One of my folders is killing my entire computer. Or something.

[koberulz]

Tried to encode a video in Adobe Media Encoder CS6. It got most of it done and then ran into an I/O error.

Delightful. I tried again, and it just locked up completely. Stopped responding. I checked the folder, the entire folder was marked "read only". Unchecked that, clicked ok, had another look and it was marked "read only" again. Checked a few other folders. Every folder on my entire PC is marked Read Only, but now I can't load anything in Windows Explorer, it just sits there with a blank screen. Fun.

Reboot time! Load up AME, have another go...it locks up again. Folder is still Read Only, and for some reason all the file thumbnails are a blank page. Right clicking on the files does nothing. This too affects every single folder on my entire PC. And if I click on "My Computer", it is again just completely blank although it appears clicking on drives in the navigation area on the left still allows me to look at them, not that I can do anything with them. No thumbnails. No right-click function. Files do still open, so there's that I guess.

Everything runs just fine until I try to do something with this one folder and then it all goes to hell. WTF?

EDIT: Crashing AME restored right-click functionality.

 

[samuria]

First job is run a full disk check to fix any disk errors

 

[Snick]

Disk check to fix system file errors
chkdsk /f
From Administrative Command Prompt (Admin CMD)
It will take a while to run!

 

[koberulz]

Check disk is clean.

 

[koberulz]

Check disk on my boot drive is also clean. sfc /scannow is clean.

Encoding a file from an external drive works fine.

 

[Snick]

Have you tried moving the offending folder to say external drive and try that?
Then create a new folder in original position and copy paste to new folder?

 

[koberulz]

Even just navigating to the problem folder, without even trying to open any of its files, causes issues. It looks fine initially but as soon as I hit " back" in Windows Explorer all the thumbnails are gone for the entire drive. Possibly all drives, I didn't check.

The external drive encode is still running - it was something I needed to do anyway, not just a meaningless test - so I'll test out copying later.

 

[koberulz]

Now even trying to open that folder in Explorer at all is causing issues. Long slow green progress bar in the address bar, hourglass cursor, etc. The folder isn't opening at all.

 

[Snick]

koberulz

Can you copy paste, cut paste or or drag drop to external hdd or another location for the folder?

Do you have a recent restore point, or a recent backup?

Last resort would be Repair Install, but that seems a little extreme at this point.

 

[koberulz]

Windows Explorer starts disliking things two or three folders above the one I was working in. That's about 150GB of files, so no I can't just shuffle it elsewhere at the moment.

 

[Snick]

I ask again,

Do you have a recent restore point, or a recent backup?

 

[koberulz]

I tried moving just the working folder over to my external. Deleted it from the internal drive.

Tried to delete the output file, and it just got stuck on "preparing to delete". Removed the drive, connected it to my laptop, successfully deleted the output file. Opened Premiere, set it to encode, opened it in AME and we're off and running.

So...corrupted output file? But then how did that occur?

EDIT: No backups (I know, I know). I have a couple of restore points from the last couple of days but they're both triggered by Windows Update, which would've been me trying to fix this, so they're too recent.

 

[wither 2]

How much free space do you have on your C: drive.? Encoding files, creates a tremendous amount of temporary files. Even if you have space, it might not hurt to run Disk Cleanup from System Tools and reboot. You should checkmark Temporary Files and Recycle bin after it first tells you how much space it can gain.

 

[koberulz]

The fact that the encode is running just fine on an external drive after failing on the internal drive points to space on C: not being an issue, but I have 145GB. The finished encoded file is only 35GB.

 

[Snick]

better yet for disk cleanup. From Admin CMD
Cleanmgr.exe /VERYLOWDISK
runs with all options checked!

 

[wither 2]

The fact that the encode is running just fine on an external drive after failing on the internal drive points to space on C: not being an issue, but I have 145GB. The finished encoded file is only 35GB.

The problem is that AME, like most software, is likely set in it's options to store the temporary files on the C: drive. As I mentioned, even though you may have space on the C: drive, it's my experience (I can't explain it technically) that this process may severely slow down your system (probably because it fragments the heck out of your drive) and possibly cause the type of problem you're seeing. There's no harm in cleaning up the disc even if it turns out not to be the cause of your problem.

 

[koberulz]

Right. So if it was always writing temp files to C: and C: was the problem, changing the working drive wouldn't have helped.

 

[wither 2]

If it's affecting your whole computer, I'd say scan both drives.

Obviously, you don't have to try this. It's just a possible solution like others mentioned here.

 

[koberulz]

It's only affecting one folder.

 

[koberulz]

It's something to do with AME locking files somehow. Just had this recur on a completely different drive. Worked fine until I realised there was an error with the output file, re-edited, and tried to overwrite it. Got a BSOD, and now AME locks up whenever I try to overwrite that file again. Writing to a new file in the same folder works fine.