-acdsee

     

     

    I have found no solution for it and I have not yet received an answer or response (other than the automatic one) from ACDSee support. Anyway it’s. interesting to see that someone have a similar problem (or maybe even the same). Now I at least feel less lonely.

     

    And thanks! I did not know that I could click the counter (progress tracker) to stop the progress – that will help at least me a little. It sure does not solve the problem but it eases the pain a bit.

     

    And now we have at least two examples (Or do you now more?) of unnecessary re-cataloguing when revisiting a folder and with two different file types there might be easier for ACDSee to track down the cause of the problem.

    Posted On October 18, 2009 - 03:34 PM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • PhilRose
    Member

    I'm with you. ACDSee does the same thing in a folder with a mixed bag of files. Why, when they are already catalogued, does it do this? The whole program is beginning to strike me as a big scary piece of bloatware :( 

     

    AND why don't ACDSee support respond to request for support? Isn't that their raison d'etre?

    Posted On October 18, 2009 - 04:21 PM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Dand
    Member

    Well I don't think the support folks are hiding... I just guess they have a lot to do at the moment - just after the release... Actually I have always got really good help from them when I've had problems with previous versions of ACDSee Pro.

    Actually they are the only support team that actually have helped me. Other companies that I have dealt with (or dealt with their products) have never really done anything but sent some standard answers.

    I'm confident that they will solve this problem.

    Or I hope they will...
    Hope they still have the same intention and resources to really help their customers and fix issues as they've had before.

     

    Posted On October 18, 2009 - 04:32 PM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Marc Sabatella
    Moderator

    PhilRose said:

    I'm with you. ACDSee does the same thing in a folder with a mixed bag of files. Why, when they are already catalogued, does it do this? The whole program is beginning to strike me as a big scary piece of bloatware :(

    It actually works very well most of the time, but the archives might be the problem here.  If they are already cataloged, it shouldn't need to do so again, and whatever issue Dand is seeing, is seems to be pretty much unique to his system, and involves NEF files in particular.  Your problems seems to be different, as it invovles archives.  Did you check the option to include archives when you ran the catalog operation?   What is in the archives?  If running the catalog operation with the relevant optin checked doesn't finish the job, what about simply visitng hte folder in question and letting it finish rather than clicking the status icon?

    AND why don't ACDSee support respond to request for support? Isn't that their raison d'etre?

    It is, and they do normally respond, although sometimes it takes a few days.  Did you actually submit a support ticket?  They *don't* normally respond to posts here; this is a a user forum.

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 03:50 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sinbios
    Member

    Did you check the option to include archives when you ran the catalog operation?

    Yes, I unchecked "archive image files only". After running through a pass it shows 0 items catalogued, even though many of them have keywords attached to them and I have "Import ACDSee organizing information (categories, keywords, tagged)" checked.

    What is in the archives?

    Image files, mostly, but I don't think ACDSee tries to look inside archives until it's told to enter one.

    If running the catalog operation with the relevant optin checked doesn't finish the job, what about simply visitng hte folder in question and letting it finish rather than clicking the status icon?

    That's what I do, every time I start up ACDSee. But whatever information this process gathers doesn't seem to persist across ACDSee sessions, so every time I close it the next time I have to sit through the whole thing again. I just mentioned clicking the icon as a way of stopping the process, but it's not a viable solution for me at all since the process starts back up whenever I leave and re-enter the folder (e.g. go into an archive, and then back out into the main folder). However, if the development crew could make a checkbox somewhere that says once I click the icon, the effect persists through the session, or perhaps make it so that whatever procedure is triggered by clicking the icon that stops the indexing process is automatically triggered every time I enter a folder, then that would solve the problem.

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 04:12 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sinbios
    Member

    Actually I decided to give the help for the catalogue process a peek and here's what it says:

    The ACDSee Pro database stores image and media file information automatically when you browse your folders. This process is called cataloging. The database increases the speed with which you can browse your computer, and you can use the information stored in the database to sort, organize, search, and filter your images and media files. You can also backup, restore, and share database information.

    Curious. The database apparently only stores information about image and media files. But what about the keyword information attached to other filetypes? And apparently it keeps scanning the list of non-image and media files for something, so how do I get it to keep that information so it doesn't do it again the next time?

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 04:18 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Marc Sabatella
    Moderator

    Sinbios said:

    Did you check the option to include archives when you ran the catalog operation?

    Yes, I unchecked "archive image files only".

    That's not the option I asked about - what about "Include contents of archive files"?

    What is in the archives?

    Image files, mostly, but I don't think ACDSee tries to look inside archives until it's told to enter one.

    Right, and that's what the option I mentioned does - at least in theory.

    That's what I do, every time I start up ACDSee. But whatever information this process gathers doesn't seem to persist across ACDSee sessions

    That's definitely not right - the whole point of the db is to be persistent.  I don't suppose the folder is excluded from the db?  That's the only thing I can think that would cause that.  Whatever is going on, it isn't normal behavior - it should of course remember.

    Archives, though, are not my thing.  Seems like in the old days when it was the only way to group up some files into one ball in order to simplify ftp upload or whatever, there seemed to be more reason to use them, but nowadays they seem like just a much clumsier way of doing something accomplished far more easily with a folder.  Is there something special about the archive functionality you need?  I'm just thinking that as a workaround, you could consider just abandoning the use of archives.

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 05:30 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Marc Sabatella
    Moderator

    Sinbios said:

    Did you check the option to include archives when you ran the catalog operation?

    Yes, I unchecked "archive image files only".

    That's not the option I asked about - what about "Include contents of archive files"?

    What is in the archives?

    Image files, mostly, but I don't think ACDSee tries to look inside archives until it's told to enter one.

    Right, and that's what the option I mentioned does - at least in theory.

    That's what I do, every time I start up ACDSee. But whatever information this process gathers doesn't seem to persist across ACDSee sessions

    That's definitely not right - the whole point of the db is to be persistent.  I don't suppose the folder is excluded from the db?  That's the only thing I can think that would cause that.  Whatever is going on, it isn't normal behavior - it should of course remember.

    Archives, though, are not my thing.  Seems like in the old days when it was the only way to group up some files into one ball in order to simplify ftp upload or whatever, there seemed to be more reason to use them, but nowadays they seem like just a much clumsier way of doing something accomplished far more easily with a folder.  Is there something special about the archive functionality you need?  I'm just thinking that as a workaround, you could consider just abandoning the use of archives.

    Oh, and I suspect the help file was just being imprecise - keywords and so forth can indeed be applied to other types of files.

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 05:30 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sinbios
    Member

     

    That's not the option I asked about - what about "Include contents of archive files"?

    I've tried that but ACDSee usually crashes before it manages even a fraction of the whole thing, and the files are frequently updated so I'd have to recatalogue each time. No noticeable improvement in any case. Do you think that maybe ACDSee is browsing through each of the archives when I enter the directory? Wouldn't that mean it would recurse through normal folders as well, and whenever you're at the root of some drive you'd get crazy indexing going on?

    That's definitely not right - the whole point of the db is to be persistent.  I don't suppose the folder is excluded from the db?

    Nope. I tried excluding it once and not only did it not speed the process, it silently wiped all the DB info. Good thing I had a recent backup.

     

    Archives, though, are not my thing.  Seems like in the old days when it was the only way to group up some files into one ball in order to simplify ftp upload or whatever, there seemed to be more reason to use them, but nowadays they seem like just a much clumsier way of doing something accomplished far more easily with a folder.  Is there something special about the archive functionality you need?  I'm just thinking that as a workaround, you could consider just abandoning the use of archives.

    I suppose that's an idea, but this means whenever I receive the archives from clients I'd have to extract them, and pack them up again when I want to send them out. Archives also provided a little corruption protection since I'd at least get unexpected EOF alerts.

    I guess I wouldn't mind trying this on a mirrored set of data, is there a way to transfer current db info that's attached to archives to folders?

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 05:44 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sinbios
    Member

    With a little elbow grease I found out what ACDSee is doing. It's creating /thousands/ of temporary folders under <userdir>/AppData/Local/Temp/ACDTempFolder, presumably one for each archive it anticipates accessing.

    I'm not sure why it is necessary to do this, but I've locked those folders down so it won't have to recreate them next time. Hopefully this does the trick.

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 10:15 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sinbios
    Member

    One thing I forgot to mention, I remembered why I didn't use folders instead of archives. You can't group by keywords on folders, because they all default to the 'Folder' keyword! Weird.

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 10:17 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sinbios
    Member

    No good, turns out locking the folders from removal just makes ACDSee open and check each and every single folder on startup, for EACH ARCHIVE THAT EXISTS. Yes sir, that is O(n^2) runtime, on extremely slow filesystem operations.

    I'm about ready to throw in the towel; obviously it was designed to be this way, since nobody would ever hit 4000 archives.

    Posted On October 19, 2009 - 11:50 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Marc Sabatella
    Moderator

    Sinbios said:

    Do you think that maybe ACDSee is browsing through each of the archives when I enter the directory? Wouldn't that mean it would recurse through normal folders as well, and whenever you're at the root of some drive you'd get crazy indexing going on?

    I don't know, I'd expect it to examine contents of archives when you browsed but not recurse folders.  Sounds like that is what it is doing, and creating those temp files you mentioned too.

    Nope. I tried excluding it once and not only did it not speed the process, it silently wiped all the DB info.

    Well, sure, that's what excluding from the db means.  I wans't suggesting doing this; just wondering if you had alrady done so, since that would explain why it had to reindex eveyr time you returned.

    I suppose that's an idea, but this means whenever I receive the archives from clients I'd have to extract them, and pack them up again when I want to send them out.

    Yeah, I guess if you're dealing with clients who use archives, that would be difficult, especially with respect to managing the db info.

    I remembered why I didn't use folders instead of archives. You can't group by keywords on folders, because they all default to the 'Folder' keyword!

    Just checked that, and you're right.  I suppose you could probably still find another way of organizing things, but it might require a bit of rethinking the whole system, and might not be worth it.

    Posted On October 21, 2009 - 03:08 AM (5 months ago) (Permalink to this post)

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