Can I stop DPP from looking at all my images on 4 TB of internal SSD ?

[mangurian]

I work extensively with my images and when I start DPP it usually takes a very long time before I stop getting a "busy" cursor.  Once it is finished doing whatever it's doing (updating a database ?) everything works smoothly.  I have one "working" directory for images.  Is there any way to have DPP just look at where I work ?

Thanks

[wq9nsc · Accepted solution]

When you say one directory, are you just putting your current working files in it or do you keep previous files in it also?

For DPP, if you don't set a default directory then it will go to the last directory used.  I have a "dummy" directory that DPP is set to use with 1 file in it as a placeholder so it doesn't waste any time and I set this as the directory to always use at start.  Then I direct it where I want it.

Then my current working files are on one of the "Z drives" in my HP workstation, the Z drive is a SSD directly on the processor bus so it provides the best performance.  But the only files in that directory are the current files, all previous files get archived to 8 terabyte external drives for storage.  The exception is files that are from within the last two weeks stay on fast SSD drives but on the regular Thunderbolt bus so access isn't quite as fast as the Z drive but it gives me easy access to very recent files that I sometimes need to update a just completed event.

With this setup, DPP is ready to go within 5 seconds after I launch the app (I just checked it).

Hope this helps!

Rodger

[March411]

Open DPP and hit Ctrl+K to open preferences....

or

Go to Tools, at the bottom of the drop down choose preferences. The first tab is general settings, the top selection is the startup folder, select specified folder and set it to an empty directory. Once DPP opens you point it to the directory you want to work out of without waiting for everything on the drive to load. My music folder is empty (loaded on an external drive), that's loads DPP in seconds.

[samarak]

Sorry, but that doesn't work. I've had this problem for years and the first thing I tried was pointing DPP at an empty or nearly empty folder. Sometimes it seemed to help, sometimes now.

Today it was so bad I downloaded ProcMon, a utility from Windows, that can show what system calls an app is making, and filtered out everything but DPP. Even though DPP was started in a folder that has only 32 items in it, it is scanning files all over my hard drive. It's scanning CAB files from an orchid database, which of course have thousands of images in them, but I have never ever pointed it at those files, nor do I want it to scan anything but the immediate startup directory. This is really poor design. How do I make it stop?

Thanks, all. 

[March411]

@samarak sorry it's not working out for you but I would suggest that it is PC related and not the DPP software itself. I have it set up on several computers as outlined and the hit rate for opening the correct directory is 100%. I'm not trying to be argumentative or say that you are not experiences challenges but it has worked perfectly for me across several computer for many years.

If you are running windows Have you cleaned up old temp and prefetch files?  

[Waddizzle]

I agree with March411.  I point DPP startup setting to an empty folder on my C drive. When you edit files, you need to create a working folder that contains a limited number of files.

Do not use DPP to browse a large folder structure containing hundreds or thousands of files. Hope this helps.

[samarak]

Thanks for the reply, but that's not the problem. I have DPP pointed to a startup folder which has only 32 items in it. I have never ever pointed it at the files it is currently reading (I can see what file it's reading in ProcMon). Never. It's scanning files that it should never look it, that it shouldn't even know exist. Even when I kill the DPP processes and restart it, it picks up scanning those files. How do I stop it?

Thanks,

Steve

[samarak]

Hi Mark, thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, I also have DPP on several computers, from different makers (only thing in common is Intel), running both Windows 10 and Windows 11 at current service levels for both OSes. Both experience the same problem. I also had the problem on older systems. 

Remember also that I'm running ProcMon, so I can see the system calls - I can see DPP reading files it shouldn't be, in directories to which it has never ever been pointed. As a software professional myself, it's pretty hard to see how that could be system related - it's gotta be in the design of DPP itself. If there's a switch somewhere to turn it off, I've never been able to find it.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, 

Steve

[samarak]

Marc (sorry I misspelled your name), I'm going to attempt to paste in a screen shot from ProcMon.

Ok, can't paste directly. I'll try to attach an image.

[Stephen]

DPP is not randomly scanning folders because it wants to.

Have you checked the settings March411 suggested above? It will recursively scan whatever folder you have selected, and it will *also* look for every thumbnail in its cache, so you need to clear that, too, or it's just going to re-scan, so delete the temporary files. Another thing you can do is adjust the slider to make more or less temp space available - once it hits the limit it will flush the oldest ones.