We had issues of Vault View (actually explorer.exe) crashing or closing "Randomly" from the day we started having users use PDM. Most users were used to have several to many File Explorer windows open throughout the day and using the Vault was no different, they would quickly have five or six if not more Vault Views open at a time. At some point in the storm of the first few weeks we discovered that the OS was killing explorer.exe when the GDI object usage hit 10k. Which will happen regularly if the user is opening and closing vault views all day and tends to have >=5 open at one time.
A really smart gentlemen showed us a setting in File Explorer Settings that can really change the way the Vault View behaves.
It is a bit like how web browsers will have a process for each tab that is open and pretty much solves all the problems by putting each new file explorer window in its own process which helps in at least two ways I've noticed.
1) since all the explorer windows aren't in one process we don't hit GDI per process limit.
2)closing the window will end that process and the OS can have those resources back, the next window that is opened starts a fresh process.
I have not noticed any downside to using the setting. I don't understand why it's not turned on by PDM client installation process, it really should be.
bnemec wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 10:02 am
Wonderful getting user complaints about "Vault crashed" After a couple questions, what they mean is Windows killed the explorer process that had all the vault views in it. It seems we had a fix for a year and a half then Microsoft comes along and knocks out the supports.
Mean time I'm still trying to explain how the preferred method of using the vault (Search tool) doesn't show up in Windows Start Menu, and is hidden away in the installer folder. Like they thought to themselves, we'll tell them "Don't browse in the vault, use search tool." then we'll make the search tool the least intuitive tool to access.
Once they integrated the search in Explorer, the standalone search has been all but forgotten. Sometimes I wonder if they should just ditch the explorer integration and create their own "explorerish" app. One Microsoft update can cause all kinds of explorer hell, not to mention all of the other apps trying to integrate with the Explorer shell that could conflict.
Thanks for this info @bnemec. We don't have a lot of issues with Explorer crashing, but it does happen every once and a while. If you would not mind, in a couple of weeks of running with this setting, could you please let us know if it solves your issues without creating any more issues?
Thanks again!
Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.
VicFrauenfeld wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 9:12 am
Thanks for this info @bnemec. We don't have a lot of issues with Explorer crashing, but it does happen every once and a while. If you would not mind, in a couple of weeks of running with this setting, could you please let us know if it solves your issues without creating any more issues?
Thanks again!
I've had a few machines (including mine) set this way for a couple months now. I don't know much about how threads will behave when they are spawned from the same process vs threads in multiple instances of the same process so I don't really have a guess as to what it could do to explorer.exe behavior. I trust they guy told showed this to me though, and he knows a lot about that stuff and PDM.
I have noticed that if I do something that would cause Explorer to hang and it was one of the secondary windows I can kill that process and it doesn't close all of my other windows. Not a huge deal, but nice sometimes.
Update: It looks like a solution to the problem made it into 2021 SP5. It was first in 2022 PR1 in July. I have not tested the solution yet but am confident the fix is good. We were a little bit involved with starting this SR, it is cool to see this fix.
1208324 - SOLIDWORKS PDM -User Interface: explorer.exe GDI handles leak when browsing through PDM folders
Looks like some update in Windows is causing this setting to no longer work. Now instead of having as many explorer.exe processes as I do windows open there are only two. Looks like there is one for desktop & taskbar stuff and a second that houses all the windows. I don't know when it happened, but am now frequently seeing GDI counts for explorer.exe well above 5k on the PDM users.
We're working on going to 2023 sometime late this summer so it's nice that it has been fixed.
Does anyone know if there happens to be a Windows OS setting to change this new behavior? This is affecting GDI limits in other than just Vault folders. I understand resources are resources whether they are consumed by one process or spread across several. The trick is if there's a leak (PDM is not the only app that does this) if each window has it's own process the "leaked" resource(s) can be reclaimed if the process is ended.
I think I would rather have a reg edit to change this behavior than reg edit to change the system wide GDI limit >10k.
Wonderful getting user complaints about "Vault crashed" After a couple questions, what they mean is Windows killed the explorer process that had all the vault views in it. It seems we had a fix for a year and a half then Microsoft comes along and knocks out the supports.
Mean time I'm still trying to explain how the preferred method of using the vault (Search tool) doesn't show up in Windows Start Menu, and is hidden away in the installer folder. Like they thought to themselves, we'll tell them "Don't browse in the vault, use search tool." then we'll make the search tool the least intuitive tool to access.
bnemec wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 10:02 am
Wonderful getting user complaints about "Vault crashed" After a couple questions, what they mean is Windows killed the explorer process that had all the vault views in it. It seems we had a fix for a year and a half then Microsoft comes along and knocks out the supports.
Mean time I'm still trying to explain how the preferred method of using the vault (Search tool) doesn't show up in Windows Start Menu, and is hidden away in the installer folder. Like they thought to themselves, we'll tell them "Don't browse in the vault, use search tool." then we'll make the search tool the least intuitive tool to access.
Once they integrated the search in Explorer, the standalone search has been all but forgotten. Sometimes I wonder if they should just ditch the explorer integration and create their own "explorerish" app. One Microsoft update can cause all kinds of explorer hell, not to mention all of the other apps trying to integrate with the Explorer shell that could conflict.
bnemec wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 10:02 am
Mean time I'm still trying to explain how the preferred method of using the vault (Search tool) doesn't show up in Windows Start Menu, and is hidden away in the installer folder. Like they thought to themselves, we'll tell them "Don't browse in the vault, use search tool." then we'll make the search tool the least intuitive tool to access.
You can access the separate search tool from Explorer:
Click Me - I'm an animated GIF
What would happen if you have a User or Group with no permissions to use any search cards? Does it default to the external search tool when you click the search button in Explorer? Well, in my (admittedly old PDM 2019) vault, the answer is 'No'. It dumbly displays a blank search screen:
Nor does it 'remember' that the external search tool was the last used.
If it still behaves like that in current versions, it would be a good enhancement request.
JSculley wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 11:18 am
You can access the separate search tool from Explorer:
msedge_cf9eCBcLfj.gif
What would happen if you have a User or Group with no permissions to use any search cards? Does it default to the external search tool when you click the search button in Explorer? Well, in my (admittedly old PDM 2019) vault, the answer is 'No'. It dumbly displays a blank search screen:
image.png
Nor does it 'remember' that the external search tool was the last used.
If it still behaves like that in current versions, it would be a good enhancement request.
Some users do what you demonstrate, as it's the only way to access it other than finding the .exe. At that point I get users to pin to start or task bar, or both. And for the exceptional users I add it to their desktop as that's where they go to open anything.
As for removing all search card permissions. I don't understand, doesn't that apply to both the search in vault view as well as search tool?
bnemec wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 1:13 pm
As for removing all search card permissions. I don't understand, doesn't that apply to both the search in vault view as well as search tool?
Whoops. Indeed it does. Shows you how often I use the external tool (never).
JSculley wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 3:39 pm
Whoops. Indeed it does. Shows you how often I use the external tool (never).
That's interesting. May I ask why you never use it? Just curious about other workflows.
Maybe worth noting, based on responses from support in the past, the bulk of leaked GDI objects we deal with are from PDM loading certain Solid Edge module(s). So users that do not have SE files may not be seeing this as much as we do. From what I've heard the edits have been implemented in newer versions of PDM. We're on 2019 as well. I've been trying to make time to set up test servers for 2023 but...
I'm not a heavy PDM user, but I didn't even know there was a secret search window. Why is that the "preferred" way to search? I do have explorer crash on me from time to time when navigating PDM folders, but I can't remember it being specific to a search.
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prepare for a hell of troubles down the road: microsoft is changing a lot in windows explorer in window11 and we havr at least 2 major issues on top of the usual memory leaks...
mp3-250 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 5:09 pm
prepare for a hell of troubles down the road: microsoft is changing a lot in windows explorer in window11 and we havr at least 2 major issues on top of the usual memory leaks...
I'm somewhat doubtful we'll go to win11 here, tend to do every other version, so probably whatever comes after 11.
SPerman wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 4:49 pm
I'm not a heavy PDM user, but I didn't even know there was a secret search window. Why is that the "preferred" way to search? I do have explorer crash on me from time to time when navigating PDM folders, but I can't remember it being specific to a search.
I should back up that claim about preferred way. Searching is the preferred way to use a vault, vs. browsing through folders, that's the instructions anyway.
We push for the search tool as it's in it's own process. My lay-man understanding is when a process loads things it consumes resources, when the process unloads or disposes of those things the resources are released back to OS. Sometimes, the process losses track of the resources it has and cannot release them back to the OS (leaks) and only way to release them is to end the process; either gracefully or by killing it. Keeping only one window in a process is nice so that even if there are leaks they don't accumulate as bad as the process ends when the window is closed. When the user closes a search window the resources are returned, even the ones it lost track of. In explorer all the windows are back to being housed in one process. So even if the user closes the window, any objects that the process lost track of are still hanging in the process even though there's no way to release them. The OS has default limits to the number of types or resources a process can have, for example 10,000 graphic (GDI)objects. By putting all explorer windows in one process it doesn't take too long for some to hit that limit and PDM "crashes", actually Windows killed the process for going over the limit. When they are each in their own process they are very unlikely to reach 10k.
jcapriotti wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 10:15 am
Once they integrated the search in Explorer, the standalone search has been all but forgotten. Sometimes I wonder if they should just ditch the explorer integration and create their own "explorerish" app. One Microsoft update can cause all kinds of explorer hell, not to mention all of the other apps trying to integrate with the Explorer shell that could conflict.
too late: latest windows update already broke PDM. And SW has no solution in sight let alone for th like of us that delay 1yr before the adoption of the software.
bnemec wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 6:02 pm
I'm somewhat doubtful we'll go to win11 here, tend to do every other version, so probably whatever comes after 11.
support is going to end for 10 and for big companies there are directives that cannot be ignored and are forced upon the whole group.
After the latest windows update debacle I expect SW to drop 10 support at a faster pace.
mp3-250 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2023 5:18 am
too late: latest windows update already broke PDM. And SW has no solution in sight let alone for th like of us that delay 1yr before the adoption of the software.
This is the situation I'm in. We're having more and more new machines come in the door with Win11 and I've had engineering laptops specifically ordered with Win10, but that's an up-charge to downgrade these days which is more incentive for them to push for Win11 sooner.
