IrfanView: sometimes very slow loading

Nil wrote:

On 08 Sep 2015, Terry Pinnell wrote in
alt.comp.freewa

Thanks, appreciate your thorough reply. Not sure all of it is
entirely relevant though. Buy as per my reply to Bill W, I think
you're right about the sleeping. However, as I said in that post,
why should it be accessed at all?

I see several options in Irfanview that might cause it to access
folders that it had previously been in. Things such as "Start in last
used folder".

Check through the program options and experiment turning some that
appear to be relevant off and on.

Thanks.

"Start in last used folder" is disabled.

See also my reply to Bill W, towards end, re "Recent..." options.

I'd been hoping it might turn out to be something as simple as that,
but so far it doesn't look like that's the case. Still not exhausted
that line though!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

VanguardLH wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:

Buy as per my reply to Bill W, ...

Bill?

Sorry, my fault. As you may have seen, as I usually do for questions
about IV I posted to both alt.comp.freeware and rec.photo.digital. But
on a couple of my replies I forgot to ensure both groups were
addressed.


... I think you're right about the sleeping. However, as I said in
that post, why should it be accessed at all?

You mean why is it getting accessed all the time (and you don't think it
is going to sleep)? Or you mean why is it sleeping at all?

I'll paste here my latest reply to Bill W, including the previous
exchange. That will hopefully answer your question.

Paste starts here
--------------------
Bill W wrote:

On Tue, 08 Sep 2015 20:29:20 +0100, Terry Pinnell
wrote:

Bill W wrote:

On Mon, 07 Sep 2015 14:00:26 +0100, Terry Pinnell
wrote:

This occurs usually at the start of a session or after a long gap. I
double-click a JPG in Explorer and instead of loading with the usual
speed that's one of IrfanView's impressive features, it takes 10-15
secs. During this time the LED flashes on one of my external WD hard
drives.

After that, for subsequent JPGs, it's back to normal - until hours
later when it happens again. It's as if the WD unit goes to sleep and
IV has to wake it up for some reason - even though the JPG is not on
that drive.

I'm using the latest version, 4.4.0 (32 bit) on an XP PC.

Anyone seen anything similar or have any insight into the likely cause
- and a suggested possible fix please?

You're likely catching your computer when it's doing something else,
and you had to wait for it to finish. That external drive was probably
active before you clicked on the photo - just a coincidence.

File indexing was always one of the big culprits with XP, but there's
many other thing it could be doing.

Thanks, but I don't really follow that. When the WD 2TB drive is
active, its LED always flashes. The occasional very slow opening of a
double-clicked JPG in IrfanView arises when the drive is not already
flashing, i.e. not already active.

I'm almost sure it's something to do with its firmware putting it to
sleep. (Or software. I recall I could not avoid it installing some
unwanted stuff. This was a few years ago so I'm vague.)

The fact that this long delay only arises hours after the last JPG
opening reinforces my opinion about the sleeping.

When I open a JPG the WD flashes:

1. For 10-15 s (only after a long gap), before IV displays the JPG.

2. For 1 s or less, if another JPG is opened shortly after the above
first attempt eventually succeeds.

3. Not at all. This is the state for a long period after the above.
JPGs open immediately, with no apparent involvement of the WD HD.
Which is what I would *always* expect.

Why does the WD drive get into the equation at all? As you've reminded
some other posters (who seem to have missed that crucial point), the
JPGs are not on this drive.

Disconnect it, and see what happens. What do you use it for? It's
possible that IV is using it for something. And is this the only
program that this sort of thing happens with? I have 3 external drives
on one PC, and none of them wake up, or do anything, when I open any
files of any sort, unless the files are on that drive, of course.

Do you use backup software that is set to back up continuously, in
real time as files change? If so, that might be the issue. After long
inactivity on the PC, try opening any file with another app (not on
that drive), and see if that drive acts the same way, whether it
causes a delay or not.

And I assume that there are file preferences in IV. Maybe you set
something to use that drive. In fact, if you've disconnected and
reconnected any drives, the drive letters might have changed, but I'd
think you would have seen other problems related to that. (Drive
letters could also change just from rebooting the PC, under some
conditions.)

Anyway, disconnect the drive, and then try to duplicate the problem.
You might get an error message from some app that will lead you to the
problem.

Finally, as others have said, it's time to move on from XP, and that
PC that uses it. I'm not saying it has anything to do with your
problem, but you are going to end up with more and more issues as time
passes.


Thanks for the follow-up. I will try the disconnection suggestion. But
the inconsistency of the behaviour is making isolation elusive. For
example, I sat down at the PC a few minutes ago for the first time
today . The LED of the 1 TB, 3.5", WD HD was steady, and had
presumably been so for many hours. Stop watch in hand, I d-clicked an
arbitrary JPG on C:, expecting to record 10-15 s before IV displayed
it. It took maybe 1-2 s to start flashing and the image came up after
a total of 4 s. Not 'normal', but much faster than the 10-15 s that
prompted my post. Subsequent JPGs (and BMPs, also IV-associated) came
up at normal high speed.

BTW, the 2 TB, 3.5" WD unit standing next to the 1 TB showed no change
in its light indicator, as usual. Both are on the same 8-port US bus.

Re your backup suggestion: I use SecondCopy for many scheduled
backups, including to K: (the drive under discussion). But no
real-time stuff, and of course there is no imminent b/u to K: at the
time I open the JPG.

I also use PerfectDisk for intelligent de-fragging, but there too I
see no likely issue.

I had checked IV Preferences for possible culprits. Prompted by your
post I just stepped through them again, but can't see any clear
suspects. These two looked possibilities at first sight

- Show "Recent files" in File menu (max. 15 most recently used files)
- Show "Recent folders" in Open/Save dialog (max. 20 most recently
used folders)

but *at present* K: appears in neither of their lists. Of course,
maybe they *did* at the time of the 10-15 s behaviour...

I've been putting off the daunting task of upgrading OS and PC for at
least 3 years. I have a very heavily customised system, riddled with
tweaks and macros (Macro Express Pro). With occasional exceptions this
PC (MESH 'Xtreme', 2008, Quad Core 2.66 GHz, 4 GB, 512 MB nVIDIA
GeoForce 8800GT) is running sweetly. And performance is still
acceptable, even for my video and DVD-making. Maybe when I see
resounding praise for Win 10...

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK
--------------------
Paste ends here




Does not look like you are continually accessing the external HDD. That
means it will eventually go to sleep either due to settings in your
power scheme configured in Windows

In CP Power Options I have
Turn off hard disks: Never

or due to the HDD's own firmware code
making the device go to sleep. You can change the power options to not
have drives go to sleep but that will not affect the firmware code
inside the drive making it go to sleep.

Agreed, and that for sure is happening. I'd rather it didn't (I'm
happy with continuous spinning) but I don't think I can alter it. I
*believe* the precautionary 2 TB Seagate 'Expansion' I ordered from
Amazon UK last night (£60) will not have that sleeping behaviour, or
will at least let me disable it.

Did you try the keep-alive utilities that I mentioned (after making sure
your power scheme does NOT spin down the drives after they have been
idle for awhile)?

Not yet.


BTW, there seems no general consensus that sleeping is 'a good thing'.

Some will argue that there is less wear on the spindle along with
reduced heat. However, the other side of the argument is that spin up
generates a surge current to all components and the motor has to begin
cranking at full torque for the heads to take flight.

I don't bother to put my computer to sleep. I used to enable the "Turn
off display" option at 1 or 2 hours but have long left it disabled. Way
too many times something hung but a blank screen makes it impossible to
see what was running (had windows) and if there was an error message.
Besides, I like using the text screen saver to use my monitor as a big
clock. Might as well as use it for something when the computer is idle.
The "put computer to sleep" is disabled only because if there is a
program that interferes with coming out of sleep than I'm screwed again
with no screen to what windows were open and possible an error message.
This is for my desktop where I couldn't give a gnat's fart about saving
a few pennies per month on the cost of extra electricity.

Because surge current and motor torque is far less an issue with HDDs
for maybe a decade, I don't worry about having it spin cycling (well, as
long as the cycle is an hour, or more). So in my power scheme under
"Hard Disk - Turn off disk after", I set it for 4 hours. Many times I
may leave the computer but then come back to it to do more stuff and I
don't want the disk having to spin up every time I come back to the
computer along with having to wait for the delay to spin up. I have
several scheduled tasks that run during the night so the disk does not
often spin down even then. Only when I'm off to work, on a trip, or
otherwise away from home for awhile do the disks manage to get a long
enough idle time to spin down.

Arguably it causes more wear than permanent spinning.

Hmm, I haven't seen any failure benchmarks for a l-o-n-g time to support
always spinning is worse or better than spin cycling but then I'm
talking about long spin cycles: hours, not minutes. I know a lot of
folks are used to powering down the computers when they leave work but
that's really the company worrying about the cost in extra electricity
while the employees are gone considering they often leave on a ton of
lights and the A/C may cut back but it's still on. It's really about
not leaving any Windows sessions open. Having a sneaksie require to
login is still a value security measure. That' why they push out domain
policies to enforce use of a screen saver with the password lock
enabled. So how employees are trained to handle their workstations
taints how users handle their home PCs. What's good for a company
doesn't necessarily apply to your personal use at home.

Some external drives make a feature of that.

That's typically for other reasons. Reduction of heat because a crappy
enclosure was used. They want their customers to awe in the tiny size
of a laptop drive sitting in a skin-tight case. They want it small for
portability and because that's want customers like. Enclosures lots of
case ventilation, heavy case metal (not plastic) to act as a heatsink,
aluminum instead of steel for the case material (aluminum transfers heat
faster), and even small fans to force air through the case don't need
HDDs that spin down. I can put a WD black drive in a good case and have
a backup job run for hours without the case becoming more than warm;
however, because I knew I was putting a higher RPM disk in the case and
that it would be constantly accessed meant getting a good case so the
desktop disk inside an enclosure wouldn't get hotter than it does when
sitting inside a desktop tower.

Another problem with USB-attached drives is that they are often
connected to computers with limited power. A desktop plugged into the
wall outlet (with or without a UPS) is not as limited as a notebook
running off a small battery and then having external devices suck their
power off that same battery. For example, you can get gas-powered lawn
mowers that are self-propelled but the battery-powered electric lawn
mowers are not self-propelled. The load for cranking the wheels would
so severely drain the battery that run time to cut the grass would be
way too short. Need to save power when running off a battery. Mobile
computers are only mobile when they are running off a battery but users
still want to connect their USB drives to it. Not everyone with a
laptop or notebook wants to tote around a spare charged battery.

The one I've just ordered (as a precaution), a Seagate Expansion 2 TB,
appears to be one such example. I also run my XP PC 24/7 except for
holidays, partly for that same reason but also to allow for extensive
nightly backups and defragging.

I leave my home desktop PC running all the time. No sleep mode for the
computer. I didn't buy the desktop so it could sleep. For me, the
extra pennies per month for electricity are not an issue. For my
notebook, I either shutdown (power off) which is most of the time or I
go into standby if I know that I'll be frequently accessing it many
times during the day; however, I don't connect anything to it, not even
USB-attached drives (that's for when it is home on the A/C adapter to
run a backup).

Excluding why companies want you to power down their workstations, your
own personal use should be your guide as to whether you want to power
cycling your computer or devices and whether you bother employing
low-power (standby) power modes. Just because they're available does
not mandate you must use them.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

David Taylor wrote:

On 09/09/2015 08:44, Terry Pinnell wrote:
[]
Are you an actual user of the latest version of IrfanView (the 'app'
under discussion)? I don't believe it "...doesn't know which
photos you will be viewing...". It's the one I've d-clicked. As for
"...or working with" I'm not sure what you mean? Like any program,
IrfanView certainly can't predict what I'm going to do next.

Terry,

If you take a look at the settings for IrfanView - they are in the file:

i_view32.ini

you'll see several saved paths and several saved file names. At least
some of these may be scanned when the program starts.

Thanks David. You must have posted this while I was replying to
VanguardLH and Nil, in which I mentioned focusing on those two.

FWIW I'll try opening a file (and hence a folder) in K: and *then* try
opening a JPG in C: ...

P.S. But I'm distracted by noticing that the drive's LED has now just
begun *slow* flashing, a mode I'd forgotten about as well as static
and fast flashing. Will have to look up some details.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Well OT (but then that's been true of many of the posts here!) but
maybe this will be of interest to anyone still running XP. (World-wide
there are apparently a lot of us.)

My Seagate 'Expansion' 2 TB 3.5" desktop HD arrived impressively fast
from Amazon. But I reckon it's going to have to go back just as
quickly, because it doesn't work ;-(

As you see, I cannot access the drive. It's shown in Device manager
and Disk Management - but as you see it has no letter, nor can I do
anything about it. A 'GPT Protective Partition' has been set up,
whatever that is, and I cannot remove it.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...NoAccess-1.jpg

Some research found suggestions to change the partition to 'MBR' - but
the first step was to right click and choose... blah blah. Or
alternatively to use a command prompt tool called DISKPART - but that
failed to even achieve the first step of listing my disks, constantly
offering me only a list of commands - none of which was LIST.

And anyway, I later found that MBR can 'only support drives under 2
TB'.

I saw nothing about this on the Amazon product page ;-(

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 19:12:19 +0100, Terry Pinnell wrote:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...NoAccess-1.jpg

http://knowledge.seagate.com/article...language=en_US

F-Up2: acf

BeAr
--
================================================== =========================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
================================================== =============--(Oops!)===

You don't use any sort of disk manager? Windows
disk operations are barebones. (Windows won't
even make a FAT32 partition beyond something like
32 GB.) Using Windows to set up a disk is like using
it to handle ZIP files: Fine if all you want to do is to
get a file out of a vanilla ZIP file, but you're out of
luck if you want to get any more involved.

You shouldn't have any trouble if you get a decent
disk program. I use BootIt, for disk management, disk
imaging and multi-booting. It's very dependable and very
complete. I figure that disk software is not something
to scrimp on. But it's still only $35, with free updates.
If you don't want to spend any money,
a lot of people have good luck with Macrium, though
I have no idea what it has for disk functions. The
discussion I see are often about disk imaging, and for
many people disk imaging means backup. Those people
don't actually know how to use disk imaging or even
how to partition, so it's hard to glean the details of
exactly what the popular programs (Macrium, Acronis)
can do.

In any case, you should have no trouble partitioning the
disk with a decent program. With at least 2 partitions you
won't have a 2 GB partition.

Terry Pinnell wrote:

My Seagate 'Expansion' 2 TB 3.5" desktop HD arrived...
I later found that MBR can 'only support drives under 2 TB'.
^
*partitions* ---'

So what's the problem?

With the MBR's partitioning scheme, the *partition* (not the disk) to
which a drive letter gets assigned can be up to 2 TB in size.

You bought a 2 TB disk so you canNOT make a partition bigger than 2 TB.

On your 2 TB disk, the biggest partition you could create is 2 TB and
that fits within the limitation of 2 TB for the MBR's partition record.

The MBR partition records are not limiting the size of the disk. It's
partition record has a limit of 2 TB for a *partition*. With MBR, if
you had bought a 4 TB drive then you could split it into two partitions
of 2 TB each. If you had bought a 6 TB disk, you could split it into
three 2 TB partitions.

On 10/09/2015 19:12, Terry Pinnell wrote:
Well OT (but then that's been true of many of the posts here!) but
maybe this will be of interest to anyone still running XP. (World-wide
there are apparently a lot of us.)
[]

Terry, others have shown how to fix this issue. But take the problem as
another hint - that it's time to move on from XP.

Your PC /may/ be able to support Windows-10 - what processor and memory
does it have? I only found one PC here which couldn't be upgraded as
its processor was too old (Pentium-M 1.6 GHz) and didn't support one of
the requirements in section 3.1 he


https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...=VS.85%29.aspx

Supports PAE, NX and SSE2.
Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW for 64-bit OS installation

But I would suggest simply getting a new PC if at all possible. The
difference should be stunning!

--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

| Terry, others have shown how to fix this issue. But take the problem as
| another hint - that it's time to move on from XP.
|

I have both XP and Win7-64. I generally only use Win7 for
testing software. It's a dual-CPU. The XP box is single.
It doesn't matter. I used the Win7 box once to convert
a cassette tape to digital. In that case the 64-bit was
handy. For everything else, Win7 is irrelevant, bloated,
a resource hog, and a lot more involved without real benefit.

I tried the Win8 beta. What I saw was an even greater
resource hog with the Metro tablet UI stuck on top of
Win7. Entirely irrelevant. Just a bald-faced, desperate
scam by Microsoft to get their online services racket off
the ground.

You may feel differently. You may like 7 better than
XP, 8 better than 7, and 10 better than either. But that's
personal preference. XP is not outdated simply because
he's having trouble setting up his new disk. Nothing he's
been talking about here has anything at all to do with
Windows version. He *thought* he couldn't use the new
disk with XP. That's not true.

| Your PC /may/ be able to support Windows-10

Anyone considering that should read the Win7 and Win10
newsgroups. I've seen some mainstream media reviews
that were positive about Win10, but the vast majority
of what I've seen has been scathing: Trouble with update
bugs. Distaste for Metro mega-buttons forced into the
UI. There's also the fact that with Win10 updates are not
optional. Win10 will be whatever Microsoft decides it is
this week. They're in control. And last but not least:
Win10 is spyware as well as adware. Anyone who cares
at all about privacy should read the new "privacy policy"
before going forward. Microsoft is redefining Windows as
a service and the change is radical:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/priva...t/default.aspx

Briefly put: "All your data are belong to us."

Again, you may like Win10, and many people couldn't
care less if Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook want
to set up cameras in their bedroom or bathroom. (I once
saw a survey claiming that a high percentage of people
would gladly accept corporate spyware for targetted ads
as long as they get paid a bit.... The respondents didn't
want much. A few bucks. The popular feeling seemed to
be that people didn't mind being spied on, but were wary
about the possibility that they might be getting suckered
-- spied on without getting a cut of the profits.

In any case, people deserve to know what they're getting
into before being talked into a Win10 transition. It's not
the Windows they've known. It's a "service" going forward,
and going against that seems to be nearly impossible. Even
Win7 is at risk: Much of the chatter in the Win7 group these
days is about the convoluted measures required just to
prevent Microsoft from force-downloading the Win10 bits and
harassing Win7 /8 users about installing Win10... even if they
never asked for it and don't want it.

Further reading for anyone who thinks Win10 might
be an improvement:

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...he-new-normal/

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...-to-microsoft/

| But I would suggest simply getting a new PC if at all possible. The
| difference should be stunning!

How so? If he wants to sign up for Adobe's CC then
I guess he'd need a new computer. If he has teenage
kids who want to play the latest games, that would
be a *real* reason to update. I don't know of anything
else that would make a notable difference, much less
be "stunning".

On 11/09/2015 14:36, Mayayana wrote:
| Terry, others have shown how to fix this issue. But take the problem as
| another hint - that it's time to move on from XP.
|

I have both XP and Win7-64. I generally only use Win7 for
testing software. It's a dual-CPU. The XP box is single.
It doesn't matter. I used the Win7 box once to convert
a cassette tape to digital. In that case the 64-bit was
handy. For everything else, Win7 is irrelevant, bloated,
a resource hog, and a lot more involved without real benefit.

I tried the Win8 beta. What I saw was an even greater
resource hog with the Metro tablet UI stuck on top of
Win7. Entirely irrelevant. Just a bald-faced, desperate
scam by Microsoft to get their online services racket off
the ground.

You may feel differently. You may like 7 better than
XP, 8 better than 7, and 10 better than either. But that's
personal preference. XP is not outdated simply because
he's having trouble setting up his new disk. Nothing he's
been talking about here has anything at all to do with
Windows version. He *thought* he couldn't use the new
disk with XP. That's not true.

| Your PC /may/ be able to support Windows-10

Anyone considering that should read the Win7 and Win10
newsgroups. I've seen some mainstream media reviews
that were positive about Win10, but the vast majority
of what I've seen has been scathing: Trouble with update
bugs. Distaste for Metro mega-buttons forced into the
UI. There's also the fact that with Win10 updates are not
optional. Win10 will be whatever Microsoft decides it is
this week. They're in control. And last but not least:
Win10 is spyware as well as adware. Anyone who cares
at all about privacy should read the new "privacy policy"
before going forward. Microsoft is redefining Windows as
a service and the change is radical:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/priva...t/default.aspx

Briefly put: "All your data are belong to us."

Again, you may like Win10, and many people couldn't
care less if Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook want
to set up cameras in their bedroom or bathroom. (I once
saw a survey claiming that a high percentage of people
would gladly accept corporate spyware for targetted ads
as long as they get paid a bit.... The respondents didn't
want much. A few bucks. The popular feeling seemed to
be that people didn't mind being spied on, but were wary
about the possibility that they might be getting suckered
-- spied on without getting a cut of the profits.

In any case, people deserve to know what they're getting
into before being talked into a Win10 transition. It's not
the Windows they've known. It's a "service" going forward,
and going against that seems to be nearly impossible. Even
Win7 is at risk: Much of the chatter in the Win7 group these
days is about the convoluted measures required just to
prevent Microsoft from force-downloading the Win10 bits and
harassing Win7 /8 users about installing Win10... even if they
never asked for it and don't want it.

Further reading for anyone who thinks Win10 might
be an improvement:

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...he-new-normal/

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...-to-microsoft/

| But I would suggest simply getting a new PC if at all possible. The
| difference should be stunning!

How so? If he wants to sign up for Adobe's CC then
I guess he'd need a new computer. If he has teenage
kids who want to play the latest games, that would
be a *real* reason to update. I don't know of anything
else that would make a notable difference, much less
be "stunning".

Thanks for your thoughts.

XP is outdated because it is now out of support, and anyone using it
with an Internet connection is asking for trouble. The more modern
Windows versions are more reliable and have fewer bugs. As I run Win-7
on one PC which only has 1.25 GB memory, I can hardly agree that it's a
resource hog (but I don't photo edit there).

Don't be put off by the look of Windows-8 or Windows-10 - you can use
the free Classic Shell program to make it look like Windows-7 should you
wish.

You are in control of the privacy settings with Windows-10, so choose
carefully if you don't like the defaults. What is collected is no more,
and likely less, than Apple, Google, Android etc. etc. Greatly
exaggerated, in my view.

From the many I've spoke to who have upgraded to Windows-10, the
overwhelming view has been positive.

And if you _really_ think that a 2015 computer is not going to be more
powerful than a 2001 computer, especially for photo and video editing, I
respectfully suggest you think again. Processor speed, number of cores,
available memory, disk speed, display resolution, multiple displays -
yes the difference /is/ stunning. Just try going back to a 2001
computer and see for yourself....

--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu