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

[samarak]

Hi Stephen, 

Thanks for the response. Yes, I did look at Marc's suggested settings. As I mentioned, I have DPP pointed at a specific folder in which there are currently only 32 items. It has NEVER, and I'll repeat NEVER, been pointed at the folders it is currently scanning. Also please note that for some reason it's scanning CAB files, and while they can contain images (and in this case do), that's not a valid image extension and DPP should not scan a CAB file internally even if it encounters one. So I'd have to disagree - at least on my system(s), DPP does appear to be randomly scanning files. Believe me I would love to find that it's just some setting that I have wrong. This problem costs me a lot of time. 

Deleting the cache and reducing temp space are suggestions I haven't seen before, and I'll try them. Thank you! But those are workarounds, and I still need a real fix. 

Part of this problem is that when I kill and restart DPP, it starts scanning again and becomes unresponsive so quickly that I don't have a chance to open the menu and change settings. If the cache is the directory in Marc's earlier response (C:\Users\(userid)\AppData\Roaming\Canon_Inc_IC) there's less than 1MB in there. If that's not the cache, can someone tell me where it is? I haven't searched exhaustively, but I'm not seeing any likely candidates.

Thanks,

Steve

[Stephen]

Have you called support? 

[SignifDigits]

If you do a reinstall and/or want to clear the search you'll need to remove DPP files and folders in:

1. C:\Program Files\Canon\  
2. C:\Users\[YOURUSERNAMGOESEHERE]\AppData\Roaming\Canon.   (this is a hidden folder to enable viewing hidden folders in File Explorer via the three dots..., then Options, then the View tab.  You'll see it there)

[samarak]

Hi Stephen,

No, for two reasons. One is that I was hoping it's something stupid I did (though from the ProcMon output, that seems increasingly unlikely) and the community would have a quick fix. The other is urgency - I'm trying to get some award photos processed for the people who need them. Opening a support issue is, by design I'm sure, a time-intensive process, and if Canon support is like most, they'll ignore any evidence I have until they've made me go through hours of things I've either already tried or ruled out, assuming that I'm technically an idiot. I get why - I've BEEN software support and dealt with very non-technical people - but I don't have that kind of time today. Or most days.And even if I endure all that, they probably won't have a fix, and it could be weeks, months, or never before I get one - if they think it's worth fixing at all, since pointing at a specific directory seems to work for the rest of you.

But yes, that seems to be what needs to happen.

Steve

[Jkarl · Accepted solution]

I just ran the same procmon test on my DPP and it did not scan everything on the HDD. The most reads were in the registry and the Program Files folder where DPP is installed and of course the SysWOW64 folder.. I do not have a solution other than what has already been suggested. BTW I am running on a windows platform. I did have to set up a start folder to keep my install from reading everything but once I did it stopped.

[Waddizzle]

“ . I did have to set up a start folder to keep my install from reading everything but once I did it stopped. “

Congrats! Setting up an empty startup folder really does work. But DPP looks environment variables to initialize itself.

By default, it will use the default folder for Windows Media Player, if that’s installed. If not, then it starts looking at folders in your “Documents” folder, and possibly other installed media apps.

Again, assigning a default folder to DPP seems to be the best solution. 

[Waddizzle]

“ As I mentioned, I have DPP pointed at a specific folder in which there are currently only 32 items. “

Point it at an empty folder.  A local folder, not a network folder.  Create a seperate local “working” folder where you edit files.  

Use that folder with 32 files as your working folder. Create another empty folder as your startup folder. 

Never use DPP to browse a library of media files. If you have Media Player installed, then you might want to change its startup folder to the same empty folder used for DPP. 

[EDIT] No sub-folders in the startup or working folders, either.

[samarak]

Thanks, Jkarl. That's what I'd expect. What ProcMon saw on my system was always similar to the image I posted earlier, only the particular CAB file within that directory changed. No writes, no other calls.

DPP was determined to keep scanning those CAB files. The only way I could make it stop long enough to talk to it was to move that directory elsewhere. Since it's never been pointed at that directory, ever (it was an install directory for another product), and since it shouldn't be looking into CAB files for images anyway, I'm calling this a serious DPP software bug. But at the moment it's behaving well enough to get the work done.

If anyone knows where DPP stores the information about what it was scanning when it crashed/was killed, I'd love to know, as I'm sure it will lose its mind again sometime. I did a quick registry scan for "Canon" and "DPP" but didn't see anything likely, and the directories in the roaming profile under AppData that Marc & Whiz mentioned earlier have almost nothing in them - less than 1MB. 

Has anyone happened to test whether DPP will still run if you disable its permission to get directory change notification? I'm really tired of dealing with this issue.

Steve

[March411]

Just spitballing here but have you thought about uninstalling DDP, creating an empty directory (I used music, I keep mine on an external drive) and reinstall the software.and then mapping the Specified folder to the newly created directory. 

If you haven't tried it maybe it's worth a shot since it sounds like you've tried everything else..... 

[samarak]

Thanks for the response. By "Media Player"' I assume you mean the Canon product? But I don't have either the Canon or Windows Media Player installed, so shouldn't matter. And I never use DPP to browse any folder, except for the folders of still images with which I'm actually working at the moment, not even the repositories where I load images from my cameras. I browse those with other software, copy the images I select to a working directory (such as the one I was working with today), and process them there with DPP. I try never to give DPP a chance to get distracted by any images other than the ones I'm processing. And I never let a working directory get too big - not that it should matter.

As a software guy, I'm having real trouble seeing why it would matter to any properly written software whether I started it pointed at an empty directory and then switched to a directory with files in it, or just started in the working directory, so long as it didn't have hundreds or thousands of images. It's going to have to enumerate the files in the working directory at some point either way, and presumably establish file change notification for that directory in either case. But it's easy to try and I'm so tired of this issue, so why not? It's clear from the behavior I saw that there's a serious flaw in DPP's file system scanning code, but as I say I don't have the time (or the degree of masochism required) to pursue it with Canon support. A shame that software as powerful and useful as DPP has this bug. 

Steve