XnView Software

Hello. Recently I finally fell for an update popup and the experience on 1.5.5 turned out to be a little frustrating.

I don't know which version I had before, but it was around 5 years old. It opened images instantly when started from explorer association. And also when a new image appeared in a folder, it rarely waited longer than half a second to show it, and even more rarely missed it completely.

The new version... It starts very slow on a moderately-sized folder. I believe it has something to do with thumbnails, because I can hear heavy i/o for a few seconds. The screen stays black and unresponsive the whole time. Also, for new images it either delays showing them for like 2-10 seconds randomly, or misses them completely, way too often. Only F5 helps, so I press it constantly out of frustration.

These two points are important for me, because I'm using XnViewMP to watch SD batch progress (and as an image viewer in general). Sad and unexplainable thing is it worked nice before. Is there anything I could try before rolling back to that version? (Can I even download it now?) I cleared the thumbnail cache and checked my settings for something strange, but that didn't help.

Thank you!

You don't remember which old version?

hmrq wrote: Mon Oct 02, 2023 9:35 pm The new version... It starts very slow on a moderately-sized folder. I believe it has something to do with thumbnails, because I can hear heavy i/o for a few seconds.

How many files do you have? Same thing if you start in an empty folder?

The screen stays black and unresponsive the whole time. Also, for new images it either delays showing them for like 2-10 seconds randomly, or misses them completely, way too often. Only F5 helps, so I press it constantly out of frustration.

What do you have in Settings>General>Startup? Do you start it by double clicking on an image file in windows explorer?

You don't remember which old version?

No idea. I believe I ignored updates since I built my PC, it was circa 2018-ish.

How many files do you have? Same thing if you start in an empty folder?

For 180 files folder it took 5 seconds.
For 320 files folder it took 3 seconds.
For 1 file folder it took 3 seconds.

Pretty random. After I close it, it runs fast the second time on the same folder. What's strange is that not all folders freeze. I also noticed that scrolling through the directory tree view in XnViewMP also stutters/freezes when image folders become visible. Same with expanding a folder with many folders of images (they get visible and that starts i/o). I can hear that it's I/O, because HDD.

Now that I navigated through all this tree view, it opens fast every time. I'll try to clear thumbnails, reboot and return with more info.

... I spent some time editing this post and the folder that opened instantly in my current tests now after few minutes froze again, once. It seems to be a sort of timeout-related behavior. .. Yep, after just a minute of idling it froze once again.

What do you have in Settings>General>Startup?

Start with file:
Open: Browser - Fullscreen

Start without file:
Open browser: checked
Directory: None
Remember selected filename - unchecked

Also, my Thumb.db is 535MB and XnView.db is 23MB.

Do you start it by double clicking on an image file in windows explorer?

Yes, in the "slow open" issue I always start with double-clicking in windows explorer. I never start XnViewMP by itself, only via explorer.

experienced same issue with every new version
on image open via double click in win file explorer for the

• 1st time
  file quantity in folder - 1-50
  catalog and settings inside app folder
  - 4sec start delay (app window is not visible)

• 2nd and following times
  catalog can be enabled or disabled
  - no start delays, only understandable file read delays depends on file size/format

maybe win11 security involved somehow
as deleting all files from app folder and unzipping new ones does not reproduce start delay

hmrq wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 5:31 pm Yes, in the "slow open" issue I always start with double-clicking in windows explorer. I never start XnViewMP by itself, only via explorer.

If you start, in browser same delay at startup. 3 seconds is too high
On Windows, you can have some delay after a reboot...