Image thumbnails are flashing on, then disappearing in Vista

UPDATE:
I restored my system to a restore point from about 24 hours ago.
That fixed the problem.  
I proceeded to repeat the work that I had done since then, creating a new restore point after each major task (reactivating google desktop, installing AVG, creating a new power use profile). After each restore it was fine.
I got through everything, and the thumbnails still worked.
Then I spent an hour on the internet, while copying some files to the NAS network drive in the background.  
Now the thumbnails are disappearing again.  
When I open a new folder with images, the thumbnails all generate very quickly, then disappear and leave only the default logo image of the tropical island.
Someone on another board mentioned something about having the same problem and thinking it was something to do with not having correct permissions to write the thumbnail index file to the disk.  This seems strange to me, as I'm the administrator/only user, but as its the one thing I've read and haven't been able to eliminate yet, I suppose it could be this.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I'm a designer and I bought the machine specifically to do photo editing and autocad.  Seeing thumbnails of files is critical!
Thanks in advance!!!!

Out of interest, under Folder Options > View is the 'Do Not Cache Thumbnails' option ticked or unticked?

Hi Pete,
Thanks for your interest and help!

You've got me stumped though - as far as I can tell, the "Do Not Cache Thumbnails" option is only available in XP, not Vista.  Am I missing it?
Here's what I found on one page (http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-the-Thumbnail-Cache-in-Windows):

"Disabling Thumbnail Caching on Windows Vista:
   1. Follow the same steps for Windows XP, but select "Always show icons, not thumbnails". Windows Vista does not have an option to disable thumbnail caching; you can only disable thumbnails completely."

I know a wiki is not the most reliable source, but it's one of the only reference I found to this particular point.

I don't have Photoshop installed yet, and I don't know how to show you a screen shot of the options I have without it, but the only options I've found that involve thumbnails are:
In Appearance and Personalization / Folder Options / View, "Always show icons, never thumbnails", and "Display file icon on thumbnails"
I couldn't find much out about the latter, but I tried all four combinations of these being on and off, with no change - except that after I checked "Always show icons, never thumbnails" and hit apply, just to test it, the thumbnails no longer flashed then disappeared.  They just never showed up. When I unchecked it again, the same thing happened - they still didn't flash the way they had before.  After checking the do not show thumbnails box, applying it, then UNchecking this command and applying it, it continued showing even less of of the thumbnails (even if it was a split second) than it had before with the same setting.  Baffling.
The only other thumbnail option I've found is under "Performance Information and Tools / Adjust Visual Effects"  In the "Performance Options" window, there is a box that says "show thumbnails instead of icons" (interestingly, this is the opposite syntax of the other thumbnail command in the folder options, "always show icons, never thumbnails")
I've tried this on both settings as well, with no change.
I feel like the answer is right around the corner... I just don't know which corner!
Thanks again for your help!
Josh

Hi Josh,

That was probably my bad - I have Vista at home, but XP at work, and I was at work when I posted, so probably lost track of the fact that I wasn't using Vista when I was playing about...

I can't help much at the mo for the above reason, but if someone else hasn't already jumped in and sorted it, i'll play about when I get home and see if I can recreate your problem, then solve it.

(however if I end up recreating the problem and can't get rid of it, you'll be talking to a very stroppy guy... lol)

Catch up with you later, after 18:00ish...

Pete

Oh and one thing that I did find (although I don't think it's the case here) was that thumbnails on external sources (basically anywhere but on a local HDD) have that problem if MS Publisher is installed.

It was just another forum I found it on, someone with EXACTLY the same problem, who ended up resolving it himself by uninstalling MS Publisher. He reinstalled it, and got the problem again, uninstalled it, and the problem went away again...

(I think it was Publisher anyway, either Publisher or Project but Publisher seems more likely).

So anyway, if you do happen to have Publisher installed, try uninstalling and see what happens. You probably don't, but it was worth suggesting anyway just in case... :)

Thank you, Pete,

Lee,
Thanks for the insight.  Some updates: after the thumbnails just disappeared altogether instead of flashing then disappearing, I restarted.  (Probably should've been doing this more frequently, but I sometimes stubbornly believe that if you change a setting it should take effect unless you get a warning that you have to restart for the changes to take effect, but that's just me).
Upon restarting, the thumbnails refreshed and are currently remaining.
I found the thumbnail cache that you referred to above.  
It shows the following files:
thumbcache_32
thumbcache_96
thumbcache_256
thumbcache_1024
thumbcache_idx
thumbcache_sr

All of these files are shown as modified on 3/11/2008 at 1:22 am except for thumbcache_idx which was modified at 9:06 am, during the restart.  This means that the other thumbcache files were modified after I started having the problem the first time, and AFTER my most recent restore point - which means that I had the problem, restored the system to an earlier state, reinstalled some software, created a new system restore point, and then the thumbcache files were modified.   Only the thumbcache_idx file was modified at the most recent restart, and the problem has currently subsided.

This make any sense to you?

Good news that it's working, but nervous that I don't know what caused it as none of the aforementioned check boxes were ever marked incorrectly except for testing.

Thanks again!

Josh

P.S., I ran chkdsk /O, chkdsk /c and chkdsk from the start menu, but all I got was a quick flash of the black cmd window - not even long enough for me to see if there was text inside, and then it disappeared.

Not sure what that means, except that I've been unable to run the chkdsk command on my network drive.

Am I entering that correctly?

Thanks, Pete,

No Publisher installed.

If you go to a CMD prompt (type CMD in the search dialog box in the Start Menu) and then type CHKDSK /? you will get the syntax of the CHKDSK command.  I have copied it from my CMD window below:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\LeeTutor>chkdsk /?
Checks a disk and displays a status report.


CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]] [/B]


  volume          Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
                  mount point, or volume name.
  filename        FAT/FAT32 only: Specifies the files to check for fragmentation
.
  /F              Fixes errors on the disk.
  /V              On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file
                  on the disk.
                  On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.
  /R              Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
                  (implies /F).
  /L:size         NTFS only:  Changes the log file size to the specified number
                  of kilobytes.  If size is not specified, displays current
                  size.
  /X              Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
                  All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid
                  (implies /F).
  /I              NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
  /C              NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder
                  structure.
  /B              NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume
                  (implies /R)

The /I or /C switch reduces the amount of time required to run Chkdsk by
skipping certain checks of the volume.

You can also go to Computer, right click on the drive you want to check, select Properties, click on the Tools tab, then click the button Check Now.  If you are checking your system drive, it will give you a message about having to do it the next time you boot...

Hi Lee,

I managed to get to the command line.  I ran dskchk on the drive that I'm having the problem with (C:\Users\Josh>chkdsk o:) and got an error saying that "Windows cannot check a disk attached through a network."

I was just about to write and say that despite the dskchk not working, I think whatever change I made fixed itself when restarting, but then, literally as I double checked the problem in the middle of writing this, the problem came back.  No thumbnails anymore.

So I restarted AGAIN and again the thumbnails are now back... for now.  I don't know what's causing this or what the common thread is.  

Thanks again for all of your help.  Any further thoughts?

Josh

Oh dang, lol, I didn't play about last night as the last commend I read said it was working ok... Oh well, back to drawing board!

Quick question though - This network drive you're referring to, is this in an office, or are you using a home network and happen to be connecting to another PC on your LAN where all these image files are?

Pete

Home network, 1 PC.

The drive is a LaCie 1TB bigdisk NAS attached to my wireless N router via ethernet.  My laptop is docked and hardwired via ethernet to the same router.

Hmmmmm interesting... You've probably already clarified this, but does this problem only occur for image files on the NAS? Or does it also effect images on the local HDD?

Also, i've been reading up on that LaCie drive, and it says that the software that comes with it has some 'utilities'. Are any of them disk checking tools?

Also, there is this - http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Disk-Checker.shtml

Which claims to be able to check remote disks as well... However, my instinct on this is that there's nothing wrong with the disk at all, and it's something to do with thumbnails on network drives...

Thanks Pete (and Lee!)  

So far, I've only seen it happen on the network drive, but I haven't checked the local drive every time it's happened.  I'll make a point of that from now on.

I'm at the airport now, but Ill try those things to check the network drive when I get home again!

Yeah give those few things a try (I'm especially interested to see if you still get the problem when using USB).

I'm sure it's something to do with caching and the network drive...

Forced accept.

Computer101
EE Admin

Running Disk Cleanup fixed this for me as noted by LeeTutor. I tried deleting them manually, but could not.  Disk cleanup seems to reset the files in the
\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\explorer
directory after a restart of the system.

I don't know how this solution can get a 7.6 rating. It comes nowhere near to solving the issue. This is a very replicable problem, and occurs on thumbnails on (at least) jpeg images stored on network folders/shares/drives.

create a batch file that will delete the thumbcache files, schedule it (in task scheduler; the open advanced properties after creating task; run with highest privelages) to run every night, then create a batch file to forcefully reboot the pc after the batch to delete thumbcache has ran. This works every time, I have heard zero complaints from users after I implemented this "fix".  Too bad Microsoft couldnt take a few moments to fix this with a windows update!