Windows 10: Thumbnails repeatedly disappearing

A few days ago I was in the middle of organizing some photos saved on my device from one large folder to categorised sub-folders, and suddenly all the thumbnails disappeared and the images wouldn't show up in the preview pane. Perhaps twice in the past 6 months I had an issue where thumbnails all disappeared for files, and I was able to solve this then by using Disk Clean Up to delete thumbnail data, at which point when I restarted my laptop and opened a new folder they all loaded fine. This time though that hasn't worked.

For starters, if I click on a thumbnail-less icon before using Disk Clean Up, not only does it not appear in the preview pane, but the Windows Explorer window freezes, then crashes and has to be closed through Task Manager. If I do run Disk Clean Up, then restart my laptop, the thumbnails are all restored... for a few minutes, until I click on a couple of folders and them they're all gone again and I'm back to square one. I've tried using the System File Checker to see if anything is corrupted it's not, running virus scans to make sure that's not the issue it's not, and I'm not sure what to do from here. I use my laptop primarily for work, which involves creating and editing a whole lot of image files, so it's incredibly frustrating to have to run Disk Clean Up and restart the laptop every time I click through a couple of folders, and I can't even just guess which file is which as if I try to open them it crashes. Can anyone provide any assistance with this?

:)

 

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?

 

Video preview thumbnails

Hello,

System file corruption is one of the possible reasons why thumbnail preview has recently disappeared. To better assist you, please answer the following:

• For clarification, are referring to video preview thumbnails when using File Explorer?
  
• We would like to verify if you are referring to the Fall Creators Update. To see your
  Windows build and version, please follow the steps in this
  article.
  

In the meantime, we suggest creating a Test User Profile. This is to see if the same issue occurs on a different user profile.

To create a Test User Profile, follow these steps:

• On Search, type Settings then hit the
  Enter key.
• On Settings window, select Accounts.
• Select Family & other people.
  
• Select Add someone else to this PC.
• Name the User Profile as TEST.
• Assign a password for TEST user, then select Next.
• Sign in TEST user.

We'll be waiting on the results.

 

Thumbnails Disappear

Hi Darren,

Thank you for posting your concern here in the Community forum. One possible solution to this issue is to
clear and reset the thumbnail cache of your PC. Kindly follow the steps below to do this:

1. Press Windows key + R.
2. On the Run dialog box, type cleanmgr.
3. Press Enter.
4. If you have more than one drive or partition on your PC, select the Windows C: drive or the drive letter you wanted to clean.
5. Click OK.
6. Uncheck all the files that have a check beside it, but make sure there's a check on Thumbnails.
7. Click OK.
8. Click Delete Files to confirm.

Once Disk Cleanup has finished, restart your device for changes to take effect.

Please reply to this thread in order for us to help you further.

Regards.