Windows 10: File Explorer Photos & Videos Thumbnails Broken

I have read many tech articles, I've cleared caches, changed settings, I have tried all the solutions I could find to no avail. Prior to this issue, I could view almost every single photo and video file's thumbnail in file explorer. Then one day I couldn't. Now I can only view some of the thumbnails, but most are just displaying the file icon. I can still view all the files if I open them so there isn't anything wrong with the actual files. I took some screenshots of the folder with pictures of my dog in it to show how randomly the thumbnails work: https://imgur.com/a/6af8fdl I just want

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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?

 

can i show Photos BUT NOT videos on windows 11 file explore thumbnail

Since updated from Windows 10 to 11, if i have 1 JPG and 1 MP4 file in each folder, and when i preview my file folders on File Explorer, it shows a thumbnail of the video but not photo. Can I change in the other way around (ie. show thumbnail of photo, BUT NOT videos) on the thumbnail?

 

Video thumbnails not showing up in Windows Explorer.

So I've been having this problem for several months now..

One day some of my video thumbnails weren't showing, so I deleted the thumbnail cache, and then they were all gone and never returned. It was like Windows lost the ability to create thumbnails for videos, and as I moved videos around over time windows never generated new thumbnails for them.

I have photo thumbnails, but not video thumbnails, and video thumbnails don't show up in other programs either, such as Media Player, or in alternatives to Windows Explorer, such as One Commander. It's like Windows has lost the ability to create video thumbnails. And only video thumbnails.

I also don't get any video previews in Windows Explorer's Preview Pane; but again I do get previews for photos and other files, PDF, etc.

And it's the same on all 4 of my hard drives, so it's not drive specific.

I have tried a lot of stuff such as:

• Deleting the thumbnail cache.
  
• SFC.
  
• DISM.
  
• Edit Group Policy.
  
• Explorer>Options>View>Always display icons, never thumbnails (checked and unchecked)
  
• Resetting Media Player settings (in case that interfered with it).
  
• Rebuilt the search index.
  
• Searched REGEDIT for "thumbs", but nothing stood out.
  
• Deleted temporary files.
  
• Virus and malware scans.
  

And I've probably tried various other stuff too that I've forgotten about.

Is there anything else I can check?

How exactly does Windows build thumbnails, is there some code, or a .dll file somewhere? Or is there some codec or media player feature that grabs a snapshot of the file or something?

Does Windows handle video and photo thumbnails differently?

I also don't have any thumbs.db files, anywhere (is this even still a thing?), even in folders with photos and thumbnails in them, even though I have turned on the option to show protected operating system files and hidden files.

Anybody know what's going on here?