The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/BrickAndroid on 2024-12-04 02:28:58.
I have a bunch of hard drives that I want to systematically/programatically fix from this issue preemptively, since they contain tons of files. I'm sure some of you have ran into this issue before.
Basically, there are certain files (the only ones I've encountered this with were video files that I torrent) that Windows Explorer tries to generate thumbnails for when you open their folders, but they can't, and this causes a bunch of issues. You can't delete the file because it's stuck, so you need to use IOBit Unlocker to force IO unlock the file so it's no longer being used by the process that generates thumbnails (I believe that's "COM Surrogate"), then you can delete it. But that's not just it. Once you go to another folder, Windows Explorer will get stuck saying "Working on it" and you can't view anything in any folder, so you need to restart it from task manager.
I'm asking this here and not r/techsupport because that sub is never helpful and it's generally better to ask on specific subs.
I've had this problem before with a file months ago, but I forgot what the solution was. I tried retracing my steps from my browser history, and I found solutions saying I should open command prompt as admin, then run "sfc/scannow" and "chkdsk e: /r /f" (e of course being the E: drive), though that didn't help.
Has anyone here dealt with this problem and knows the solution? My only way of dealing with this currently is just deleting the problem file then trying to find another source to download it from. Some files are too difficult to find replacements for, so I'd rather fix the files somehow, and do this for all my hard drives.