Windows 10: Thumbnails in File Explorer stop working

Hi,

I have had a long standing issue that comes and goes without any reason. I would be grateful of any help or advise or if Microsoft can confirm they are fixing this issue.


I use a lot of photos in my working life and seeing them as thumbnails is very important to me. However, for some unknown reason this last year or so it can stop working without explanation. That is thumbnails don't show. that also applies to documents and PDF's. I tried power toys for as while as this also allowed me to re-size large batches of photos files. but this caused the loss of thumbs nails to be even more pronounced.


Please help. File explorer is a fundamentally important tool to the way i use the PC and office.


PS i have tried all of the usual settings turns on and turn offs many times and "show as thumbnails is turned on at the moment.

:)

 

File Explorer not showing thumbnails

Brink,

Many thanks for you reply. I have done all the steps you suggested, but no change,

When I open a folder containing photos, some open correctly but the vast majority open with thumbnails, but they very quickly get overwritten and you can not longer see the thumbnails.

Are there any more suggestions?

 

Windows Explorer crashes and thumbnails problem

Hi, I hope you can help me.
Windows Explorer is no longer showing thumbnails on files played by Windows Media Player. I've run cmd and regsvr32 shmedia.dll and regsvr32 shimgvw.dll. That seemed to solve the problem...but it created a different one. Now when I try to open a folder on an external hard drive it crashes. I read in an old 2008 post it was an avi file causing the problem and suggested the run cmd regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll. That solved the opening problem but recreated the thumbnail problem. Any help to achieve both functions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

Preview pane (file explorer) not always working on OneDrive files

Thank you for keeping us posted. We apologize for the delay as we are checking this case thoroughly.

Since the above troubleshooting steps did not work, let us try a different method to fix this.

It's possible that the thumbnail cache becomes corrupted. Resulting your thumbnails to display incorrectly and some files may not show as thumbnail preview, or sometimes preview is not available at all.

Recreate the thumbnail cache using Disk Cleanup

• Open File Explorer.
• On the left pane, click This PC.
• Right-click the C: drive where Windows 10 is installed, and select
  Properties.
• Click the Disk Cleanup button.
• Check the Thumbnails option, and uncheck all the other options.
• Click OK.
• Click Delete Files to confirm and to complete the task.

You may also recreate the thumbnail cache using Command Prompt just in case the above steps did not work.

• Open Start.
• Search for Command Prompt.
• Right-click the result and select Run as administrator.
• Type the following command to stop File Explorer and press Enter:
  • taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
• Type the following command to delete all the thumbnail database files without asking for confirmation and press
  Enter:
  • del /f /s /q /a %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\thumbcache_*.db
• Type the following command to start File Explorer and press Enter:
  • start explorer.exe
• Close Command Prompt to complete the task.

Let us know how things go.