Explorer issues and empty folders

thatmanbrian

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Opening a folder in file explorer often shows it empty when I know it isn't! Also if I try to delete the "empty" folder, explorer reports it has found x number of files and is preparing to delete! If I quit that and look in the folder there are the files.

I also have issues with file explorer opening a folder and apparently scanning the contents - a green bar very slowly creeps across regardless of how frequently I've looked in the folder earlier in the day.

I have six drives mostly pretty full with a mixture of thousands of small files and thousands of very large images. Win8 file explorer seems to have problems coping. Is there a solution please?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8 64bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    self built
    CPU
    i5-2500K
    Motherboard
    Asus P8Z77
    Memory
    16Gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD HD5700
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HPLP2475w, AOC
    Hard Drives
    SATA 3 SSD, SATA 2 5 drives total 6Tb
Have you installed any 3rd party software lately ? The reason I ask is when installing 3rd party software, they also install Shell Extensions for the context menu and if it's incompatible, it will cause file explorer to freeze.

In addition, if you open a folder with a lot of large images in thumb nail view. If any of those images corrupted, explorer will also freeze trying to create thumb nails for the corrupted files. Try to open the folder in list view to see if it fixes the problem.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
Thanks. Actually, yes, I'd installed RichCopy the gui front end for Robocopy as I needed to move folders containing a massive number of files. As it is it too all night and until noon the next day to copy them to a USB3 external drive! So yes that may have interfeered with explorer.

This doesn't explain the creeping green bar everytime I open a folder with lots of folders containing lots of images (in details view, I don't bother trying with thumbnails!!). Surely explorer can cope better than that in the 21st century? It happens before I installed richcopy btw. Why do I find file operations so much faster using a cmd window? Especially searching.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8 64bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    self built
    CPU
    i5-2500K
    Motherboard
    Asus P8Z77
    Memory
    16Gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD HD5700
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HPLP2475w, AOC
    Hard Drives
    SATA 3 SSD, SATA 2 5 drives total 6Tb
I also have the same problem since i installed windows 8 yesterday.
Windows Explorer is freezing every time i access my hard disks. Sometimes it takes 10 seconds to open a folder.
This is ridiculous, i'm starting to think i wasted 30 euro for nothing.
Plus anothe huge problem - my internet connection is actually 10 times slower than before.
I did install the latest drivers for windows 8 from Asus, but still...
I made internet speed test and it says 1.0 mbps, when it used to be 12.0.
Web browsing is slow, i need 5-6 seconds at least to load the page completely.

P.S. Is there a way to get my money back?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Made
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance LP 8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gygabite GTX 670 Windforce
    Sound Card
    External Creative Sound Blaster Xi-Fi Pro 5.1
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Asus VW246H
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 830 256gb
    OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB
    Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1tb
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W
    Case
    Bitfenix Prodigy
    Cooling
    Cooler Master Hyper212 Evo
    Keyboard
    Logitech K800
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
Thanks. Actually, yes, I'd installed RichCopy the gui front end for Robocopy as I needed to move folders containing a massive number of files. As it is it too all night and until noon the next day to copy them to a USB3 external drive! So yes that may have interfeered with explorer.

This doesn't explain the creeping green bar everytime I open a folder with lots of folders containing lots of images (in details view, I don't bother trying with thumbnails!!). Surely explorer can cope better than that in the 21st century? It happens before I installed richcopy btw. Why do I find file operations so much faster using a cmd window? Especially searching.

I don't know what Robocopy is so I googled it and here's what I got: Robocopy Appears to be Broken in Windows 8 - Microsoft Community

For the time being, can you temporarily uninstall Robocopy and see if it makes any difference.

A while back I have installed Acronis True Image 2013 and I experienced the same problem with the creeping green bar and the minute I uninstalled Acronis, everything is back to normal. So yes, it does explain something !!! You probably don't realize this but explorer is in fact a core file of Windows and it does a lot of things in the background but we'll get to that later. For now, let' us try to fix the problem you are having.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
I also have the same problem since i installed windows 8 yesterday.
Windows Explorer is freezing every time i access my hard disks. Sometimes it takes 10 seconds to open a folder.
This is ridiculous, i'm starting to think i wasted 30 euro for nothing.
Plus anothe huge problem - my internet connection is actually 10 times slower than before.
I did install the latest drivers for windows 8 from Asus, but still...
I made internet speed test and it says 1.0 mbps, when it used to be 12.0.
Web browsing is slow, i need 5-6 seconds at least to load the page completely.

P.S. Is there a way to get my money back?
Can You tell me if you are doing a fresh install or upgrade from Windows 7 ? You did not have your system spec listed so it is hard to help you with just a plain statement that Windows 8 sucks.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
Opening a folder in file explorer often shows it empty when I know it isn't! Also if I try to delete the "empty" folder, explorer reports it has found x number of files and is preparing to delete! If I quit that and look in the folder there are the files.

I also have issues with file explorer opening a folder and apparently scanning the contents - a green bar very slowly creeps across regardless of how frequently I've looked in the folder earlier in the day.

I have six drives mostly pretty full with a mixture of thousands of small files and thousands of very large images. Win8 file explorer seems to have problems coping. Is there a solution please?
You could try a system restore back to before the problem began/any questionable programs were installed. Doing so would eliminate the programs/maybe the problem.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7 Ult on DIY; Win8 Pro on MBP/Parallels; Win7 Ult on MBP/Boot Camp; Win7 Ult/Win8 Pro on HP
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    DIY Rig; MacBook Pro (MBP)/Parallels/Boot Camp; HP Pavilion dv6500t Laptop
    CPU
    Intel i7-2600K (sometimes OC'd to 4.8 GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Rev B3
    Memory
    16 GB Corsair Vengeance
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 570 SC
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway
    Hard Drives
    Dual Boot:
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on OCZ Revo x2 and
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on Caviar Black SATA 3's
    PSU
    Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
    Case
    Cooler Master 932 HAF
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9900MAX-B CPU Fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Internet Speed
    20 Mbps Download/2+ Mbps Upload
    Other Info
    Pioneer Blu-ray Burner/DVD Burner
I've still got Richcopy installed but explorer is behaving itself today. I'll keep an eye on it and attempt to link a reimergence of the problem to anything I'd done immediately beforehand such as install software. If you look into what robocopy does, and how it was developed for internal use by MS engineers as they were fed up waiting for Explorer to do its thing, you have to wonder why Explorer isn't better or why robocopy isn't at the core of it. It uses multithreading and various other tricks that any modern computer could support.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8 64bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    self built
    CPU
    i5-2500K
    Motherboard
    Asus P8Z77
    Memory
    16Gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD HD5700
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HPLP2475w, AOC
    Hard Drives
    SATA 3 SSD, SATA 2 5 drives total 6Tb
I also have the same problem since i installed windows 8 yesterday.
Windows Explorer is freezing every time i access my hard disks. Sometimes it takes 10 seconds to open a folder.
This is ridiculous, i'm starting to think i wasted 30 euro for nothing.
Plus anothe huge problem - my internet connection is actually 10 times slower than before.
I did install the latest drivers for windows 8 from Asus, but still...
I made internet speed test and it says 1.0 mbps, when it used to be 12.0.
Web browsing is slow, i need 5-6 seconds at least to load the page completely.

P.S. Is there a way to get my money back?
Can You tell me if you are doing a fresh install or upgrade from Windows 7 ? You did not have your system spec listed so it is hard to help you with just a plain statement that Windows 8 sucks.

Sorry, i was just pissed at the moment. I didn't say it sucks, but it almost made me install Windows 7 again.
Anyway, after some tweaking with my router, wifi adapter, drivers and some cursing , i managed to get back my full bandwidth.
Don't ask me what exactly did i do, cause i can't tell.
The explorer is still acting strange, but i can say that is better than this morning.
It seems like windows 8 need some time to adapt or something.... i don't know.
By the way i did a clean install.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Made
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance LP 8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gygabite GTX 670 Windforce
    Sound Card
    External Creative Sound Blaster Xi-Fi Pro 5.1
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Asus VW246H
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 830 256gb
    OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB
    Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1tb
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W
    Case
    Bitfenix Prodigy
    Cooling
    Cooler Master Hyper212 Evo
    Keyboard
    Logitech K800
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
Sorry, i was just pissed at the moment. I didn't say it sucks, but it almost made me install Windows 7 again.
Anyway, after some tweaking with my router, wifi adapter, drivers and some cursing , i managed to get back my full bandwidth.
Don't ask me what exactly did i do, cause i can't tell.
The explorer is still acting strange, but i can say that is better than this morning.
It seems like windows 8 need some time to adapt or something.... i don't know.
By the way i did a clean install.
I understand and sorry about it. Explorer.exe problem is one of the hardest thing to diagnose since it does a lot of things in the background ie. update registry, creating files , updating files etc... and along those things if it finds problem that cannot be resolved then it will crash or hang.

Please download: Autoruns for Windows and run as admin. Under Explorer tab, temporarily disable everything that is non Microsoft and under Internet Explorer, temporarily disable add-ons that are non Microsoft
and try it again to see if it fixes your problem. If it does then you can re-enable one by one until the problem occurs again, if it does not then we have to dig a little further.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
Sorry, i was just pissed at the moment. I didn't say it sucks, but it almost made me install Windows 7 again.
Anyway, after some tweaking with my router, wifi adapter, drivers and some cursing , i managed to get back my full bandwidth.
Don't ask me what exactly did i do, cause i can't tell.
The explorer is still acting strange, but i can say that is better than this morning.
It seems like windows 8 need some time to adapt or something.... i don't know.
By the way i did a clean install.
I understand and sorry about it. Explorer.exe problem is one of the hardest thing to diagnose since it does a lot of things in the background ie. update registry, creating files , updating files etc... and along those things if it finds problem that cannot be resolved then it will crash or hang.

Please download: Autoruns for Windows and run as admin. Under Explorer tab, temporarily disable everything that is non Microsoft and under Internet Explorer, temporarily disable add-ons that are non Microsoft
and try it again to see if it fixes your problem. If it does then you can re-enable one by one until the problem occurs again, if it does not then we have to dig a little further.

Thanks for the help, but it seems now that all problems are gone. I don't know what happened, maybe cause i updated all possible drivers with the latest.
Now everything runs perfectly and i'm not regretting the 29 bucks anymore.
I was about the buy Start8, cause of the start button, but i actually get used to the new start menu.
In fact i find easier to click in the low left corner to access the start menu. It's fast, it pops out instantly and you don't need to look where you click.
I'm enjoying now windows 8 :D
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Made
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance LP 8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gygabite GTX 670 Windforce
    Sound Card
    External Creative Sound Blaster Xi-Fi Pro 5.1
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Asus VW246H
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 830 256gb
    OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB
    Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1tb
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W
    Case
    Bitfenix Prodigy
    Cooling
    Cooler Master Hyper212 Evo
    Keyboard
    Logitech K800
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
Thanks for the help, but it seems now that all problems are gone. I don't know what happened, maybe cause i updated all possible drivers with the latest.
Now everything runs perfectly and i'm not regretting the 29 bucks anymore.
I was about the buy Start8, cause of the start button, but i actually get used to the new start menu.
In fact i find easier to click in the low left corner to access the start menu. It's fast, it pops out instantly and you don't need to look where you click.
I'm enjoying now windows 8 :D
Good to hear it worked out. If you organize your Start Screen well and put all the common apps in groups, you'll find it actually easier to use than Windows 7 Start Menu. In addition, use this small freeware WinAero: Pin to 8 to create shortcuts of frequent use apps to desktop or taskbar then you're all set.

If IE is still acting up, click on manage add-ons, you might find something there that can be disabled.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
Thanks for the help, but it seems now that all problems are gone. I don't know what happened, maybe cause i updated all possible drivers with the latest.
Now everything runs perfectly and i'm not regretting the 29 bucks anymore.
I was about the buy Start8, cause of the start button, but i actually get used to the new start menu.
In fact i find easier to click in the low left corner to access the start menu. It's fast, it pops out instantly and you don't need to look where you click.
I'm enjoying now windows 8 :D
Good to hear it worked out. If you organize your Start Screen well and put all the common apps in groups, you'll find it actually easier to use than Windows 7 Start Menu. In addition, use this small freeware WinAero: Pin to 8 to create shortcuts of frequent use apps to desktop or taskbar then you're all set.

If IE is still acting up, click on manage add-ons, you might find something there that can be disabled.

Thanks for the tips :)

EDIT: Pin to 8 it's fantastic, you can pin anything, that's great :D
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Made
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance LP 8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gygabite GTX 670 Windforce
    Sound Card
    External Creative Sound Blaster Xi-Fi Pro 5.1
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Asus VW246H
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 830 256gb
    OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB
    Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1tb
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W
    Case
    Bitfenix Prodigy
    Cooling
    Cooler Master Hyper212 Evo
    Keyboard
    Logitech K800
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
I'm going insane trying to stop that green bar. I've tried everything. I suspect it had something to do with Skype. I did something with Skype, forget what, something recommended I think. Then, low and behold, are started getting that green bar. I keep getting a pop up from Skype to leave disabled and some other option. I've clicked on leave disabled and it still pops up? I've even Xd that popup, still keeps coming back. My thoughts are still that Skype has something to do with it?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    win8
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP 120-1333w
    CPU
    HP
I Have this problem. I noticed it when I went into several folders and they were all empty. I deleted all but one folder because the last had important files in there and I know they were there and I would not have moved them. I was about to scream at others living in my house to find out who the F*** was deleting my files, but when I closed explorer and re navigated to the folder my files were there to see. gotta love recycle bin :) restored other folders and the files were there to. Makes me think how many other empty folders have I come across and without giving it another thought deleted them as well. I have some third party software which I have been using for a long time without failures and all off them do not Have processes running or Services to auto start, They are all manual and have no need to be doing anything, unless I start the program. Oh sorry I lie, I have a third party firewall and windows FW disabled, Anti virus is microsft.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus M5A97 EVO
    CPU
    AMD FX 6300
    Motherboard
    Asus M5A97 EVO
    Memory
    4 x G.Skills = 16gb @1600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus GTX 560 TI
    Sound Card
    Realtek - Intergrated
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC Thingy
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    1.Samsung HD204UI \ 2.Western Digital WDC WD10EVDS-63U8B0 \ 3. USB 3 Seagate Expansion Desk
    PSU
    Some cheap around 1000 watt thingy
    Case
    Some Gaming case thingy seethrough side
    Cooling
    big fans \ After market cooler for cpu \ Fan mounted on north bridge heatsink
    Keyboard
    Logitec G110 Gaming
    Mouse
    Logitec G300 Gaming
    Internet Speed
    Crap
    Browser
    Microsft\Firefox\Chrome
    Antivirus
    ............................
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