Why does File Explorer blink?

MrYossu · Dec 12, 2022

Sorry for the vague title, but I'm not sure how else to describe it.

I rebuilt my PC last week, and installed Win11. All seems well, except for an odd behaviour with File Explorer. I tend to have this open the whole time on a secondary monitor. I keep seeing it flicker, blanking off part of the display for a second or so. This happens quite regularly.

This screen recording shows it happening twice...

File Explorer remains usable whilst this is happening.

Anyone any idea what could be causing this? Here are my system specs in case it helps.

Thanks

MrYossu · Dec 12, 2022

P.S. Since posting, I've been keeping an eye on it, and it's been doing it regularly every 20-30 seconds or so.

glasskuter · Dec 12, 2022

Troubleshoot using one monitor only. (do not have second or third one connected at all) If everything is good using one monitor (and I suspect it will be), the issue is not with file explorer but points to graphics...card, monitor connection, cable, port or driver.

MrYossu · Dec 12, 2022

I did wonder if it was the graphics card, however I checked the NVIDIA site, and it's fully supported for Win11. I also have the latest drivers, so unless there's a physical problem with the card, I can't see why I would be having problems. Not that that proves anything, I know little about graphics cards, so could be well off the mark here!

I can't unplug the other monitors right now, but as a small test, I tried dragging File Explorer to each of the other monitors, and saw the same problem wherever it was, so it doesn't sound like it's either the monitor(s) or cable(s).

Also, why would this affect only File Explorer? I'm no expert on hardware (understatement), but would have expected a faulty card or driver to affect more than just the one application.

Thanks for the reply.

WAI · Dec 12, 2022

I've actually seen this but it's been a min but yes having more then one monitor can have that effect

MrYossu · Dec 12, 2022

WAI said:
I've actually seen this but it's been a min but yes having more then one monitor can have that effect

Does that mean that I can't do anything about it? I'm not prepared to go back to one monitor!

Thanks

Berton · Dec 12, 2022

I saw the blinking happen not long ago, had 3 USB drives plugged in, one HDD and two Thumb drives. Removed them and did a full shutdown with power button, pulled the power cord out then put everything back, returned to normal with no blinking.

MrYossu · Dec 12, 2022

Berton said:
I saw the blinking happen not long ago, had 3 USB drives plugged in, one HDD and two Thumb drives. Removed them and did a full shutdown with power button, pulled the power cord out then put everything back, returned to normal with no blinking.

That's interesting, if a little odd! I'll try that next time I power down.

Was your blinking just with File Explorer, or something else?

Thanks

Berton · Dec 12, 2022

It was just File Explorer and third-party Total Commander [file manager]. I assumed it may have been cause by the plugged in drives.

MrYossu · Dec 12, 2022

Berton said:
It was just File Explorer and third-party Total Commander [file manager]. I assumed it may have been cause by the plugged in drives.

Very interesting. Did it ever come back again, or was that it?

Berton · Dec 12, 2022

It did fix it. Had the same a week ago with a client's Notebook, he had been out of state for the holiday and his wife used her BestBuy account to have it fixed but it didn't help. Same thing, power completely off then try again, worked.

MrYossu · Dec 19, 2022

@Berton Shame, didn't work for me. I only had the one external drive plugged in, and I powered off completely, unplugged the drive, powered back up, then plugged it in again, but I'm still getting the flickering.

Thanks anyway. Any other ideas?

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

This is a strange problem. To me looks like it is refreshing the windows, like when right click and select refresh it does this slightly, but this looks consistent to that idea.

Wonder if it’s one of the drives that has an issue. Know kind of stated that way by OP here. Is Task Manager showing high usage at the time ? Scan all drives for errors CHDSK. Rebuilt PC did buy new drives or use same ones you had ? What is Windows 10 (X:) ?

johnlgalt · Dec 19, 2022

jds63 said:
his is a strange problem. To me looks like it is refreshing the windows, like when right click and select refresh it does this slightly, but this looks consistent to that idea.

I thought the same thing when looking at the GIF. It looks like Explorer is refreshing itself for some reason - either it is set to always refresh, or else something is changing *enough* that it thinks it needs to refresh. This could be something simple, like a drive is getting data written to it, or something more complex, such as a network drive.

@MrYossu - I notice that you have X: focused, which is showing Windows 10 - is that the system folder from another machine / VM that you're accessing over a network?

If so, then I suspect that may, in fact, be the root cause of the continual refreshing.

Even if it is not, if that is a locally attached drive of your old system, the fact that you recently rebuilt the machine could also be causing havoc, because Windows Defender may be trying ot scan the old drive, and getting stuck repeatedly, or the Search Indexer could be trying to build an index of all the items on that drive, and being an old install, it will have lots pf places where Search Indexer may not have access to, since Windows will consider that technically a separate OS drive.

Let us know what the drive is and we can probably come up with some things to try to get this constant refreshing to stop.

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

johnlgalt said:
I notice that you have X: focused, which is showing Windows 10 - is that the system folder from another machine / VM that you're accessing over a network?

Yes and never seen X: before as a drive letter . I notice two D: & E: Drive letters is that two partitions on same drive ?

MrYossu · Dec 19, 2022

@johnlgalt Thanks for the reply. To answers your questions... Yes I recently rebuilt my PC. I cloned my main drive onto a spare, removed it and installed Windows 11 on that main drive. I then plugged the spare back in (internal), so I could boot back into it while I was rebuilding. It's a local drive, plugged into a SATA port inside the PC casing, not a network drive. I don't have any network drives on this PC.

As for Windows Defender, it could be, but given that I'm lazy, and tend to switch my PC on at the beginning of the week, and leave it on until the end of the week, I would have expected that Windows Defender would have finished scanning long before now.

@jds63 I deliberately assigned X as the drive letter for the spare drive to make it clear to myself what it was. D is an internal second drive, on which I store music, pictures and downloads (as I have this awful OCD reluctance to delete anything!) and E is an external drive I use for nightly backups.

Thanks to both of you. Don't know if this helps or not.

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

MrYossu said:
I deliberately assigned X as the drive letter for the spare drive to make it clear to myself what it was.

Does it have Windows 10 on It ?

MrYossu said:
D is an internal second drive, on which I store music, pictures and downloads (as I have this awful OCD reluctance to delete anything!) and E is an external drive I use for nightly backups.

But they have two Drive letters are they partitioned that way ?

Good question to always ask yourself is when an issue arises , try to recall what was added or changed right before problem occurred ?

MrYossu · Dec 19, 2022

jds63 said:
Does it have Windows 10 on It ?

Yup, that's the clone of my previous installation. From what you said, I think it would be worth powering down, unplugging that and powering up again. I haven't booted into Win10 for a week or so now, and am unlikely to, so it wouldn't be a problem.

jds63 said:
But they have two Drive letters are they partitioned that way ?

Not sure what you mean. D is an internal drive, and E is external. Each just has one main partition, although D also has 24Mb unallocated (not sure why). Here is a screenshot from Computer Management...

Does that help?

jds63 said:
Good question to always ask yourself is when an issue arises , try to recall what was added or changed right before problem occurred ?

Very good question. The thing is that this is a very recent build (about 10 days now), so everything is new. I'm also not sure what stage I noticed the blinking. I ignored it at first, as I had other things on my mind.

Thanks again for the help. As I said, I think the next step is to remove the clone and see if it helps.

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

MrYossu said:
I think the next step is to remove the clone and see if it helps.

Do you boot from that ? Dual boot ? Wanted to save Windows 10 maybe made an image and save it elsewhere so can use this drive.

MrYossu said:
Each just has one main partition, although D also has 24Mb unallocated (not sure why).

Have GUID partition style is why. When look at your GIF in post i see two D’S and two E’s why i asked.

MrYossu · Dec 19, 2022

jds63 said:
Do you boot from that ? Dual boot ? Wanted to save Windows 10 maybe made an image and save it elsewhere so can use this drive.

I cloned it so I could boot back into it in case I wanted to get any settings. Imaging the disk is fine for picking up files, but there are some things you can't get from an image. However, as I said, I haven't booted back into it recently, and don't think I'll need to, so will remove it and see what happens.

jds63 said:
Have GUID partition style is why. When look at your GIF in post i see two D’S and two E’s why i asked.

Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, I have found the new File Explorer to be a bit odd in what it shows in that left panel.

As you can see from the image I posted just earlier, I only have one D and one E.

Thanks again.