Feedback: Why I can't use CCleaner + buggy UI + buggy general enquiry form.

[jcel]

Feedback:
Hey, just thought I'd provide some feedback as to why I can't use CCleaner.
It has all the features I'm after... but when I go to do something simple like r.click from the recycle bin and run ccleaner....

- I'm interrupted with a "it's time for your PC health check"
- Then it closes my browser
- The dialogues are in broken English, so I'm not 100% what they mean. They are not clear.
- And it's suggesting cleanin my recycle bin...  which I'm trying to shred.
So I don't know. Will it shred my recycle bin, or just delete the contents? This is an annoyance.

I restart the program, and i get the "busy" spinning icon the whole time.
The program is now unusable.

Basically, you've 
-made it hard to access the tool I *want* to use
-made it difficult to tell what the program is actually planning
-got in the way multiple times with a laggy ui and unclear definitions.

I would probably buy if it backed off a bit, and let me use the parts I wanted, but right now it's too bloated.

I tried to submit this via the form but got some error about the form having been deactivated.

Thanks,
J.

[nukecad]

Let's take those one at a time:

'It's time for your PC's Health check..." is the loading page for, - you've guessed it CCleaners Health Check cleaning routine.
Health Check does a clean using it's own rules, (and if you have bought CCleaner Pro also checks for unwanted startup apps and for some software updates).
It has very few things  that you can change and any changes only apply for that one time.
It is meant as a quick way that inexperienced users can do a quick clean.

If you want to run Health Check then just click on 'Skip to start Health Check'on that screen and Health Check will run without showing the introduction screens first.

If you are running Health Check and you have a browser open then Health Check will tell you it needs to be cosed so that Helath Check can analyze and clean your browser - if you don't want to close the browser then untick the blue box(es) and CCleaner will 'Skip' it for that one time, so wil leave it open and not clean it.
It will ask you this everytime that you run Health Check with a browser open.

If you don't want to use Health Check at all and want to use Custom Clean instead then set Custom Clean as your default.
To do that go to Options>Settings and change the 'CCleaner Home Screen' to 'Custom Clean'.
You can set your own rules for Custom Clean, those rules only apply to Custom Clean and not to Health Check.

CCleaner's Custom Clean will empty your recycle bin according to the setting you have told it to use.
If you want to shred files so that they can't later be recovered by recovery software then set Options>Settings>Secure file Deletion to 'Simple overwrite (1 pass)'.
There are options for more than 1 pass, but they are not needed with modern computers and just take longer.

Not sure about your spinning circle because I don't know just what you had done before you got it.
A spinning circle simply means an app is busy, it could already be running, or trying to connect to the internet, or ......

The general enquiry form isn't showing any error for me: https://support.piriform.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Was this the form you were trying to use?

[jcel]

Thanks for taking the time, but that doesn't really address the issues I was having:

'It's time for your PC's Health check..." 
I'm trying to access a specific tool. Not this.
I've not really used the PC in about a month, so it's fine.
It's not letting me cancel this, and showing the spinning cursor when mousing over the leftmost icons.

"CCleaner's Custom Clean will empty your recycle bin according to the setting you have told it to use."
As above, I didn't get a chance; couldn't leave the health check to check.

"'Skip to start Health Check'" 
1: No health check please
2: It looks like bad grammar. I couldn't actually tell at first if it was "Skip health check" or "Skip, and continue to health check"
(Ideally the main button text would be "Skip" with "continue to health check" underneath in a smaller font)
3: Spinny busy cursor wouldn't let me leave, which made me think I'd skipped the health check (since I hadn't gone through all the shown steps) and that it was processing something else (freeing up mem, enumerating files, downloading something?)...
If it's busy, it would be nice to know what it's up to and have a little progress bar, etc.

"If you are running Health Check and you have a browser open then Health Check will tell you it needs to be cosed "
Yep, at this poin't I'm stuck on the health check screen, frustrated, and clicked without meaning to. Sadface.

Interestingly the left-most icons were not functional, but everything in the right hand side panel was.

https://www.ccleaner.com/contact/other-enquiry
-> https://www.formstack.com/forms/index.php
"ERROR: This form has been deactivated and is closed to any further submissions. (Error ID: 42924933cc6721466891)"

Thankfully, reinstalling to reply has (for now?) fixed the issue, and I'm free to use the rest of the program.
Hopefully no repeats in a month's time, but in either case, I wanted to share my frustrations.

Thanks again,
J

[nukecad]

As above open CCleaner (if from the bin then 'Open' and not 'Run') and change the Home Screen to be Custom Clean and not Health Check.

If you have not used it for 'a month or so' then CCleaner will be checking for a new version (and there is one, there is usually a monthly update).

If your antivirus or firewall is blocking the update that could explain the spinning circle.

Can you tell us:

Your Windows 10 version, your antivirus and what version it is, and your current CCleaner version.

[jcel]

"As above open CCleaner (if from the bin then 'Open' and not 'Run') and change the Home Screen to be Custom Clean and not Health Check."
Not a ton of help if the UI's gummed up when I open it, but might be a good plan going forwards - assuming that pre-downloading updates is what's doing it.

If that is the case, and it is a blocking operation, then it could do with some sort of indication, or sticking that on another thread.

Win 10 pro 64 bit 20H2 (19042.1110)
Windows Defender
CCleaner 5.83.9050 64bit
(unknown previous version; grabbed a fresh setup)

J

[nukecad]

OK, are you now saying that the UI won't open for you at all? (That's often an Antivirus stopping it, but you're using Defender which isn't known for doing it).
And you say that it's doing this even with a new install?

So then let's do a bit of testing to track down what the problem may be.

The answers to these will help tell us what the possible/probable problem is.

Let's rule out opening it from the recycle bin first, and open CCleaner in the normal manner.

If you have a desktop icon for CCleaner double click on it, if you don't have a desktop icon then open File Explorer and go to C:\Program Files\CCleaner and double click CCleaner64.exe (you may not see the '.exe' part of the name, that depends on your Windows settings).
What happens?

If you get a spinning circle again then open Task Manager, right click on CCleaner and End Task, then disconnect from the internet and try launching CCleaner again.
What happens?

If you are still getting a spinning circle then boot your computer into safe mode, and try again.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/start-your-pc-in-safe-mode-in-windows-10-92c27cff-db89-8644-1ce4-b3e5e56fe234
What happens?

One more question - Do you have Controlled Folder Access turned on in Security Centre>Ransomware Protection?
(That can sometimes stop apps from running properly).

[jcel]

"OK, are you now saying that the UI won't open for you at all? (That's often an Antivirus stopping it, but you're using Defender which isn't known for doing it)."

No, just the first time (the time I posted about).
That time I could only interact with the main area - icons were giving the spinny cursor (hence I couldn't change the startup screen, couldn't set the erase security settings, etc).
But after a reinstall, it does let me click around.

I don't have controlled folder access enabled.

J

[nukecad]

1 hour ago, jcel said:

But after a reinstall, it does let me click around.

I'm not sure where we are up to here now, are you saying that CCleaner is now working properly for you?

If not then what are you seeing now?