Right-Click Times Out in 595

[BGM]

I have an issue whereby when I right-click an item in the folder pane that I get a spinner wheel, and then nothing. That is, the menu never opens. Now, this is intermittent, and I haven't pinned it down yet. But sometimes I can right-click on the file and wait, over and over until I turn blue and never get a menu.

Likewise, I put my machine to sleep and woke it up in the morning, and then, when I right-click on anything I get:
'Directory name in not valid.'

So I restarted FCXE and am not getting the second message any more.

Now, I notice that when I do right-click on an item in the folder-pane, that FC loses focus. I think that is because FC is using a different application called "FcContextMenu64.exe" to show the context menu. Is this a separate executable in order to prevent there having to be a 32 bit and a 64 bit version of FC? I would rather FC not lose focus. Maybe that FcContextMenu64.exe could be a DLL instead?

[BGM]

Persists in 596.

I am still having this problem. I will right-click on an item and the waiting-spinner will appear, then nothing happens - no menu. Sometimes I get a menu, sometimes the menu shows after about 20 seconds.

[Scott_Y]

I will right-click on an item and the waiting-spinner will appear, then nothing happens - no menu. Sometimes I get a menu, sometimes the menu shows after about 20 seconds.

BGM, this is not a solution, but just to give a bigger picture.

I have experienced what you describe ever since I upgraded from Win XP-32 to Win 7-64 around 9 months ago, i.e. over a number of beta releases, so it is not a new problem. An additional problem in my experience was that when the context menu finally appeared, it would sometimes take a long time to close. But to clarify: it is only an intermittent problem for me; most often there is no significant delay in the context menu appearing, and in recent releases, there has not been a delay in the menu closing.

There has been some discussion of the issue elsewhere on the FC Forum, and as I remember, nothing has been conclusive. One suggestion was to change the ini file so the 32-bit context menu would be default. I tried that but (again, as I remember) it sometimes had a delay in opening as well. Plus I often wanted a 64-bit function so I ended up closing the 32-bit menu and opening the 64-bit menu anyway (sorry, I don't remember the way to do that now).

[BGM]

Thanks for adding, Scott. I don't know the inner mechanics of the thing, but I do see a "FcContextMenu64.exe" in the application folder. I do know that when you right-click on an item, FC completely gives up focus to the context menu - that is, FC actually *loses* focus for a short time, and then focus is given back to FC after the context menu is closed. In most other applications, the context-menu is part of the application's own process.

I wonder if that has something to do with it (only Marek really knows!). Maybe having this functionality as a separate executable is an attempt to get the process into a separate application thread. I don't know if you can separate process threads in delphi - I know you can in .net. I also wonder if FcContextMenu64 was a DLL, if that would allow the functions to work in-process (or in sub-process) of the main application - maybe the timeout has to do with the two applications failing to interact.

But, like we have both said, it IS intermittent. For example, I have about 20 windows open in my taskbar, and there is no problem. But earlier today, and *very often* I have less open, and can't get a context menu to work for nothing!

[Scott_Y]

I think this issue has been fixed with the improved FCcontextmenu64.dll. It could probably be moved it to the Resolved section of the forum.

[BGM]

Agreed.