File Explorer hangs and loads files one by one when open folder

one eyed man · 19 Aug 2021

When I open certain folders on my Windows 10 PC, Explorer freezes up and I have to wait for the folder contents to individually "load" before it unfreezes. I recorded this video of the issue:

The first time I encountered this glitch was a few weeks ago, immediately after I switched out my PC's processor and motherboard. The new components are a Ryzen 9 5900x CPU and a Gigabyte X570 AORUS Pro WiFi MOBO. (They replaced a Ryzen 7 3700x and an ASUS ROG Strix B450-F, respectively.) The components are all listed as compatible, and I've had no issues other than this Explorer freeze thing in the weeks since I did the upgrade.

Some more notes on the problem:

It may be related to .wav files. I experience this most often when opening folders of sound effects. (I'm a video editor and it's gotten quite annoying to have to wait for folders to load whenever I need SFX.) Strangely though it doesn't happen with every folder of .wav files, as you can see towards the end of my video above.
Size of the folder doesn't seem to matter (glitch has occurred in folders with one file and folders with 50 files)
As you can see from Task Manager in my video, there's no significant increase in CPU, RAM, or SSD utilization during the hang
All my internal storage devices are SSDs and in the same configuration as before I upgraded my CPU/MOBO
Issue has occurred on both my NVMe SSDs and my SATA SSDs, all of which are <2 years old and healthy
I have 64GB of <1 year old healthy RAM
After a folder loads, if I close Explorer and immediately go back to the folder, it always opens immediately; but if I wait 5 minutes or more and then try again, it often does the freeze/load thing again
Problem doesn't seem affected by the CPU/RAM utilzation or number of programs running (I've seen it happen immediately after restarting my PC with no programs running)
I tried rebuilding the Windows Search Index (Control Panel \ Indexing Options \ Advanced \ Index Settings \ Rebuild); no result
I tried disabling indexing on two of my internal drives (Properties \ uncheck Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties); the freeze still occurs on these drives
I tried enabling Always show icons, never thumbnails in File Explorer Options, View tab; no result

Full PC specs:

OS: Windows 10 Pro, Version 20H2, Build 19042.1165
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (12 core 4.8GHz)
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB DDR6 vRAM)
MOBO: Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard
RAM: 64GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3200MHz DDR4 t.ly/JDbG
SSD1 (C:\): 1TB Sabrent Rocket NVMe M.2 t.ly/5mO9Y
SSD2 (D:\): 2TB WD Blue SN550 NVMe M.2 t.ly/DhnU
SSD3 (E:\): 2TB WD Blue SATA III t.ly/iG1o

Has anyone else encountered this or know what might be causing it?

Try3 · 19 Aug 2021

I used to experience what you have described with one particular folder.

It contained video files that were supposed to have the extension .tsv but that I always renamed .ts so my editing application could open them.
I always supposed that File explorer saw the extension .ts and tried to identify the displayed file properties it could normally retrieve from that file type but had trouble reading the files because they weren't really .ts

Best of luck,
Denis

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Ghot · 19 Aug 2021

@one eyed man

I'm not sure I understand the video. It looks like files are disappearing.

Anyway, when I first started messing with Windows 10, I noticed that folders that I had movies, songs, pics, etc., in would take forever to load all the files.
Turns out it was due to the column headings, in those folders. When I removed most of those column headings, leaving only Name, Date created, and Size... the problem went away.
Now, when I open a folder, the files load instantly.

Might want to try that on one of those folders.

one eyed man · 19 Aug 2021

Try3 said:

I used to experience what you have described with one particular folder.
It contained video files that were supposed to have the extension .tsv but that I always renamed .ts so my editing application could open them.
I always supposed that File explorer saw the extension .ts and tried to identify the displayed file properties it could normally retrieve from that file type but had trouble reading the files because they weren't really .ts
Best of luck,
Denis

Thanks for the reply Denis. That's very interesting that you experienced something similar with a different file type. I've never worked with .tsv/.ts files myself. Did you ever find a fix for it?

Ghot said:

I'm not sure I understand the video. It looks like files are disappearing.
Anyway, when I first started messing with Windows 10, I noticed that folders that I had movies, songs, pics, etc., in would take forever to load all the files.
Turns out it was due to the column headings, in those folders. When I removed most of those column headings, leaving only Name, Date created, and Size... the problem went away.
Now, when I open a folder, the files load instantly.
Might want to try that on one of those folders.

Yes, it's bizarre. When I open the folder, the files start to "load" one by one from the top down. Each file disappears after it loads, and then when the last file loads, all the files reappear at once. I've never had a file disappear permanently - the issue is that it can take anywhere from 5 to 60 seconds for some large folders to complete this "loading" routine. So, every time I open a folder, I risk being frozen out of Explorer for up to a minute. This has been going on for weeks, and I'm posting about it now because the disruptions to my work flow have reached a level I can't ignore anymore.

At any rate, I tried your suggestion and removed all the metadata columns except Name, Date created, and Size. The problem persists

.

Ghot · 19 Aug 2021

one eyed man said:

Yes, it's bizarre. When I open the folder, the files start to "load" one by one from the top down. Each file disappears after it loads, and then when the last file loads, all the files reappear at once. I've never had a file disappear permanently - the issue is that it can take anywhere from 5 to 60 seconds for some large folders to complete this "loading" routine. So, every time I open a folder, I risk being frozen out of Explorer for up to a minute. This has been going on for weeks, and I'm posting about it now because the disruptions to my work flow have reached a level I can't ignore anymore.

At any rate, I tried your suggestion and removed all the metadata columns except Name, Date created, and Size. The problem persists

.

Ah well, sorry that didn't help. If worse comes to worst, you can always do an In-Place upgrade.
I'll leave my copy/paste here in case you need it...

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Here is the short version of the In-place upgrade tutorial...

DISABLE non-Microsoft:
a) antivirus software
b) firewall software
c) drive encryption software

Make a full OS backup with a program like Macrium Reflect (free)
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

Go here and get the Media Creation Tool and save it to your desktop.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

RUN the Media Creation Tool and use it to: Create an ISO image... save IT to your desktop.
This will be the latest version of the ISO image.

Right click the ISO image and choose: MOUNT
Open File Explorer and you will see a new drive letter. It will look like a DVD optical drive.
Double click the new drive letter to open it.
Find setup.exe and double click it to start the in-place upgrade.

Choose the Keep personal files and apps option.

After it's all done... to UNmount the ISO image, right click the new drive letter and choose: EJECT.

The ONLY thing you will lose is some of your personalizations. Your programs and data will be intact.

Try3 · 19 Aug 2021

one eyed man said:

Did you ever find a fix for it?

No. I moved to using a different digital video recorder that saved directly into .ts files so the problem was avoided.

But I did not try Ghot's suggestion i.e. keep the files in a folder from which you have removed all columns except 'non-video' ones - so keep Name, Date, … but not Length, Frame height, …
- I see that you tried this and it did not solve the problem.

When I am editing audio files in bulk, as each one is … oh dear, this requires an explanation that you'll be bored by

- I load multiple audio files into NCH's WavePad
- I work through the changes I want in each one
- I then tell it to SaveAll [to original paths, original filenames]
- If I watch the File explorer folder as each one is being processed all its properties except name & date disappear until it has finished with that one [at which point all properties reappear].

It occurs to me that your disappearing files might be a similar thing. Perhaps the single cause is that File explorer is having problems reading those file properties. Trying Ghot's suggestion might also shed some light on this aspect of behaviour.

All the best,
Denis

one eyed man · 19 Aug 2021

Thanks for the further suggestions guys. I'm going to save the in-place upgrade as a last resort, but I'll keep it in my back pocket.

An interesting development - per the advice of a Microsoft representative, I deleted the following registry folders:

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU
\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags

The files no longer load one by one when I open a folder. Unfortunately though the freeze still happens for about the same amount of time. Here's a new video:

I can confirm that the freezing issue only happens in folders containing .wav files. The more .wav files in a folder, the longer it hangs when I open it. Other folders, even massive ones filled with 10GB+ of .mov files, still load almost instantly when I open them.

Any ideas about why the .wav files might be causing this?

Random thought - I have VLC set as my default player for .wav files. Could this possibly have something to do with VLC?

Try3 · 19 Aug 2021

That BagsMRU thing is just deleting existing folder views. There's also a TenForumsTutorial on the subject. You'd already eliminated that as a possible cause by using Ghot's earlier suggestion of changing the view to ditch properties such as length, bit rate etc.

I cannot see the mere fact of having associated .wav files with VLC having any bearing in the matter.

A Repair install is not disruptive. Whilst you'd want to backup before any major task, Repair installs do not affect your installed applications or your own files. A Repair install would not hurt and I also sometimes do them when I cannot think of anything else to try.

I cannot see it being a sign of a user profile problem. You could try making a new user for test purposes to see if it is any better.

I'm sorry but I have no sensible suggestions to make,
Denis