[SOLVED] Thumbnails not showing in Windows 10 File Explorer

Jim Wells · Jul 12, 2020

My Windows 10 PC has a problem with displaying image thumbnails in the Windows File Explorer. Sometimes it displays blank white icons, sometimes it displays the generic blue and green landscape JPEG icon, sometimes it displays a mixture of the generic icon and proper image thumbnails. If I’m really lucky it displays a full set of thumbnails.

As a keen photographer, this a significant issue, and I’m hoping the Sysnative community will be able to help.

In Explorer the green progress bar creeps along the address bar. Often I’ve finished whatever I’m doing before I find out whether it will complete or not. At the moment it in within a few pixels of completing the refresh on an Explore window for “This PC” – but has been for some time so I’m not expecting it to complete.

I do not know whether it is connected or a separate problem, but right clicking on a file and attempting to use “Open with >” frequently (always?) causes Explorer to crash.

I’ve put some information on what I’ve already tried below, but I’m totally open to trying things again, in a different order, a slight variation etc.

Any advice you can offer would hugely appreciated.

Thanks

Jim

I’ve tried a number of things, based on advice found online (probably not in this order):

Deleted thumbnails using the disk clear up tool

Adjusted the explorer settings so that it opens with “This PC” instead of “Quick Access”

Adjusted Explorer settings to tick “Launch folder windows in a separate process”

Created a “Max Cached Icons” item in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

Altered registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Thumbnail Cache to 0

Run: sfc /scannow

Run: Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth. The outcome was “No component store corruption detected.”

Run chkdsk/r a couple of times – as far as I can tell the finds problems and fixes them, but I have to leave it running overnight, and when I come back to the PC in the morning the machine has re-started.

Some of these have appeared to solve the problem temporarily, but none have given a lasting solution.

xrobwx71 · Jul 12, 2020

Hi! Sounds like an icon cache issue.
The proper way to reset the icon cache is this:

Press the win + r keys together, a run dialogue box will open, type the following into the run box:-

CMD

Next (press the ctrl+shift+enter keys together) an elevated command prompt will open. Copy and paste each of the following cmd's into the cmd prompt window, pressing enter, after each cmd.

ie4uinit.exe -show

taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F (note:- your desktop will go blank)

DEL /A /Q "%localappdata%\IconCache.db"

DEL /A /F /Q "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache*"

Shutdown /p (note:- your computer will immediately shutdown)

Credit - @Jenae

Jim Wells · Jul 12, 2020

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. I've tried all except the final step with the following results:

ie4uinit.exe -show : I assume succeeded, but no feedback on screen.

taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F : two success messages, and the desktop disappears (thanks for the warning that this would happen!)

DEL /A /Q "%localappdata%\IconCache.db" : no feedback

DEL /A /F /Q "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache*" : fails as follows ...

Code:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>DEL /A /F /Q "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache*"
C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache_16.db
Access is denied.
C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache_32.db
Access is denied.
C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache_48.db
Access is denied.
C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache_idx.db
Access is denied.

I'm assuming that isn't what we were expecting, and given that I have not executed the shutdown command at this stage.

I am logged in as user Jim, and I can confirm that the title bar of the command window shows "Administrator: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cd.exe

Is there something I need to do differently, to be able to delete iconcache* files?

Thanks

Jim

Jim Wells · Jul 12, 2020

Hi,

Please dis-regard my last post. After logging out my test user account, which I had forgotten was logged in, and re-starting BOTH delete commands have succeeded.

I'm just about to do the shutdown and will post again with the results, but probably not until tomorrow.

Thanks

Jim

Jim Wells · Jul 17, 2020

Hi,

Thank you so much for your advice. It worked immediately, and has continued to work - with one glitch.

It worked, then went wrong again when I accessed a specific folder. I was able to delete everything in that folder except a particular car related video that I'd captured from a internet . I then repeated your steps, and didn't access that folder/single video and everything continued to be fine. I've since been able to delete that video file from the command prompt. I wonder whether that one somehow suspect file was the cause of all the problems?

Either way, it all seems good now and having not been able to do it properly, it is hugely satisfying to be able to browse photographs again.

Thanks again for your help. You guys are brilliant!

Jim

xrobwx71 · Jul 17, 2020

Thanks for letting us know and for the kind words.

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[SOLVED] Thumbnails not showing in Windows 10 File Explorer

Jim Wells

Active member

xrobwx71

Administrator

Jim Wells

Active member

Jim Wells

Active member

Jim Wells

Active member

xrobwx71

Administrator