explorer hangs up after entering folder with wave-files

[SquonkSC]

I don't have the sound card driver installed yet, but I'll try changing the folder properties. I also don't think that sata drivers matter as I'm experiencing the same behavior on the internal sata drives AND on the external sata drive which uses a SIIG pci card.

I do like everything else about Windows 7, but this issue makes it impossible for me to use it. I'm going back to XP.

After reading your updates, it seems it really is the files themselves.

There are some wavs in the windows folder.
Make a new folder in the same tree as the problematic folder and copy the wavs from the windows folder into it.

See what happens.

We have to rule out the obvious.

Good luck

 

[wallyinnc]

Another idea, which might be stupid (and I am at my XP machine, I can't even check, but here it goes): instead of changing the folder property, what about changing the standard program that opens the .wav files (I think it is Media Player). If some audio driver is messed up, could that generate the delay?

 

[SquonkSC]

Another idea, which might be stupid (and I am at my XP machine, I can't even check, but here it goes): instead of changing the folder property, what about changing the standard program that opens the .wav files (I think it is Media Player). If some audio driver is messed up, could that generate the delay?

Possible.

Or Mediacenter.

 

[subchild]

Few more updates. I copied the folder to a WD drive and got the same error. Then I connected that drive to my laptop (running Vista - again, no problems), then deleted all files but a random one. Hooked it back up to the machine running W7 and same problem. With the single wav file!

I'll try the suggestions above. Thanks. At this point, I don't really care if it ends up working or not, but I just NEED to know what the root problem is.

 

[subchild]

Quick update on this. I believe the problem is specific to some wav files, but they work fine on XP and its possible that W7's "discovering" is what corrupted them. In any case, I downloaded xplorer2 and am able to browse that directory that way.

 

[thisisvybe]

I am having the same problems been doing research for 3 days now and have come up with nothing.

Already tired reinstalling windows 7 and that didnt fix it

Im having the same exact problem as both of these users where a folder with wav files jumps my cpu to 100%, and at times it can be random files i downloaded from the net. Im really getting desperate at this point I really need to get this PC working in top notch shape since its for my business. This problem started when I installed windows 7 and Ive been trying for 3 days now to fix it

 

[Hedge]

rename that folder and report to Micro$oft.
Sorry, there's really not much besides that what you can do.

 

[thisisvybe]

I already renamed it and it had no effect

This sucks

 

[subchild]

Download xplorer2 (xplorer² Windows File Manager (Explorer replacement)), go into that folder and try to play each of the files (in Windows Media Player). My guess is that some won't play but that shouldn't freeze your PC. You can then move the "bad" files into a separate folder using xplorer 2.

I then went back into XP, opened each of the "bad" wav files in an editor (Sound Forge), added a second of silence to the end and re-saved them. This made some of them work in W7, but not all.

My concern is that W7 itself corrupted some of those wavs. But the workaround(s) above helped.

 

[Hedge]

They created a Hotfix (KB976417) regarding this issue, but sadly it doesn't fix the problem for me.
Anyone with more success?

Link to the error-thread: High CPU usage in the Explorer.exe process when you open a folder that contains corrupted .wav files in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

 

[AkselPL]

Ive got the same problem on my PC. Stil no idea for fix?

 

[Hedge]

Delte or re-encode the damaged files.
You can identify the files via DiscPulse

 

[boldtaco]

Sorry to necropost- I found this thread via Google and am having the same issue.

One poster was onto something when he asked if the WAVs were encoded as 32bit floating point. The WAVs on my computer that are causing explorer to hang were exported from FL Studio 9. I changed the default of 16bit int to 24bit int for the export, having done this in WinXP with no problem.

But now explorer hangs when you browse to the folder. I tried using the Spybot file shredder, but it stops responding and so do other programs when you browse to the folder via the open dialog for instance. The hotfix that was linked to earlier didn't help, either.

Does anyone know a good way to just nuke these files and be done with this?

 

[boldtaco]

W000T

Start Windows in Safe Mode with command prompt > browse to folder > del *.WAV

 

[olafure]

Fix!

FIX!

I asked on superuser.com and some guy popped up with an acceptable answer for me.
Involves editing registy that basically prevents windows f*** with your .wav files.
It means you won't get metadata from those files in exporer. Boo hoo f*** hoo yes!

See: Prevent Windows Exporer to extract metadata - Super User

 

[Invoker]

Prevent Windows Explorer from trying to extract metadata - Super User
This solution works, thanks a lot!
Cheers!