6

I'm using Windows 10.

I recently installed IrfanView 64-bit, and also cleared my thumbnail cache with CCleaner.

Problem

Now random jpg and png images have thumbnails and many do not, they are stuck with the IrfanView icon. Video, such as mp4, thumbnails are also missing.

irfanview icon

Sometimes it shows white icons and my View pane is disabled.

white icon

view pane

In folders, Explorer shows a green loading bar that never finishes.

loading

Right clicking on an image with a thumbnail will pop up the context menu, but right clicking on images without thumbnails freezes Explorer.

The Settings Menu also constantly freezes when clicking on items.

settings

Fix Attempts

  1. Tried uninstalling IrfanView and using the default Windows Photos app, but then no thumbnails will appear, and opening an image only freezes Explorer. Right clicking on any image also freezes Explorer.

  2. It tried clearing and rebuilding the cache with Disk Cleanup and CMD.
    https://www.windowscentral.com/how-reset-thumbnail-cache-windows-10

  3. Tried using this icon rebuilder and restarting the computer.
    https://www.thewindowsclub.com/icon-cache-rebuilder-for-windows-10

  4. Ran chkdsk and sfc /scannow, it fixed a corrupted mscormmc.dll but did not solve the problem.

  5. Restored old CCleaner registry backup.

  6. Ran a virus scan with Eset which came up clean.

  7. Checked the health status of my SDD which says no problems.

Nothing has fixed the issue.

Matt McManis
  • 191

2 Answers2

9

I had the same issue. When this happens the "COM Surrogate" process was taking up ~7% CPU usage and it wouldn't stop when trying to cancel the thumnail generation via the "X" on the loading bar in Explorer. It stopped the loading bar but not the process and weird things would happen in Explorer like suddenly missing icons and an empty sidebar. Killing "COM Surrogate" restores normal operation for some time. I used Process Explorer to identify which process had a description of "COM Surrogate". I checked its properties to find out what it is executing.

ddlhost.exe

I searched for the ProcessID/GUID in the registry and it was the thumbnail generation. I opened the lower pane in Process Explorer to check the handles and saw one file.

file d:\videos

It seems thumbnail generation got stuck on trying to generate a thumbnail for that video. After deleting the file I haven't had any problems since and thumbnails get generated without issues.

somebadhat
  • 1,240
Dennis98
  • 111
3

This was exactly my problem. For months. But I fixed it, finally. Turns out there was a .heic picture on my desktop - the picture type iphones use these days. But it did not show on the desktop, no thumbnail. It did show in explorer as a file, but I could not delete it, en explorer freezed on it. Reghunter turned out to be able to delete it. I'm sure there are other programs that can do this. (Re-)installed heic and heif programs in the windows store. Somehow windows 10 lost the connection to .jpg files in this process. Fixed that with individual standard app settings.

And now no more green bar, superfast thumnailing, all problems fixed.

Peter Moraal
  • 31