Freezes on Network Shares

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BGM
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Freezes on Network Shares

#1 Post by BGM » 08.11.2014, 05:25

My FreeCommander is open to \\computer\on\my\network and I have set it to copy some files (using Windows for copying) to the remote disk. I have been waiting an entire minute already while the entire FC interface is completely white. When I move the mouse over it I get the spinny thing. After some time passes, it will "return to itself" and I'll be able to interact with it again. But I've lost at least a minute and a half with a white, non-responsive screen as FC figures out that it really does have a connection to the remote disk.

And when I navigate the folders in the remote location sometimes FC becomes "ghosted" and non-responsive whilst the spinny thing spins. And you have to wait for it without being able to interact - just for navigation! It is painful.

I don't mind so much waiting on the network connection.
What bothers me is the non-responsive, frozen interface.

Maybe there should be some asynchronous threading somewhere?

You know, I think this is a Windows issue and not a FC issue, though.
If anyone comes here a-lookin', check out this page.
(Windows 10-1909 Professional 64bit)

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BGM
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#2 Post by BGM » 15.12.2014, 23:03

Agh! Network use needs some threading!

Look at this.
Okay, we have an MPLS here - it's like a VPN that makes a remote subnet part of my internal network so I can use UNC paths in the file-browser. My connection is 4.5 Mbs with about 3 Mbs effective.

So I can browse files in the other subnet over UNC paths (although it does freeze up.
But if I copy files, FreeCommanderXE whites out for 5 minutes or more and I just get a spinny waiting cursor.
It makes FreeCommander totally unresponsive for long periods of time.

FreeCommander needs to be able to deal with networking without disrupting the main thread for the interface.

Look at my screenshot. It's been like this for 10 minutes now.
The thing is that FC or Windows operating through FC - I don't know which, wants to figure out all the file sizes before it does anything. So if I delete a large file over the connection, it freezes up until there is enough information to return to the dialogue box to display information. This whole process should be off-threaded.
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Karol
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#3 Post by Karol » 15.12.2014, 23:23

You use "Use Windows" option for copy operation - have you tried "Use FC"?
If you use drag&drop - try to deactivate "Use blocking transfer".

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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#4 Post by BGM » 16.12.2014, 02:37

Karol, thanks for answering,
I did already have both of those options enabled.
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#5 Post by BGM » 19.06.2015, 18:17

Our MPLS (like a VPN) is down today, and I instinctively typed a UNC address into FC.
Of course, since the location is not there, FC turned white and froze up for me for about 20 seconds, being unresponsive until it could realize the location is not available.

I am dreaming of being able to push the escape button to get FC to stop trying to find whether the location exists!
Is this possible?
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#6 Post by BGM » 24.07.2015, 00:36

Okay, so here's another scenario.

I have a network share open in FC and the connection is lost on the remote machine.
When I come to FC, the tab to that share is open.
If I make the mistake and push refresh then I have to wait for the timeout - 30 seconds at least, all the while FC ghosts to white and is unresponsive.
(Windows 10-1909 Professional 64bit)

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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#7 Post by BGM » 08.08.2015, 18:15

Here is another scenario:

I have a laptop and I plug it in so it is now connected to the network.
On my workstation I use FC to open \\mylaptop\c$ by typing the address into the addressbar.

FC freezes when I type \\mylaptop and it does not display the \c$ as I type because it is busy negotiating the network path. So I have to wait until it realizes the location exists before the addressbar displays my location.

So, now that I have the network admin share open, I copy a bunch of files to my computer and let it run (large copy job).
Later, when I come back to my computer, when I click onto FC, FC ghosts to white and freezes whilst it tries to negotiate the network again to make sure \\mylaptop still exists.

Now, I don't have a problem with waiting for FC to find the network location.
My problem is that FC ghosts to white and freezes whilst it negotates the paths.
During this time it is completely unusable and drives me nuts.

Is there no way to remedy this?
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#8 Post by BGM » 16.01.2016, 21:13

Well, I'm still having this problem.

This time, the other computer is on the network and I type the address into FreeCommander's addressbar: \\theComputer\ and as soon as I type the c$ for the administrative share, FreeCommander ghosts white and I cannot interact with it anymore until it resolves the existence of \\theComputer\c$ even before I finish typing the rest of the path. If it can't find the computer then I lose interactivity with FC for even longer times.

I don't have any problem with how long it takes to resolve the existence of the remote directory. My problem is that I can't canel out of it, and I can't use FreeCommander at all during that time because the entire window is frozen during.
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ok1
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#9 Post by ok1 » 18.01.2016, 00:19

There does seem to be some inefficient code in FreeCommander with UNC network paths. If you have the tree display on for the active panel then it appears to search or walk the network tree when you enter the name. In my case it takes over 1 minute 10 seconds if I parse a second network I use (still on the local LAN). It doesn't matter if you enter the name directly or go to a favourite to a direct path it seems to be the same.

So the work around is to turn off the tree display before you go to a UNC path. Yes, you have to remember to do it.

I would be great if this was fixed or have a flag to control this but it is a foible I am happy to live with for all the advantages and features that FreeCommander provides.

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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#10 Post by BGM » 18.01.2016, 01:30

Yeah, I don't usually use the tree.
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#11 Post by BGM » 29.02.2016, 17:28

Oh, please, please, Marek, can you add a hotkey to abort the search for network location????

If I try to access \\mycomputer and I accidentally type \\mycomputr then I have to wait for the timeout before FreeCommander unfreezes.

So, I type in an address \\mycomputer\c$ and I wait for it to determine that it is inaccessible (FC is ghosted over for nearly a minute) and I finally get a popup telling me it is inaccessible. But I am working in another folder tab, and I've left the \\mycomputer tab open. Now I go to change tabs in that panel and FC has to go and check AGAIN before I can change tabs! Now I have to wait AGAIN whilst FC is ghosted over.

Or maybe there can be an option to change the timeout?

I hate it when FC freezes and ghosts over.

What would be optimal is that the network check works in a background thread and the rest of FC does not get locked up whilst it tries to resolve.


Can I beg, Marek? (Pretty please, with sugar on top, can you fix this?)
(Windows 10-1909 Professional 64bit)

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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#12 Post by BGM » 04.10.2016, 23:12

Okay, so the improvements for handling network shares have been wonderful. The cancel button is nice.
However, we still aren't out of the evil dark forest.

Say I have my laptop on, and on my desktop I browse to the admin share on the laptop. I open a couple of tabs to the laptop's shares.
Now I open a few local tabs.

Now I shut off my laptop.

Then I start closing tabs in FC. When I close last tab before one of the laptop-share tabs, FC freezes whilst it tries to discern the existence of the laptop share. And it does this for each laptop-share tab that I come to.

Probably the cancel button should come up whenever FC has to search for the location, and the rest of FC should still be free to function.
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#13 Post by BGM » 18.11.2017, 02:32

Running Build 750 on Windows 7.

So, I was working on one of the secretary's computers, fixing some of her firefox profiles. It was time to go, so I left, and I left the tabs open in FC to folders on her computer.
Then she shut down her computer and went home.

Later, when I came back to my desk, I saw the tabs open to her computer, so I wanted to close them.
FC ghosts white and does not react for about a minute.
Then, after FC comes to itself, the tabs are still open, so I try to close them again, and I get an error message for each one saying the location isn't available.

Soooo....
First, FC ghosted white and was un-usable for the time it took for the network location to resolve as an error.
Then, I got error messages when I closed tabs. You should only get them when you open tabs. If I'm closing a tab, I don't need to know any longer that the location is not available.

Therefore, if we do away with the network resolution on closing a tab, then I would not have had any issues here, I think.
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nedalnib
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#14 Post by nedalnib » 17.05.2018, 15:12

I have the same issue.
Other scenario to reproduce:
1) I have opened some TABs for external folders (usually like \\192.168.x.x\ ... )
2) I closed FreeCommander without closing all tabs
3) starting again FreeCommander take ages (around 1 minute) without any visible activity. It looks like FC tries to open/list all previously opened tabs and wait for timeout on every network place.

omerfree
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Re: Freezes on Network Shares

#15 Post by omerfree » 01.08.2018, 20:52

hello,

same here. Usually it happens at home with my QNAP.

usually it is only when starting FC. If you have some tabs with net shares and it open on one of them, it can take some time to open. As long as FC is opened it will usually work fast with the network.

there is a parameter to set which is called tools > network > load network in background process on program start. I thought it should do the trick and cause FC to load instantly while trying to get the network shares/mappings etc. on the background but it does't seem to make any difference.

Omer.
Omer.

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