FlashFXP/Network Question

KineticPoet · 10-24-2005, 11:43 AM

Our company is looking at your FTP client and everything I've seen so far I've liked. There is one glaring problem that I have not experienced with any other FTP client though.

We have a drive on the network (J Drive) that holds all of our website files.

When I try to scroll down and view the files on the network it becomes INCREDIBLY slow. It basically freezes up for about 5 seconds (like it's caching) and then it catches up. It does that until I'm able to scroll all the way down to the bottom. (which takes forever) Once I get to the bottom I'm pretty much able to scroll up/down with no problem. Like it's been cached. But once I close the client and open it back up again, the problem is back.

I haven't had this issue with any of the other ftp clients I've tested and we do spend enough time uploading files to our webserver that this would pose a real problem (Which sucks because other than that I really like this program) Any ideas on what the issue is and if there's a solution? Thanks.

FlashFXP v[3].[2], build [1080], [ ]registered, [x]unregistered, [ ]pirated

OS [x] WinXP, [ ] Win2K, [ ] Win98, [ ] WinME, [ ] Other

Running behind NAT/router [ ] Yes & Model [ ], [x] No, [ ] Not sure

Running firewall [x] Yes, Name [SonicWALL], Ver. [not sure on version], or [ ] No

Running Antivirus [x] Yes, Name [Symantec Corporate Anti-Virus 10.0] or [ ] No

Network [ ] xDSL, [ ] CABLE, [ ] Dial-Up, [x DS3] Other

MxxCon · 10-24-2005, 01:53 PM

what kind of network drive is it? just standard windows shared folder?
how fast is connection to that drive?
do you have this problem on all of your computers or just one?

KineticPoet · 10-24-2005, 02:41 PM

This is a problem I've noticed on multiple computers with FlashFXP. I've tried other ftp clients on these computers and they did not have the same issue, so I've been able to rule out the possibility of it being just my computer.

Our network drive is just a standard windows shared folder like you said. We're on a 100Mb LAN in the office with no problems on the network. Is this the first time anyone has mentioned this issue to you folks? If you need more info please ask, I'm more than willing to give it to you if it might help resolve this. It's the only thing standing in our way of purchasing the product.

Linkster · 10-24-2005, 09:57 PM

just curious, but if you browse the same folder using windows explorer, does it take the same amount of time? It sounds like it is taking a long time to enumerate all the icons. As far as I know, the local browser in FlashFXP uses the same method as windows. It's possible other FTP clients are not enumerating the icons on the local side? Let me know...just a hunch.

KineticPoet · 10-25-2005, 12:15 AM

Good hunch! It does take some time to populate within windows, but flashfxp does seem to take a bit longer. The one difference is that if I scroll down in flashfxp it doesn't continue to show the files like it would in Windows, it just freezes. At the very least you can scroll down the list of files in Windows it just doesn't show the little .html icon. The .html icons eventually populate in windows but you can still browse the directory regardless if the .html icons have populated or not. This isn't the case with flash. I have to SLOWLY scroll down to even see any of the files. If I scroll down even a little fast flash just completely freezes up.

But this does seem to be the same issue. I'm guessing the reason LeapFTP doesn't have this problem is because it uses a default icon instead of using the small .html icons?

Is there anyway to address this issue?

bigstar · 10-25-2005, 02:48 AM

To retrieve the file/folder icons on a network drive isn't the most speedy process. (The process is performed by windows via API (by reading / extracting the icon). Sometimes it's difficult to match the same performance provided by Windows Explorer, MS software has more access to the underlaying OS, plus they have some tricks up their selves by using undocumented features not avilable to everyone. A slow hard drive will slow this down even further, Also some files/folders take longer to get the icon than others.

FlashFXP retrieves the icon from the specific file, just like windows explorer. Rather than the default icon for that file type. Although in your situation it sounds like this method is faster.

One other solution aside from using the default file type icons is to cache the icon while building the file list however overall this method seems much slower.

Windows Explorer extracts the icon as you scroll.

An alternative method could probably be introduced into the next up-in-coming release, however I'm not entirely sure what that method would be at this time.

Linkster · 10-25-2005, 09:10 AM

bigstar,

Maybe an option to assign a default icon, and not fetch them from the files themselves?

KineticPoet · 10-25-2005, 10:56 AM

That's actually what I was thinking. Just a simple option that allowed me to enable a default icon for any and all files on the local side. Or an option that just enables FlashFXP to use the same icons windows does (default html, txt, gif, jpg, etc) except flashfxp provides them rather than populating them from your local or network drive.

Not to be a pain but what kind of time frame do you folks see for the next release (and do you think this solution would most likely be in there?). I'm somewhat under the gun to get a ftp client for our web developers and marketing people and I would like to go with flashfxp if possible. Thanks again.

bigstar · 10-25-2005, 01:19 PM

When you browse folders located on network drives, do they contain many different file types or just a few? (say less than 10)

Also what file types are there?
Most file types, .html, .jpg, .gif, .php, .txt, etc already use a default icon since they don't contain icons so the performance is probably going to be the same. I will conduct some tests to confirm this.

If the files were say .ico, .exe, .dll, etc using the default icon would speed things up.

Is the scrolling slow when you browse a folder that only contains folders (like the screenshot you posted) or does it only slow down when you reach the files?

On my local network, browsing between local and networked drives is pretty much transparent, there is no noticable difference in delay from networked drives. If I browse a networked folder containing 1,000 icons (.ico) there is a very noticable delay while scrolling, this same behavior can be seen when browsing the same folder on the local machine, though the delay might be slightly less, If only by a second.

Also, I should point out that as you scroll the list, the actual list is being populated. Not just the icon but also the Filename, Size, Date, etc.

At the moment there is no set time frame for the next release. However it will probably be a month or so away. We still need to finalize the code and do some public beta releases.

KineticPoet · 10-25-2005, 02:22 PM

bigstar I sent you a private message with a link to the clip of the video I made. Hopefully it will show exactly what the problem is. Thanks!

Linkster · 10-26-2005, 12:51 PM

KineticPoet,

Do you have any antivirus software installed? Is it set to scan on access? If so, try setting it to scan on open only and see if that helps at all.

KineticPoet · 10-26-2005, 01:22 PM

Yes I have Symantec Corporate Anti-Virus 10.0 installed. I found the setting you were talking about, changed it and this did nothing to fix the problem. I even tested this on a machine with NO anti-virus and I still had the same problem.

I also tried installing FlashFXP on another computer in our network and I had the exact same problem.