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Windows 7 bug eats memory in thumbnails of 3D MP4.
  • David_ColeDavid_Cole

    I couldn't make stuff like this up. We're seeing this a LOT at the moment. On Win7 Ultimate 64-bit machines, the dllhost process continues to grow until it eats all available system memory. Here are the details:

    The dllhost can eat up all memory till the system crashes. This could have several causes, one is a bug in the thumbnailsystem. If the deactivation of the thumbnailsystem can fix the memory leak, you know for sure. (One would probably have to reboot or kill the process to see any changes)

    The update KB2670838 which also gets installed along with IE10 (!) has several side effects. One of them is the introduction of a memory leak when trying to generate a thumbnail for certain mp4 files, typically 3D Side by Side. Search for files which should have a thumbnail but have a standard icon (the current file causing the leak will also be unmoveable, undeleteable etc). The thumbnail cache plays a role in this too. If you have valid thumbnails for a file and install an update or codecs or would like to test this, there will be no error till the next time the thumbnail is actually created.

    It is possible, that there are other causes for these problems as well and it is possible that not all systems are prone to that memory leak. Other side effects of the update point to a combo of intel and amd hardware.

  • 4 Replies sorted by
  • edwardmedwardm

    I recently encountered this thumbnail problem too - eventually the system becomes unusable as the thumbnail generator seems to consume memory and processor cycles. There are other reports that the problem is caused by "corrupted media files" - once the thumbnail process encounters a corrupted file, the process goes haywire.

    Initially, I disabled thumbnails by choosing to show icons only (Control Panel | Folder options | View tab, then check "Always show icons, never thumbnails"). Without thumbnails, the problem goes away but without the ability to see your jpg and video files in Explorer.

    Acting on a hunch, the problem seemed to be due to a media file on the desktop. I moved all media files to a folder, not on the desktop, and the problem went away. I do have side-by-side mp4 files as I create 3D videos. I have other SxS files that do not seem to be causing problems with the thumbnail generator.

    This is not a new problem in Windows 7 - there are online reports of this going back to Vista. There's no excuse for this defect in Windows to still exist.

    Ed

  • 3dreal3dreal

    vollgerd at german stereoforum.org is telling that this bug disappeared after removing windows-update of internetexplorer. the question is, which one? Mabe he will reply here: http://www.stereoforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6373&p=59587#p59587 i posted this also in 3dtv-yahoo-group. pierre meindre confirmed it.

  • 3dreal3dreal

    remove this update and tell us if the bug disappeared like on vollgerds pc. Update KB2670838

  • danjahdanjah

    This continues to be an issue for 3D content on Win 7, I've just applied this fix and can confirm that the issue is now gone. I tested by restarting after removing the update, clearing my thumbnail cache, navigating to and refreshing several times to a directory with 4 3D movies of filetype .mp4 inside.

    "dllhost.exe COM Surrogate" isn't even listed under Processes in Task Manager, and my memory is performing just fine now.

    Woohoo!

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