Explorer crashes when trying to delete profiles

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 10:39 am

I want to rebuild my profiles by using the Batch Profiler. When I try to delete the profiles saved in the "Profiles" folder I get a message saying "Explorer has encountered and error and needs to close" (the Send/Don't send bug report pop-up). I can delete the whole folder, but if chooses one or more profiles in Explorer and then click on "File" (to delete it, or hit the "Delete" key, I get the error. It also happens with profiles saved to a different directory.

I'm running Windows XP SP1. The Batch Profiler works fine, I just can't do anything with the profiles once they're created.

Post by **NITeam** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 11:54 am

Bug in Explorer? - Can you trace the problem down to specific profiles? I would like to reproduce this effect on my computer so if you can tell me which profile name makes Explorer crash then I would try to find a solution.

Thank you,
Vlad

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 1:09 pm

Any or all. When I navigate to a folder with profiles, and then click on one of them, everything is OK. If I then click on "File" in the folder menu bar, or hit the "Delete" key, or right click to get the pop-up menu, I get the Explorer crash.

Post by **NITeam** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 1:16 pm

When I do the same Explorer works correctly. Probably my profiles have different file names and this makes the difference. Also possible that you have some third-party software running that tries to enhance Explorer functionality.

Vlad

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 1:18 pm

Thanks Vlad. I'll do some playing around and see whether I can resolve the issue.

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 11:55 am

I did a repair install of Windows XP (other things were amiss in the system) but still am not able to do anything with the profile files. I did notice that the files have icons associated with them that are not the same ones I see on another machine. After doing some investigation, I've found that the .dnp extension is also used by:

Extension: DNP
Program and/or Extension Function [What's This?] Company [What's This?]
DRM File
Specific Notes [What's This?]
View with QuickTime or Microsoft Windows Media Services (CrossOver - npwmsdrm.dll) or Windows Multimedia Services DRM Store Plug-In.
MIME Type [What's This?] File Classification [What's This?] Associated Links [What's This?]
QuickTime
Microsoft Windows Media Services
Windows Multimedia Services DRM Store Plug-In

Identifying Characters [What's This?]
(None or Unknown)
Program ID [What's This?]
(None or Unknown)
General Notes [What's This?]
(None)

I recently installed Windows Media Player 10 on the machine giving the error problems. Could this be contributing to the problem? If so, how can I dissociate the .dnp file type from the media players?

I think it may have to do with the .dpm being interpreted as a Windows media DRM file, which as I understand it has to do with encryption of downloaded media files or something like that.

Any advice on how to fix things?

Post by **NITeam** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 12:13 pm

Please check whether DNP files are associated with anything using Explorer itself:
go to menu Tools | Folder Options | File Types and then find DNP in the list. Let me know whether you have DNP in the list and if it is there then which Details for 'DNP' extension are listed in the bottom of the window.

Thank you,
Vlad

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:27 am

There is no registered use of the .dnp extension.

It seems that the problem arises from the long filenames used to name the profiles. If I shorten the filename, everything works OK. In fact, any filename that is long (don't know exactly where the cutoff is) causes the problem. I renamed a file in another folder to a very long name and got the same crash.

Is the data needed to match a profile found in the file itself, or is the long file name necessary to auto match a profile. I could always shorten the filenames, but if they contain the data needed to automatch, this won't work.

I've downloaded a security update from MS and will try it later on today to see whether it solves the problem. Any advice you can give on this problem would be helpful. I'm looking into the MS Knowledge base to see if I can figure it out. Will let you know what I find.

Post by **NITeam** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:33 am

Yes, feel free to shorten the file names, this will not affect Neat Image.

It would probably help me reproduce the effect if you quoted one of the offending long names of those files.

Thank you,
Vlad

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:46 am

The problem may be specific to my operating environment. You could test for yourself by copying any file and renaming it to an absurdly long name, at least 80 characters or more. Then see whether you can right click after selecting, or clicking on the "File" option on the menu bar after opening the folder and selecting the file. If you still want it, I'll post a name when I get home later today.

It happens in WIN 98SE with this filename (copy of a zip file and renamed):

"Copy of bmx with an absurdly long filename that is sure to crash the windows XP explorer if it were the actial name of the file in question and was not short enough to cause a problem.zip"

In this case, with WIN 98, Explorer doesn't crash, it just sits there and does nothing after right click or click on "File" in the menu bar.

Post by **NITeam** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:08 pm

I couldn't not crash Explorer by renaming a profile (making the file name larger than 200 symbols) or by using the sample ZIP file name you provided but there is something we could test. Please check whether the profiles on your computer are located very deep in the folder structure. It is possible that the trouble starts when the total length of those folder names together with the file name is too long for Windows to handle. In this case you can either reduce the profile file names or move the profiles higher in the folder structure.

Vlad

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:15 pm

The profiles are in D:/Program Files/Neat Image/PROFILES/filenames.dnp

If the long filename I supplied doesn't crash your machine, it must be something with my system. Since renaming the files won't affect their use, I'll go that route for now and let you know what comes of trying to fix it.

Thanks for your quick replies and interest in the problem. This kind of customer support is rare in the software business.

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:56 am

Placing the profiles in the folder "D:\NeatImage Profiles" fixes the problem. It does seem to be a "path" related issue. All files on my computer deep in subfolders have this problem. I thought path+file name length could be up to 255 characters. Mine are certainly less than this. I've searched the web for an answer to this with no luck. It seems that a lot of people observe this crash, but MS has not responded.

Post by **NITeam** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 12:05 pm

Yes, normally up to ~250 symbols should be fine. It is strange that on your system this is different. What number do you get if you execute CHCP command in the command prompt window?

Vlad

Wolverine@MSU · Post by **Wolverine@MSU** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:55 am

CHCP returns 437.

What does this number mean?