Thanks for the advise.
What is chkdsk ?
in explorer, right click the drive the file’s on, select properties. select tools. select check for errors and check now and fix all and fix system stuff (forget the exact wording<G>). you may need to restart if the drive is in use, and it could take a while if it finds and fixes many errors and it’s a very large drive.
Thanks for the advise.
After numerous chkdsk’s and multiple restarts in safe mode I have finally managed to get rid of all the tiff files from my computer.
It was really strange because I could only delete them a few at a time (and quite randomly as to which ones I could delete.)
There were a couple of tiff’s which looked for a while like they would be unable to deleted ever but I persevered with the restarts in safe mode and chkdsk’s and eventually they let me delete them.
It is the strangest behavior I have encountered from my pc ever. I still dont know what is going on.
I tried saving some new tiff’s – from different raw files, into a different folder and I had the same problem ??????
I have deleted those ones in safe mode but am wondering if I’ll ever be able to use tiff files on this machine ???
Mark.
Hi Mark,
I have exactly the same problem with CS2, german version, on Windows XP Home Edition. The Hotline of my hardware manufacturer could also not help. They suspect that Adobe generates hidden lock entries in the registry.
Therefore I searched the registry with the windows program regedit and deleted all ocurrences of the questionable tif files, but it did not help a bit.
I only found, like you, that after safe mode restarts some of the files can be deleted (sometimes). I am really wondering whether there is an adobe support adress, who can help without billing for that.
Hans
Have you tried deleting from the Command Prompt with all programs, including Windows Explorer shut down?
Or booting into DOS?
Mark and Hans, you aren’t using any compression or encryption on your hard drives, are you?
And Mark, have you tried creating the correct tiff file association?
John, Earl,
this afternoon I tried using ProcessExplorer to delete the file handles. It works, and I could delete some tiff files. But the last one cannot be deleted that way, as always when I have deleted all file handles referencing that file (all handles are owned by the explorer by the way) and I select the tiff file again to delete it, 6 new handles are generated by the explorer before I can delete the file.
Now I tried your idea with deleting from command prompt after exiting explorer. It worked, but it is very unconvenient.
Now I am unsure, whether it is a general windows explorer or an adobe problem. Any idea?
I think it is the way Photoshop (and some other applications) interact with the GUI.
No single culprit!
shouldn’t be a gui if you safe mode w/command prompt (f8 during startup). i’m was almost tempted to say there’s a problem with the hard drive(s) as repeated chkdsks and safe mode deletes cleared it until the 2nd poster with the problem showed up.
very odd.
perhaps a 3rd party app like an indexer or backup solution running? norton? mccaffe? windows system restore? etc.?
May be my loose terminology – I thought Windows Explorer was part of the GUI.
I’m still not clear on the extent of the problem, Mark.
Does this happen with other file formats? PSD’s? Jpegs?
Are you saving these in one particular location? If so, what is the (exact) name of the folder and what is its parent folder?
Is there no existing tiff file association? Can you create one (to Photoshop)? Who installed Photoshop? Was it you, or someone logged in as a different user? Are you, or was the user who installed it, an Administrator?
I know that’s a lot of questions, but those answers should provide important clues.
Earl,
Here is some system info:
Pentium 4 3 Ghz, 2.5 GB RAM, 2 Screens,
I do not use any file compression tools,
I switched off the XP indexing service,
it happens in every directory I store my pictures in,
I have tiff files assiciated with CS2 in CS2,
I have tiff associated with Microsoft Image Viewer in the explorer, I have the MS Raw viewing tool installed,
Currently I try to reproduce the problem and it does not appear. rgds, Hans
I thought Windows Explorer was part of the GUI.
it is. you didn’t misunderstand. what i’m suggesting is run safe mode command prompt only. the gui isn’t loaded then.
Hans, does the Microsoft Image Viewer, or some related tiff-detector, load automatically when Windows starts? Also, another app that tries to take control of tiffs is Quicktime — does that one load automatically?
good call earl. stinkin’ quicktime! no matter how often i remove it from the run registry key it always puts itself back! at least it shows an icon in the task bar when loaded (usually).
Use msconfig to determine whether any image-related programs are running at startup (e.g., does MS Raw run a helper app); any such program conceivably could be locking up image files. What image-related processes are running when you open task manager and click on the processes tab? Is your antivirus app set to constantly scan the disk, or check out every disk access?
Hi Guys,
I’m not quite as tech savvy as some of you so bear with me please. I don’t think I’m using any compression or encryption on my hard drives. At least I haven’t set anything up of that nature.
Earl, What is "The correct tiff file association"? Answers to your questions:
I don’t have any problems with other file formats NEF, jpeg, PSD, etc. I have tried saving the tiff files
1 – onto the desktop,
2 – into a new folder on the desktop (called "new folder"), 3 – into the same folder as the original NEF (raw) files, 4 – into a new empty folder within the parent folder.
I’m not sure what a "tiff file association" is. If you could explain this then I can try creating one to Photoshop.
I noticed when I first had this problem that if I right clicked on the tiff file and looked at the properties it said "opens with unknown application" – but it would open in CS2 anyway when I double clicked it.
Now the properties have gone back to saying :opens with Photoshop CS2" I dont know if this is because of the chkdsk’s I have done. Maybe that cleaned up some little glitch but I still can’t move or delete the tiff files in normal mode.
I installed Photoshop myself. I am logged in as myself (as opposed to "Administrator") When I restart in safe mode I have the option of logging in as "Mark" or "Administrator." I tried logging in as administrator once but I couldn’t access any folders.
Other matters:
I have Norton Internet Security and Counterspy running all the time. I have the microsoft raw viewing tool installed also.
John, What is the GUI ?
Regards,
Mark.
Use msconfig to determine whether any image-related programs are running at startup
won’t matter if you press f8 before windows starts and run SAFE MODE WITH COMMAND PROMPT ONLY! 🙂
Dave, your approach will let him delete files currently on his computer. I’m trying to help him find out why he can’t delete them, so he can solve the problem, instead of switching to safe mode, command prompt.
As an alternative to safe mode, command prompt, you can:
1. Open task manager (ctrl+alt+del).
2. Click file > new task(run).
3. Type "cmd" into the dialog that pops up, and hit enter. A new commandline dialog box will open.
4. Click on Processes. Click on each process listed with your user name, other than the "cmd.exe", "taskmgr.exe", starting at the top of the list, and click the "End Process" button. The last one you click should be "explore.exe". When you end the latter process, your desktop will disappear, and all you will see is the task manager and the command line box.
5. In the command line box, navigate to the TIFF files and delete them. (Assuming you don’t know how to do this, I’ll explain. Skip this if you understand how to navigate from a command line.)
a. The command line shows your current directory (which should be your user directory) in the prompt. In my case, this is "C:\Documents and Settings\Mike" followed by the ">".
b. From any given directory, you can display a list of all the files with the command "dir", which will give you 1 line per file and scroll through the entire directory. You can also display a list of all files with a given type of name by using * for the part that will vary, so by entering "dir *.tif" you will display a list of all the files with a .tif extension.
c. Using the /X option in the dir command will show you the short name as well as the long name of files that don’t conform to the DOS naming scheme (8x dot 3x, where x is a character, digit, underscore, or hyphen, more or less). The /X goes on the end of the command line, after any file names. This may be helpful below.
c. Among the subdirectories of your user directory are Desktop and My Documents. To get to your desktop, use the "cd" (change directory) command by entering "cd desktop". To get to the My Documents directory, you would have to put quotes around My Documents, because it doesn’t conform to the DOS naming scheme, as in "cd "my documents"". If you list the directories with the /X option, as in "dir /x" (lower case is ok), you will find that "MYDOCU~1" is the short name for "My Documents". So to change to that directory without having to use the quotes around the long name, you could instead enter "cd mydocu~1".
d. To go up a directory (from desktop to your user directory, for example), enter "cd ..". To go to the top of the hierarchy for the current disk drive, enter "cd \". To change to a different drive, enter "d:" (where d is the drive letter; no "cd"), then use the cd command as needed.
e. To delete one or two specific files in a directory, you can delete them individually by entering "del xxx.tif", "del xxx*.tif", etc. (where xxx.tif or xxx[something].tif is the name of a file). If you need to delete a fair number of tiff files, you can enter "del *.tif /P", and you will be prompted for whether to delete each .tif file.
f. This assumes none of the files are read-only, hidden, or system files. If so, you will need more complex commands.
6. When finished deleting files, click on "Shutdown > Restart" in the task manager and your computer will reboot back to its normal self.
I’m trying to help him find out why he can’t delete them, so he can solve the problem, instead of switching to safe mode, command prompt.
<Miss Emily Latella>Oh. That’s different. Nevermind.</MET> 🙂
Hi all,
thanks for all your valuable input.
To answer some of the open questions about my system environment – I run etrust antivirus from CA. with a realtime check of incoming and outgoing files. I do not know, whether this checks every disk access.
– Quicktime and Itune are installed. An ITune service starts up automatically. But the problem occurred first before both have been installed. So I think it is unlikely, that they are the root.
– yesterday i did what was recommended in this thread: I opened a command line, closed everything including explorer and then I could delete my tif files. So far so good.
– Today I generated 50 new tiff files, 65 MB each, for testing purposes with CS2. I started to delete some of them using Bridge. It worked.
– then i tried to delete some of them with explorer and the problem came up again. Some files can be deleted and some are locked now.
I will deinstall the MS Raw tool now and try again.
Hans, did you close Bridge, and Photoshop if it was open, before you tried to delete with Windows Explorer? (You shouldn’t have to, but we’re looking at everything here.)
Hans, how did you have the files listed in Explorer — Thumbnail icons, details, list, etc.? I have occasionally run into a problem deleting files when Explorer is trying to create thumbnails or icons to display. You may need to wait until Explorer has finished, which can take quite some time if there are large images. Explorer itself is silently opening them to figure out how to display them. If you use Explorer in list mode, it doesn’t try to display them, and in details mode it may be faster than in thumbnails mode, since it only has to create tiny icons instead of larger thumbnails. This can be a problem if the files are ones that Windows knows how to display (jpeg, tiff, windows media, etc.), but not if they are files that Windows doesn’t know how to display (e.g., psd — as long as you don’t have psicon.dll active from PS7 or earlier).
Hi all,
yes I tried to delete with bridge and CS2 open and closed and there was no difference.
Today I did some testing with my virus scanner and with the MS Raw tool and I think I have solved the issue now preliminarily for me:
I found two effects
1) The eTrust Antivirus checked each tif, psd, jpg, etc file on opening, closing, copying and deleting and this check creates file handles. I monitored the file handles with the freeware ProcessExplorer. The file handles did not disappear after the check was finished.
Therefore I deactivated the virustool and things got better, but I still got some file handles for graphic files and for directories, which did not disappear even after restarting the system.
2) Now I deinstalled the "MS RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer", which is a free explorer enhancement from Microsoft. Instead the old Bitmap and Fax viewer works again. Back to XP Standard.
Now the issue with the file handles, which do not disappear, when they are no longer needed, has disappeared.
– The virus checker creates file handles and they disappear, when the check is finished. – CS2 does not create any file handles, which is strange, but it seems to be standard behaviour for picture editors as Picture Window Pro behaves the same way.
(MS Word eg. behaves differently and creates a handle, which locks a file against deleting, while it is edited.)
Summary:
– I have switched on again the virus checker, but excluded tif and psd files from checking to get quicker file handling.
– I have deinstalled the MS Raw tool as it very likely creates the problem on my computer. I would be interested, whether Mark, who has started the thread, also uses this MS Raw tool. Kind regards, Hans
Hi all,
Thanks for all the advise / help.
I seem to have solved the problem on my machine.
I just uninstalled / removed the Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP and now I can save tiff files and move them anywhere I like.
I have no idea what the Raw Image tool is doing to the tiff files or why it only affect that file type but it would seem to be the culprit.
The only issue now is that I can’t view the raw files as thumbnails in windows. Does anyone have a solution for this ?
Mark.
Ah – now Microsoft’s own shell extension is locking down files!
I love it.
(the RAW thumbnailer is trying to provide thumbnails for the TIFF files, and is running into the same explorer bug(s) that made Adobe abandon it’s shell extensions)
Maybe now MS will fix the OS so Adobe can bring back its shell extension.
I’ve had that happen with files that Photoshop can’t open. I’ve had to go so far as to move every other file out of the directory and delete the directory. For some reason Windoze (XP Home SP-2) will allow it to be deleted that way.
Sometimes just trying to delete the file will crash Windows Explorer (Windoze Exploder).
Bill
I wonder if there is some background operation on the go? Probably not appearing in task manager?
What happens if the non-responding file is copied & pasted?
FYI – I could copy and paste the tiff files to a new folder (when I was unable to move or delete the original tiff files.)
Mark.
It sounds as if something deep is happening there.
If the workaround works works = groovy?
I just had the same problem. I created a tiff, then tried to save another tiff with the same name (replacing the original tiff). Photoshop gave me an error message. I tried to delete the file in both bridge and directly in XP Pro. Nothing doing. I tried rebooting. XP still refused to delete and even right after the reboot reported that a program or process was holding the file hostage.
Thanks to this thread I removed the MS raw thumbnailer and after another reboot was able to delete the image.
I’m reporting this now and hoping the problem is resolved, because I haven’t yet tested this solution on new tiff files.
Thanks to all of you who did the hard work in diagnosing this!
I wonder if there is some background operation on the go? Probably not appearing in task manager?
chris just told you there was and specifically WHAT it was.
