Solved Windows Explorer: Some image thumbnails do not load.

[WonderBot]

I have Win 7 64-bit machine and all of a sudden some image file thumbnails show, and some do not. I have logged in as a different user on the machine and problem still occurs. Other machines on my network do not have this problem. I have tried the following below, but still no fix. Any suggestions without having to wipe the machine?

1. Folder Options: Always show icons, never thumbnails is unchecked
2. Disk cleanup
3. Reset Folders

 

[Brink]

Hello WonderBot,

You might see if clearing and resetting the thumbnail cache may be able to help if it may have gotten corrupted.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/10797-thumbnail-cache-clear-reset.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[WonderBot]

Thanks Brink,

Looks like clearing that is part of the Disk Cleanup, which I ran twice but still no luck. I do have CC cleaner and will give that a try.

 

[WonderBot]

CCcleaner was no help as well. It cant be a hardware issue because the machine has almost a TB amount of disk space. Its also running on 4GB RAM and I've tried on other machines with less amout of that the images in that folder load its thumbnails in seconds. This is starting to drive me crazy!

Attached is a screenshot

 

[Brink]

Do the images open ok?

Double check using step 7 in the tutorial below to make sure that your color bit depth settings is set to a True Color (32 bit). If it is, then set it 16-bit, apply, and set back to 32-bit.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/258-color-bit-depth-display-settings.html

 

[WonderBot]

Do the images open ok?

Double check using step 7 in the tutorial below to make sure that your color bit depth settings is set to a True Color (32 bit). If it is, then set it 16-bit, apply, and set back to 32-bit.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/258-color-bit-depth-display-settings.html

Images do open OK. I just went back on the machine and somehow now its appears to be working. Maybe CCleaner did help. The thumbnails appeared as I scrolled down the explorer window. It did take quite a long time to load everything, but maybe its because I'm working on the machine thru remote desktop.

Closed and reopen the folder and everything seems to still appear good.

 

[Brink]

Ah, that could be why then. If you have a lot of images in a folder, especially if large images, it could take a little bit for the thumbnails to load. It'll take even longer when over a remote desktop.

 

[WonderBot]

Ah, that could be why then. If you have a lot of images in a folder, especially if large images, it could take a little bit for the thumbnails to load. It'll take even longer when over a remote desktop.

Thanks. The screenshot I posted was taken after waiting for 10 mins and after the "green" loading bar at the top finished. I'll have to see tomorrow if the problem has been fixed while physically logged on the machine.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[WonderBot]

The user of that machine just told me the problem still happens for him

Looks like I have no other choice but to just wipe the machine over.

 

[Brink]

As a test, if the image is opened, does it show it's thumbnail preview afterwards? May need to refresh (F5) the window though.

 

[WonderBot]

Update: I think it may be a bad network port. I replaced the user with a different machine and with upgraded hardware (i5 processor w/ SSD drive). Problem still happening. We recently had a problem with his port awhile back and I'm thinking it may not be pumping out a true GB connection speed. Doesnt seem to be just only thumbnails, but other network folders lag when trying to open.

 

[WonderBot]

Going to retry later on a different network port.

 

[WonderBot]

In the thumbnail cache location, how do I go about rebuilding it?

Do I just delete all the database files and then reboot? When I try to delete them I cant because the folder itself is still open.

%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

 

[WonderBot]

Looks like Disk Cleanup does this automatically, but that still did not fix it. Wondering if I can somehow do it manually.

 

[WonderBot]

So I had to pull my boss into this mess as a second set of eyes and a little bit of good news/bad news.

Good news is we managed to get the specific folder of images to all load for the user. The bad news is other images on our share drive in a different folder still do the same (Some thumbnails show, some do not).

Sort of narrowed it down to either a network port problem or corrupt Windows user profile. However, the user logged into our domain on a completely separate machine and everything loaded fine. Deleting the user and recreating his profile did not fix it. I then updated the network driver on the machine and that seemed to have helped load the specific folder, but other folders still having trouble loading.

I'm really dumbfounded on this one

 

[Brink]

Not sure either. Something is definitely preventing them from loading properly over the network.

 

[WonderBot]

So I did give the DEL iconcache.db /a a try and it looks like it fixes the problem for a split second, but as soon as I try a different folder the thumbnails still do not load.

 

[WonderBot]

So we finally came to the conclusion that the problem was the network port. We plugged into a different port and everything works fine. We've had issues with that port in the past and I should have ruled that first but strange thing is a phone or laptop works fine on it. Wondering if maybe there is a Group Policy or Local Policy setting that somewhat "times-out" thumbnail previews when the network is too slow. Anyways, problem solved for now. Thanks for your help.

 

[Brink]

Great news. Thank you for posting back with your results.