Issue with "Options / Include"

[Mike Kennedy]

Hi,

 

Using latest build (v2.32.1165), under XP-SP3.

 

Under Options, Include, I specified:

- a Folder (actually C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\)

- "All Files"

- "Include Files and Subfolders"

 

CC correctly deletes all the Files and sub-folders, but it also deletes the "Download" folder. I would have expected that action if I had specified "Include files, subfolders and the folder itself".

 

Probably a small matter in most situations, but, sometimes, the absence of a folder could be problematic.

- Mike

[Willy2]

Don't worry. The folder will be re-created at the next 2nd tuesday of the month when the Microsoft Autoupdate feature will be activated again and your windows system is updated. Of course, if it's keeping you awake at night then you can manually create that folder as well.

 

I tried the ""Include"" feature but it did precisely what it was supposed to do. If you want to know which file wipe option was selected then do the following:

1. Select a line.

2. Click on ""edit"".

3. At the bottom of the menu you'll see which option you did select (""Include files only"", ""Include files, subfolders"" or ""Including files, subfolders and the folder itself"").

[Mike Kennedy]

Don't worry. The folder will be re-created at the next 2nd tuesday of the month when the Microsoft Autoupdate feature will be activated again and your windows system is updated. Of course, if it's keeping you awake at night then you can manually create that folder as well.

I agree with both sentiments - however, I quoted the "Download" folder merely to ILLUSTRATE the issue.

 

I tried the ""Include"" feature but it did precisely what it was supposed to do.

That differs from my experience - as per the example I quoted.

 

If you want to know which file wipe option was selected then do the following:

1. Select a line.

2. Click on ""edit"".

3. At the bottom of the menu you'll see which option you did select (""Include files only"", ""Include files, subfolders"" or ""Including files, subfolders and the folder itself"").

Correct.

 

Apologies for the repetition: I chose the 2nd of the 3 "options" at point 3 - as confirmed by selecting the "Edit" function - yet CC DID delete the folder itself.

 

- Mike.

[Willy2]

Did you click on ""OK"" after changing the wipe option in that menu ?

 

I took a look at what CC stores in ""Ccleaner.ini"" in three cases:

-- ""Include files only"":

Include1=PATH|C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\|*.*

-- ""Include files and subfolders"":

Include1=PATH|C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\|*.*|RECURSE

-- ""Include files, subfolders and the folder itself"":

Include1=PATH|C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\|*.*|REMOVESELF

 

CC doesn't give the user information which wipe option the user has selected for each line. And that's an additional reason for confusion. That's precisely the reason for my latest post in the thread below.

http://forum.pirifor...showtopic=27454

[Mike Kennedy]

Willy,

 

Did you click on ""OK"" after changing the wipe option in that menu ?

Yes.

 

And the subsequent "Edit" option (of the same line, and the INI file) confirmed the settings.

 

I took a look at what CC stores in ""Ccleaner.ini"" in three cases:

-- ""Include files only"":

Include1=PATH|C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\|*.*

-- ""Include files and subfolders"":

Include1=PATH|C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\|*.*|RECURSE

-- ""Include files, subfolders and the folder itself"":

Include1=PATH|C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\|*.*|REMOVESELF

 

CC doesn't give the user information which wipe option the user has selected for each line. And that's an additional reason for confusion.

Yep - I agree fully that these INCLUDE/EXCLUDE screens are confusing - as per your other thread here. Every time I use them, I have to "experiment" with the settings, to achieve the result I want - especially with the "Drive/Folder" bits...

 

In my INI file, the "RECURSE" option was active.

 

To repeat: the issue is that the REMOVESELF option seems to be active in the code, even when the RECURSE option is selected.

 

Update: I ran some more tests, and, sometimes, the "main" folder is NOT deleted - which is the correct behaviour. I don't know what conditions hold it (correctly), and what conditions delete it. Maybe, if these settings are adjusted, the new values are not correctly activated internally until the code is reloaded?

 

- Mike

[Willy2]

I ran some tests as well. But it's my experience that CC always takes the lastest wipe option from the ""Include"" section into account. Even when the user changes the wipe option between ""Analyze"" and ""Run Cleaner"".

 

That's why I think, it's important that the ""Include"" section should be improved, as I have described in another thread. The user should be able to see which wipe option has been selected for each line.

 

You're not the first who's complaining about this particular ""issue"".

[Mike Kennedy]

Willy,

 

Apologies for the delay...

 

I ran some tests as well. But it's my experience that CC always takes the lastest wipe option from the ""Include"" section into account. Even when the user changes the wipe option between ""Analyze"" and ""Run Cleaner"".

Good. I just suggested that as a possible explanation. I was wrong!

 

That's why I think, it's important that the ""Include"" section should be improved, as I have described in another thread. The user should be able to see which wipe option has been selected for each line.

Agreed!

 

I since tried CC on another PC. Exactly as per the conditions in my first post in this thread. And it DID delete the stated folder (when it should not have done so). I tried re-loading CC, manually re-creating the folder, etc, and, in the few tests I ran, it DID delete the folder EVERY time. I did NOT yet create/check the INI file - maybe CREATING the INI file will have an effect! Very strange!

 

- Mike

[Willy2]

Weird ! It seems we're using two different versions of CC v2.32.

 

1. Did you install Recuva as well ? Because in another thread someone un-installed Recuva and according to him, his problem with CC disappeared.

2. Perhaps unticking a number or boxes will to resolve the issue ? I have only a very few boxes permanently ticked and ""Include"" does work without any problem.

 

Frankly, I have ran out of suggestions.

[Mike Kennedy]

Weird ! It seems we're using two different versions of CC v2.32.

Perhaps, but (I assume) it's very unlikely...

 

1. Did you install Recuva as well ? Because in another thread someone un-installed Recuva and according to him, his problem with CC disappeared.

AFAIK, Recuva was not installed when I was running the tests.

 

2. Perhaps unticking a number or boxes will to resolve the issue ? I have only a very few boxes permanently ticked and ""Include"" does work without any problem.

I use mostly the default settings and default install, with, perhaps, 2/3 other options set, - and, obviously, our troublesome "include" bits. I'll experiment a little with some of these, though I could end up with thousands of combos to test!

 

Frankly, I have ran out of suggestions.

No probs... Thank YOU very much for participating in the thread. Hopefully, others will be alerted, and, hopefully, someone browsing the source will have an "aaaah!!" moment, and fix it!

 

- Mike

[Mike Kennedy]

Small update: I ran a few more simple tests...

 

- In all these cases where the stated folder (ie, stated in the INCLUDE option) was NOT EMPTY, then the folder itself was NOT deleted (correct action).

 

- In all cases where the stated folder WAS EMPTY, then the folder itself was deleted (incorrectly).

 

Perhaps that's the full explanation of the bug! If so, my apologies for not spotting it earlier.

 

- Mike.

[Willy2]

Here's another suggestion to see where CC goes ""off the deep end"".

1. Save your favourite settings by selecting the CC option ""Save settings to INI file"". Copy ccleaner.ini to another folder. Make a note of what your favourite CC settings are.

2. Untick as many boxes as possible.

3. Revert back to your old favourite settings by ticking one box extra at a time and run CC every time again after you've ticked that extra box. Perhaps then you can see ticking which box causes CC to go ""off the deep end"" with the ""Include"" feature.

 

You can automate the creation of the test folder by writing a batch file with the extension *.bat. Create that file with Notepad and add the following two lines to that new *.bat file.

md c:\testfolder

xcopy c:\test\*.* c:\testfolder /E /Y

The first line creates the folder called c:\testfolder and the second line copies the content of c:\test\*.* to c:\testfolder. Every time you click on that *.bat file Windows will execute those (MSDOS) commands.

Edited June 23, 2010 by Willy2

[Willy2]

I had an email exchange last month with ""Mike Kennedy"" discussing the ""Include"" option issue. He ran a number of tests on two different computers. On one computer the ""Include"" option worked like it was supposed to. But on another computer the ""Include"" option always (incorrectly) wiped a folder itself as well when that folder was empty.

 

It seems the temporary data CC compiles for the wiping of folders themselves (stored in the computer's memory ?) on certain computers gets corrupted. It seems other software interferes with that list.

[Mike Kennedy]

Thanks, Willy2, for updating the thread.

 

Just in case...

 

I've tried the new build of CC, but the issue remains in it.

 

On one computer the ""Include"" option worked like it was supposed to.

In some tests a few weeks ago, this computer also (wrongly) deleted the stated folder, but in more recent tests it never does. I do not know why this behaviour has changed.

 

I tried many many combinations of the main CC options, on both PCs, and could not identify any impact on this bug. The 2 PCs are very similar (XP-SP3, exact same folder, etc), so the problem does not seem to be related to the parsing of PATHs and folder-names.

 

- Mike.

[Willy2]

Here's another suggestion for CC v2.33:

1. Save your current settings (ccleaner.ini).

2. Click on Options, Advanced.

3. Select first Restore default settings and then tick Save settings to INI file.

Perhaps then the Include option works like it should.

 

One important point is that CC doesn't store ALL the settings. It only records which settings have been changed. So, e.g. you could have ticked the box Recent documents but that setting doesn't show up in ccleaner.ini until you have changed it at least once.

 

The delete folder itself option was introduced in v2.30. Then the complaints started to come in. So, the find and delete algorithm works well. But CC can go ""off the deep end"" when it's told to delete a folder itself when empty. Because it not always works properly on different computers makes me think that this is a ""memory"" issue.

 

I have installed a memory manager (RAM Idle) and that could be the reason why I don't have any problem using the Include option. A memory manager forces Windows (XP) every now and then to write info from the memory to the swapfile and that's - IMO - beneficial for CC.

[Mike Kennedy]

I'll try out your suggestions later... Thank you.

 

The delete folder itself option was introduced in v2.30. Then the complaints started to come in. So, the find and delete algorithm works well. But CC can go ""off the deep end"" when it's told to delete a folder itself when empty. Because it not always works properly on different computers makes me think that this is a ""memory"" issue.

 

You reminded me of one matter - though it's probably not significant... In a BAT file, one way to check if a FOLDER EXISTS is to execute "IF EXIST X:\PATH\TO\FOLDER\NUL"... That test has been broken in most/all versions of Windows, going back to Win95, and maybe 3.1/3.11. If CC happens to be using something like that....

 

- Mike

[Felix88]

Hello,

 

Sorry for digging up such an old thread. But it seams the bug is still there with 5.15.5513 version of CCleaner.

 

Selecting "Include files and subfolders" is supposed to "cause CCleaner to search all subfolders within the selected folder for the files to be deleted", which it does. The problem is that it also deletes every empty folder within the included one, which should only happen when choosing  "Include files, subfolders and the folder itself".

 

Is this bug supposed to be solved, 5 years later...?

 

Thank you for your help.

[dvdbane]

Hello,

 

Sorry for digging up such an old thread. But it seams the bug is still there with 5.15.5513 version of CCleaner.

 

Selecting "Include files and subfolders" is supposed to "cause CCleaner to search all subfolders within the selected folder for the files to be deleted", which it does. The problem is that it also deletes every empty folder within the included one, which should only happen when choosing  "Include files, subfolders and the folder itself".

 

Is this bug supposed to be solved, 5 years later...?

 

Thank you for your help.

i don't think it's a bug

 

"and the folder itself" mean root folder will be deleted as well

 

to avoid all empty folder being deleted, you should use "File Types" instead of "All Files"

 

maybe dev should add "and folders" to the Warning

[Felix88]

Thank you Dvdbane for your answer.

 

Actually I do use "File Types" (*.tmp in my case), but selecting "Include files and subfolders" nevertheless deletes every empty folder within the included one.

 

On the other hand, selecting "Include files only" won't delete empty folders, but then it won't delete *.tmp files present in subfolders either.

[dvdbane]

Thank you Dvdbane for your answer.

 

Actually I do use "File Types" (*.tmp in my case), but selecting "Include files and subfolders" nevertheless deletes every empty folder within the included one.

 

On the other hand, selecting "Include files only" won't delete empty folders, but then it won't delete *.tmp files present in subfolders either.

well, for me it's working properly

try view the Include rule via registry or ccleaner.ini

sharing the rule here might help to solve the problem

What OS are you using?

[Felix88]

I tried it both on Windows 8 (desktop) and Windows 10 (laptop) with the same results.

 

The rule in the registry is as follows: PATH|C:\Felix\|*.tmp|RECURSE|0|0|24

 

Seems correct to me but I'm no expert. From previous posts in this thread, it looks like it works on some systems but not on others.

 

No big issue anyway, I can just use a DEL or ERASE command in a vbs script which will run at session startup and delete tmp files.