[Mrantz]

Hello Xanashi ~

I hope this message finds you doing well.  Once again... a HUGE THANK YOU !!!! ... for the new BETA release !!  I hope you know how much I appreciate all your hard work & dedication - past, present and future - you have given to creating one of the most important tools I have had installed on my desktop for years now!!  I'm sure there are thousands of others out there that feel the same way.   I'll be making a donation on my next payday, and I'd encourage anyone else who is reading this & uses Icaros - it's well deserved !!  By the way, Icaros has been running *very very* smooth - seriously, not a single issue, since I installed the last version. Just awesome !!

With that said... now... on to a possible bug I'd like to report (sorry, I wasn't purposely looking for a bug - it just happened !!).  I'm currently running the v3.3.1 Beta 1 - and I noticed a significant difference in the <file count/cache file size> from this version to the last (v3.3.0 Final).  I've attached screenshots, so it should be pretty self explanatory.  Any questions, or debugging help I can provide, of course, let me know.  Also, this is nothing that is causing an issue for me, at least not yet.  I haven't noticed anything abnormal in the program - no errors, no crashes, etc. I just happened to check the new cache directory and noted the significant increase in cache size.

Question:  The reason I decided to "start from scratch" by setting a new cache directory in Icaros is because of an all new network drive mapping structure that I've implemented on my network.  Old drive mappings to folders with thousands of movies & youtube download/upload videos are gone.  How does Icaros & it's cache handle events like this - when a thumbnail for a certain video is not longer located at Y:\aaaaa\bbbbb\ccccc.. but it's now at Z:\ddddd\eeee\ff\ ???  Does it just create a new entry for the new location of that video and the old one still lingers in the cache even though it's now dead ?  In fear that the cache has gotten "dirty" - I decided to just let it start from scratch.  Is starting from scratch when there's significant remaps a good idea ?  And know, I'm not suggesting/asking for some kind of dead link cleanup enhancement - that could be a small nightmare I would think - I'm going with just "reseting" Icaros every once in a while.

Again, many thanks for Icaros !

-Matt

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[Mrantz]

Xanashi ~

So, I did a little further triage on my end here.  FYI:  The large file count & cache size in < 10 hours is because I had loaded 2 folders with the most often used video clip by myself and team into Tools -> Debug & ran it.

I did 2 additional tests:

TEST 1 with v3.3.1 BETA 1
I re-installed this release on my pc.  I set the cache to a new directory and ran the same 2 folders through Debug.  Resulted in similar file count and cache file size as previously shown.

TEST 2 with v3.3.0
I uninstalled the recent BETA, and Installed the previous production release.  Ran the same tests, and the results matched what this BETA release had shown-similar file count with approx 12 GB Cache file size. 

See attached pic.  Maybe everything is running as it should, and perhaps the issue was a somehow corrupted cache from running the previous version for so long ??

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.  Again, just to mention - none of this is causing an issue from what I can tell with the app.
Thanks,
Matt R

[Xanashi]

Hi Matt,

I'm very sorry for the slow reply. 

Lot's of points to go through in these two posts, so let's get to it! ^__^

I hope this message finds you doing well.  Once again... a HUGE THANK YOU !!!! ... for the new BETA release !!  I hope you know how much I appreciate all your hard work & dedication - past, present and future - you have given to creating one of the most important tools I have had installed on my desktop for years now!!  I'm sure there are thousands of others out there that feel the same way.   I'll be making a donation on my next payday, and I'd encourage anyone else who is reading this & uses Icaros - it's well deserved !!  By the way, Icaros has been running *very very* smooth - seriously, not a single issue, since I installed the last version. Just awesome !!

Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback and for the very kind words!
I've already said this in several other posts, but your support and these kind of posts means the world to me.
I truly appreciate it! Makes it so much more fun to work on Icaros!

With that said... now... on to a possible bug I'd like to report (sorry, I wasn't purposely looking for a bug - it just happened !!).  I'm currently running the v3.3.1 Beta 1 - and I noticed a significant difference in the <file count/cache file size> from this version to the last (v3.3.0 Final).  I've attached screenshots, so it should be pretty self explanatory.  Any questions, or debugging help I can provide, of course, let me know.  Also, this is nothing that is causing an issue for me, at least not yet.  I haven't noticed anything abnormal in the program - no errors, no crashes, etc. I just happened to check the new cache directory and noted the significant increase in cache size.

As you've confirmed in your follow up post, this is most likely not a bug. The current cache size you're seeing is probably the correct size.
As to why it was smaller before, I may have a possible explanation.

In previous versions of Windows, the default thumbnail size in Explorer was 256/768, but in Windows 10/11, the default size is now 1280.
This change has had a massive impact on the cache file size, since 1280px thumbnails can be up to 25x larger in byte size than 256px thumbnails,
even though they have been compressed.

If you've had your previous cache for a long time, it has most likely been filled up while you still had earlier version of Windows installed.
We can see in your screenshot that the 256/768 cache files are much larger in the old cache, than in the new one.
Maybe that's what happened?

Question:  The reason I decided to "start from scratch" by setting a new cache directory in Icaros is because of an all new network drive mapping structure that I've implemented on my network.  Old drive mappings to folders with thousands of movies & youtube download/upload videos are gone.  How does Icaros & it's cache handle events like this - when a thumbnail for a certain video is not longer located at Y:\aaaaa\bbbbb\ccccc.. but it's now at Z:\ddddd\eeee\ff\ ???  Does it just create a new entry for the new location of that video and the old one still lingers in the cache even though it's now dead ? 

The Icaros Cache doesn't actually care about file paths, it uses file hashes to identify the source files that are about to be thumbnailed.
This means that even if you move a file to another folder, Icaros will still identify the file just fine and return the cached thumbnail for that file.
So it's safe to move files without updating the Icaros Cache.

In fear that the cache has gotten "dirty" - I decided to just let it start from scratch.  Is starting from scratch when there's significant remaps a good idea ?  And know, I'm not suggesting/asking for some kind of dead link cleanup enhancement - that could be a small nightmare I would think - I'm going with just "reseting" Icaros every once in a while.

So, I did a little further triage on my end here.  FYI:  The large file count & cache size in < 10 hours is because I had loaded 2 folders with the most often used video clip by myself and team into Tools -> Debug & ran it.

The above two comments, makes me think that you're not currently utilizing the Cache Indexer in IcarosConfig to fill up your cache.
The Indexer actually does everything you want.

You start out by adding your most used folders, to the LOCATIONS page on the CACHE page in IcarosConfig, and then you use the 'Build Cache' button
on the SETTINGS page to build your IcarosCache automatically. This way you don't have to use the much slower Debug page to add thumbnails to the Cache.

Once your cache has been build, you can 'Rebuild' the cache every once in a while to remove old unused entries, and clean up the cache, while also
adding any new entries to the Cache that hasn't been added by Explorer already (in case your Icaros Cache is set to Dynamic mode).

Hope that helps.

If you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you so much for all your feedback on every release of Icaros and your donations!
I really appreciate it!