PSP-2018 Manage/Collections - thumbnails rebuild each Start

[Forriner]

I decided to upgrade from PSP X7. Yesterday I installed a paid, downloaded version of PSP-2018, version 20.2.0.1 x64. (Seems the service pack is integrated already. No updates found after installation). I installed both 32 and 64-bit versions, but this post is about the 64-bit version.

I encountered a problem that I haven't been able to locate here on the forum yet, though I could be blind for which I apologize in advance.

I opened the Manage tab. It was opened to its own Computer tab, and one folder of thumbnails was present. That's normal, the demo images.

I opened the Collections tab.
I added folders to browse. PSP built the thumbnails, as expected. Cool, so I added all 10 folders with 1070 sub-folders with 67,000 image files. All went well, just under two hours. Chin up, things could be worse

And sure enough...
When I closed PSP-2018, it deleted the Computer tab thumbnail folder, which is normal as Computer tab ones are session thumbnails.
But, when I opened PSP-2018 again later, all 1070 thumbnail folders were deleted by PSP, and it started building them again. That is definitely not normal. NB: deleted on program start, not exit as in the case of session thumbnails.

I uninstalled, also using the clean-up tool from this thread, and reinstalled.
I tested again on just one folder, and the same happened: it was deleted on restarting PSP, and rebuilt.

I launched a ticket at Corel, but it's Christmas season so I hoped that perhaps someone here had experienced the same (though not really hoping that) and can help. I lost my money on X4 at the time, so I want to have the opportunity to get my money back on time, if the problem can't be fixed.

Thank you for reading and for any effort you may take to help me. I appreciate it.
To all, Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, or just have a great day.
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Windows 10 Home, Version 1709 (latest), build 16299.125
Intel® Core™ i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz (4 cores)
RAM 16 GB
Paintshop Pro X7 / 2018 if I get it to work.

[MarkZ]

Wow - in the past I've experimented quite a bit with how Collections and Computer are handled, and as you say, in past versions the thumbnails of images in Collections are retained between sessions in PSP. Thumbnails from images in Computer are deleted when PSP closes.

I checked what happens in the background with PSP2018 and as you found, it is quite different. I guess I had not looked into this aspect of 2018 before. As you select folders in Collections the thumbnails are created. When you close PSP those thumbnail folders are retained. However, when you open PSP2018 the next time, all the thumbs are deleted and the thumbs for the folder selected initially are created.

I checked X9. After deleting all thumbs - as with 2018 the thumbs in the initial folder are created on opening and more are created as you select folders. When X9 is closed the thumbs remain and based on previous testing thumbs from folders only under Computer would be removed. When X9 is reopened all the thumb folders are retained.

If you leave X9 open in the background the other folders in Collections are added to the Thumbs folder so the selection is more and more complete. The same thing seems to happen with 2018 but at a much slower rate.

So, yes, there appears to be a fundamental change in how thumbs are handled in 2018. I keep a limited number of folders in Collections, only the ones I'm most likely to use and periodically I add more folders depending on my projects. I have not noticed a difference in the speed when selecting images via thumbs. They are created in Manage mode fast enough for my liking as I scroll through a large folder (instant would be nice). Corel claims that 2018 is faster than ever and most users seem to agree that there is an improvement - perhaps this is one of the tweaks to achieve that, although I don't understand why the change.

[Forriner]

Hi Mark,
Thanks for your post.
Many versions ago -I think around X4 for sure- when you opened a folder in Computer, that folder was created and thumbnailed, and was not deleted, ever, so the number of thumbnail folders just kept growing. Opening a file from a not-Collection folder caused a thumbnail folder to be created with just the one thumbnail (like when dragged from Win Explorer). That folder stayed on disk too.

I skipped a few versions for reasons like what's happening now, unsatisfactory behaviour by PSP, but in X7 the behaviour was what I would call more rational, i.e. 'Collections' folders remained, and 'Computer' (session) folders were deleted on closing PSP.
PSP2018, if we are both correct now, is down to deleting all folders (Computer on shutdown, Collections on startup) and rebuilding Collections folders on startup.

My photos are all 5184 × 3456 (nominally 18 MPix, the files themselves vary from 7 to 25 MB) and I find building thumbnails as in Computer just too slow for fast browsing, even on a solid state drive. With ready-made Collection thumbnails, browsing is lightning fast even on a normal hard drive. I also need quick access to the EXIF data in the database.

But, if 67 thousand thumbnails are deleted and Collections rebuilt every time on starting the program, progress is slow, every time. It wears the hard drive out, or the solid state. It takes up CPU and drive resources, each and every time PSP is started. Unacceptable, IMHO.

Corel sent me an answer, surprise surprise, but it is the usual Shift-Start in default configuration, clear caches, restore database etc. Oh, and delete Temp files in the user\appdata folder. Of course that didn't work either.
I've responded to them and given them a link to this thread, so they know it might not just be me.

Merry Christmas, Mark, and thank you again for your response.

[MarkZ]

Forriner

Merry Christmas to you too!

I'd love to know why Corel has made the change. What you describe about past operation was that way up to X9. I find it very curious why the thumbs are deleted when PSP is opened as opposed to when it is closed. One redeeming aspect is that thumbs are created only for the folders that are accessed, so if you have 200 folders and only access two in a session, thumbs are created for only those two folders. But then you wonder if that is the case, why have Collections when it works the same as Computer? I guess because there are some facilities located only there.

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Edit: I now think I was wrong in saying that thumbs are created only for the folders which you select. After posting this note I added a folder to collections that had a number of sub-folders. I did not select any of the new folders and kept 2018 open in the background - I did not do any editing. When I checked the number of thumb folders under the C:\Users\My Name\AppData\Local\Corel PaintShop Pro\2018\Thumbs directory it was obvious that thumbs had been created for all the folders I had added.

It seems dumb to delete a bunch of folders at the beginning of a PSP session and the just recreate them. This appears to be a bug!