*You are not alone. There is evidently an issue with Flash in Snow Leopard and Smith Micro has acknowledged it. See this thread in DAZ 3D Forums: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=121408

*That is supposed to be solved with SR2 - the last reply on that thread was from oct 2.
SR2 was released after that

The thousands of xml files is happening to me. I finally had to stop using Poser 8. I counted 18,000 in a 30 minute session with just loading the default scene that pops up.

That is to say, I just sat there and literally watched as files kept being created. Yet nothing was being worked on. I went outside for a few minutes and it was at 1,200. Thirty minutes later I came back and checked. 18,579.

I went back to Poser 7. 7 Does not exhibit this issue

I did notify SM about this issue.

Win7, 64bit. 8 gigs RAM, 10 gig swap file.

I just read the above post.. I am NOT on a mac. Repeat... this is a PC. :)

But it also happened in Vista/32bit, 4 gigs ram, 5 gig swap file.

My guess is the library they built trying to read the runtime folder and create the tree structure.

God only knows why the had to change this from Version 7 which worked just fine. Why would they use flash in a non-browser application is beyond me. Some programmer there obviously thought it would be cool but in fact it slows the entire interface down it seems to me. Aside from "Search" the entire library interface is terrible.

At this point until it's fixed I refuse to use P8 and have warned others about it.

I am using the latest SR as well. So no, it hasn't been fixed :)

Only a very small number of people who experience this have cooperated with SM to identify common factors. SM have not figured it out, because it has to be figured out entirely by asking you questions.<<

They must not be trying very hard because they basically blew me of. Smith Micro that is.

They essentially blamed it on CCleaner saying it caused the problem. Then they said that all programs do this. I said, maybe, but not 18,000 files in one 30 minute session... files that have absolutely no content except an open and close XML snippet.

I can send the thread along if anyone wishes.

I then requested they reactivate my Poser 7 which they kindly did (I give them credit for being nice) and I forgot how much I prefer that old interface.

I'll be sad to see the indirect lighting gone but a) blaming the temp files on my computer was not wise and b) I refuse to kill my HD with 10,000+ new files created and deleted every time I start Poser.

I don't care that they are deleted. I don't want them created in the first place.

And why blame CCleaner when it seems it's a Mac issue as well?

They obviously have no clue what it is but to me it's quite obviously related to the library being indexed and read and this crap left behind. And when SM mentioned "Flash" is not supposed to do this I nearly choked. FLASH? They've sunken so low they're writing parts of this in Flash??? Jesus. That explains it.

One other thing. If I had to guess, I'd guess this phenomena is happening on more than just a few poser machines. Why? Because these files are basically hidden even with view system and OS files turned on. Only certain file cleaners spot them.

They also get flushed on a reboot. Which is nice. ... and it means people won't even know they had been created and are now gone (and will be created again once they start P8)...

But again... they shouldn't even be written in the first place. It's killing the MFT. It's fragmenting drives. It's totally useless garbage. I caught it only by accident because i happened to have P8 running AND CCleaner at the same time.

Attached Link: http://www.ericsimage.com

For me the issue really is I don't want my c: drive cluttered up and fragmented daily with stupid poser temp XML files. I don't want them written and them removed in such vast quanities (18,000 in a session sometimes)

On my laptop I have a SD reader with a fast SD card that I use for readyboost. There's about 300 megs of free space on it after readyboost.

In IE8, 32bit version (64bit doesn't save the setting for some reason), you can choose where to store temporary internet files.

I chose this G drive (my SD card reader/card).

Rebooted.

I was expecting Poser to still write out to my c drive but to my amazement and joy it now stashes all this garbage on this G drive. Which I don't care about or care if it gets fragmented or is writing/reading billions of files.

This is great news for me. It means I can now go back to using Poser 8 and not kill my main drive.

FYI: According to our understanding, we're doing everything necessary to prevent the browser component from doing caching. There's something very strange going on.

Most people know, but you may not, that I am the guy who wrote the library GUI in Flex. SM wrote the server. We wrote it in Flex for lots of reasons, none of which matter to you, of course. But since you are not aware of the design requirements (which go beyond Poser, by the way - Manga studio will be getting this GUI, too) it's not fair for you to assert that we've "sunk so low" by writing it in FLASH. It's not written in FLASH, anyway - it is written in Flex. FLASH is just the engine that executes the application. I would have written it in WPF, but it has to run on MAC as well as PC, so that's not an option. I would have written it in Python with wxPython, but it has to run on other applications besides Poser that don't have embedded Python, so that's not an option. There are many more reasons.

You certainly are in the right to be unhappy that there are problems. But don't muddy the waters with your opinions about technology unless you want to spend hours and hours discussing all the requirements. It's much more complicated than most people think.

Anyway ...

The files are produced all the time, even when you're doing nothing, because the GUI is polling the Poser server, asking it if it has any news, such as we're in the setup room and it should only show figures, or that you've selected a prop, so the "save a prop" button should be enabled.

The polling happens 4 times per second. It is done with an HTTP POST, which means it should not be cached, because it is a command, not a simple request for information, and so the response is expected to be different every time. The response header also includes a no-cache directive, which means it should not be cached. Yet it is. Beat us up all you want, but we've done the right things to prevent it. We're looking into also setting an immediate expiration on the content - another thing that is known to prevent caching.

We will find the problem and fix it. But we are not going to abandon Flex here. I'm the quarterback. If we can't stop the caching then we'll change the protocol and skip the HTTP stuff, not change the technology.

I am currently working on the next iteration, and I have a version that is an AIR application, so the GUI does not have to be confined to the Poser window, or undocked or other machinations.

There are quite a few other great new features going in, and if I wasn't writing in Flex, you wouldn't see these features until next fall. Instead, they'll be out much sooner than that.

I'm showing the AIR app with the new option for multiple display panels. Before any of you start claiming we're copying D3D's library manager, let me point out that this was always in the plan. There is a very long plan of features here, most of which I can't talk about, but this is cool stuff, so use it or don't, but don't whine. There are alternatives. If you want them, buy them. It doesn't bother me at all.

We will find the problem and fix it. But we are not going to abandon Flex here. I'm the quarterback. If we can't stop the caching then we'll change the protocol and skip the HTTP stuff, not change the technology.<

Awesome.

Who's the coach? JUST kidding. It's great that someone is really on board and aware there IS a problem. And hopes to solve it of course. :)

I only jumped into this thread yesterday but have been plagued with this problem both in Vista and now in Windows 7, 64 bit.

I don't know flex and don't want to muddy the waters so I made my comment simply on what I was told and the menu/trees being built in flash and I was like, "huh? well that makes sense it doesn't work or seems slow I guess,"

I won't lie... I did prefer p7's speed, if not the visual interface. And it didn't create excess clutter intentional or not.

That being said, I like your attitude that it's being addressed, it's a known issue, it's a problem and one day will be fixed. That IS great news.

In the meantime as I said, I have found my own solution to keep my drive from getting killed :)

*>>The files are produced all the time, even when you're doing nothing, because the GUI is polling the Poser server, asking it if it has any news, such as we're in the setup room and it should only show figures, or that you've selected a prop, so the "save a prop" button should be enabled.

The polling happens 4 times per second. It is done with an HTTP POST, which means it should not be cached, because it is a command, not a simple request for information, and so the response is expected to be different every time.<<*

This is the one thing that DOES bother me about the concept. I don't care that they are cached, or left over on my drive.

That is not, was not the reason I removed P8 until I found a solution.

I removed P8 (but put it back on now) because I felt I didn't want ANY application writing that many files to my drive, cached or not.

Now maybe I'm not understanding... and I tried to clarify this with SM Tech (JohnC)... 

But ultimately my concern was... if it's normal that in excess of 18,000 files would be written to my HD (whether they get removed by poser later is besides the point)... or should these communications be done soley in RAM or in one large temp file etc.

I<< don't want that many files written to my drives. Cached or not, clear out later or not. To me, that's excessive. 500. 2,000 maybe. Especially if they were kept and reused. But 15 or 18 thousand? Not on my drive if I can help it.

So that was really my base question (not to you, but just in general)... is that normal to write and that many files in one session. It's not whether they sometimes get cleared or sometimes don't. I don't care about that last part.

The files size the files take up is of no concern to me. It's usually only about 2 or 3 megs since each file is 1k.

It's simply the sheer number, over and over again.

So I guess if the solution or fix ends up being that the files are still being created and just remobed, to me, that doesn't really address my concern, but it may simply be a limitation of app you're developing and there's nothing that can be done about it.

My poser runtime folder has 56,000 files in 2300 folders. Ultimately,..I don't know.. but the application may not be up to the task of dealing with such a large number of files. I really don't know.

Poser isn't creating the files. It's the OS doing it. The OS is stupidly trying to optimize communication between the client and the server. It is saving the answers the server is giving, hoping that it can re-play those answers and avoid doing any I/O. But that isn't appropriate here, and the OS is being told NOT to do that because this is not cachable/reusable information, by definition. The actual client and server do not create files to communicate with each other. They are using sockets - real-time messaging that has nothing whatsoever to do with disks or files.

There aren't supposed to be any files. Poser isn't asking for them - it is doing the opposite, saying do NOT make and keep copies of these messages.

>>There aren't supposed to be any files.<<

Excellent. That's the answer I was hoping to hear :)

Glad you're working on resolving and hopefully there will be a fix one day. As I said, at least until then I found a workaround and I can keep using P8. 

Got this nice little error message just now. Apparently it's not liking my temp files on the g drive too much anymore :(

Actually, I know what caused this or at least why I suddenly got an error.

My g drive was formatted as FAT.  I had about 200 megs free on it and used this as my temporary internet location. Fine.

Problem is, as poser (ok, the OS) was writing out all these temp files (about 8000) of them, well FAT drives don't compress small files too well or at all, thus even though it was technically about 2 megs... it was taking up apparently 200+ megs of space on the drive for these files... the drive ran out of space, poser died. I had noticed prior to this alot of missing icons for items and their folders wouldn't open in the library.

I formatted the drive now as NTFS and going to watch a bit. The library items have come back.

This is a very very weird problem and obviously deeper than simply temp xml files getting written or not written.

Ok, so it's not Poser.

It's not the programmers specifically doing anything wrong. 

But I can't pin this on the OS either.... and it seems to me the newer technology here is Adobe Flex and I'd be curious if they've dug into this a bit since... hey...  whose the new guy on the bench in this mix? Not Poser. Not Windows or OSX. That leaves only one choice :)

Quote - Poser isn't creating the files. It's the OS doing it. The OS is stupidly trying to optimize communication between the client and the server. It is saving the answers the server is giving, hoping that it can re-play those answers and avoid doing any I/O. But that isn't appropriate here, and the OS is being told NOT to do that because this is not cachable/reusable information, by definition. The actual client and server do not create files to communicate with each other. They are using sockets - real-time messaging that has nothing whatsoever to do with disks or files.

There aren't supposed to be any files. Poser isn't asking for them - it is doing the opposite, saying do NOT make and keep copies of these messages.

It must be heck trying to beat someone else's software into submission. Best of luck in the war against the OS.

@dk3d 

Personally I'm running P8 on a Linux and don't experience this problem, but I'll throw in a few comments anyway. 

I'm not convinced that you should be writing to a SD disk so much - typically SD cards have no wear-levelling built into them and so you run a big risk of ruining your SD card altogether. The individual cells on SD cards can only be re-written a certain number of times until they "wear out" and become marked as bad cells and can no longer be written to. It is not a problem in regular use, but  what you are exposing the SD card to, is not normal use. In fact it is the single most worst case for SD cards (lots and lots and lots of very small files).

An alternative solution would be a RAM drive. I'm pretty sure there are small and free applications for Windows that allow just the same thing - assigning a drive letter to be a "virtual drive" (ie. it totally exists in RAM, but Windows otherwise treats it just like a regular drive). You could then point IE to store temporary files in that virtual drive. 

**>I'm not convinced that you should be writing to a SD disk so much - typically SD cards have no wear-levelling built into them and so you run a big risk of ruining your SD card altogethe<

**It's a high speed memory stick. Not a Solid State Disk. I meant "SD" as in an SD memory card.

4 gigs for about $19. If it dies in a month, it's not a big loss :)**

I like your idea about a ram disk though... that actually makes alot of sense, had heard of this before and I'm going to check it out. Excellent tip!
**

hi !

i didn't real all the thread (very long!!!) , i had the same problem and i solved it !

did you success it or not ? else not, i will publish my idea.

Mike

12rounds, excellent interm solution, the RAMdisk idea. I set that up and works fantastic.

usamike, I'd love to hear your solution. So far I haven't "Solved" the problem of the files being created, just solved them being created on my c drive. Now at least they are getting stored on a RAM disk.

Quote - **
**It's a high speed memory stick. Not a Solid State Disk. I meant "SD" as in an SD memory card. 

4 gigs for about $19. If it dies in a month, it's not a big loss :)**
**

 
Yeah I realised that. Actual SSDs have controllers with sophisticated wear-levelling so it wouldn't be a problem with them anyway. Cheap flash-memory cards and sticks do not do wear-levelling very well (or at all). But in case of cheap sticks, the possible loss isn't that big, as you said.

I'm glad you found the RAM disk solution is working for you. It's also much faster to write to memory than to USB stciks, though I don't know if it matters in this case at all.

you have on your computer another software (or plugin ou first part) which is in communication with poser8.

if i was you :

• i backup all
• i format my hd
• i install the OS only ! (a real one, not a hacked one)
• i install the mb drivers (intel utility..), then video drivers and sound drivers
• i update the OS (windows update)
• i install poser 8 and check if all is ok
• if not, then you have a drivers problem issue with poser8
• if yes, then i go to reinstall each software i use ONE BY ONE BY CHECKING permanently Poser8 issues
  this is the mehod to find out witch software/part creates this issue

good luck !

ps : do not install antivirus, neither other pre-install sofware of your computer brand (sony app, norton app,  acer app, install JUST THE OPERATIF SYSTEM and POSER)

I had (I say "had" because I've since put more stuff in it) a barebones windows 7, 64 bit. Clean install not an upgrade, not purchased as part of a package from Dell or something.

I wiped my drive and installed 7

Again, barebones with no Antivirus, no special firewall software, no other software. Nothing

Poser 8 was the first install.

It created the temp file even then.

I actually know this because I installed Win7 partly as a way to see if this problem would go away because it happened in Vista (32bit) as well.

Quote - you have on your computer another software (or plugin ou first part) which is in communication with poser8.

if i was you :

• i backup all
• i format my hd
• i install the OS only ! (a real one, not a hacked one)
• i install the mb drivers (intel utility..), then video drivers and sound drivers
• i update the OS (windows update)
• i install poser 8 and check if all is ok
• if not, then you have a drivers problem issue with poser8
• if yes, then i go to reinstall each software i use ONE BY ONE BY CHECKING permanently Poser8 issues
  this is the mehod to find out witch software/part creates this issue

good luck !

ps : do not install antivirus, neither other pre-install sofware of your computer brand (sony app, norton app,  acer app, install JUST THE OPERATIF SYSTEM and POSER)

I did all of the things You are suggesting here on My iMac..  Made no difference at all until SR2 .
Since SR2 I have had only one crash and I think that was My fault..

So....   Since almost everything has been resolved with SR2..  I am sure that I am correct in assuming Poser was at fault and not other software, hardware, gremlins, spooks or viruses..

SR2 may have fixed it on the Mac side, but not the PC side, the temp file issue at least.

SR2 DID solve alot of other issues... but sadly I'm still seeing an xml files being written once every second.

Actually it looks way more than that. I mean in 30 minutes there's way more than 1800 files, more like about 5000

I already told you (collectively) all this, but I'll tell you again.

The tiny files are recordings of conversations between the Poser Flex GUI and the Poser server. These conversations happen at a minimum rate of 14,400 times per hour. You do not need to keep excitedly reporting how many there are. I know how many there are. I wrote the software that is conversing. Also every time you open a folder, also every time you click on anything in the library, also every time you drag the mouse during drag-and-drop of content - all of these cause a message between client and server.

And the component that is doing the recording is the browser component supplied with the OS. There is no need to test for additional software. We already know a blank PC can do this. What we do not know is why one PC in a hundred does this, and the rest do not.

There is some hidden thing that some people have and most other people do not have. Something in common. This hidden something in common is not yet revealed and will never be by guessing.

What has to happen is that every single person who has this problem contact SM and every single one must answer every question asked until the common factor is found. There will be many many questions that turn out to be completely irrelevant. Failure to answer them will stop the process.

I'm not saying you (collectively) have to cooperate. I'm saying that if you (collectively) don't cooperate, to find the common factor then,  some of you (individually) will have to suffer.

In the entire SM organization + beta group, only two people see the mysterious XML creation problem. One of those people is Uli, who is the director of engineering. Do you guys think that we're ignoring this when it's happening to Uli, our boss? F*** no. Yet Uli's machine alone is not enough to figure out what the f*** is going on.

Now stop guessing silly stuff and everybody who has this problem, work with SM (and indirectly you're working with me and the engineeers) so they get all the data. Without data, all I can say is "wow, that's really weird".

One thing to note is that explorer will not show these generated xml files in the Temporary Internet Files folder even if you check all the options(hidden and protected).

You will have to use a third-party tool like ccleaner or navigate to the real folder(Content.IE5) by typing the path.

nightfall,

That was an interesting point that the content.ie5 folder is not listed. Brilliant - thank you.

Guess what? I have these cached files too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But .... mine are not stored as .xml files. They are .py files ! Because the URL of the Poser service looks like a python call. (It actually is during my prototyping stage, but in production it is all in C++. But the URL looks the same.)

The service being called is spelled api.py, but the cached copies look like:
apiCAR9OSD8.py
apiCARU2RZY.py

But inside, the response type is XML.

So ---- interesting. Some browsers are recording the conversation as the type of function being called (Python) and others are recording it as the type of response given (XML).

The plot thickens.

The cool thing is, now that I know this is happening to me, I can probably figure it out.

So everybody - chill for a bit while I look into this.

Thanks Bagginsbill. As for me, I am cooperating with SM as far any questions they are asking me, but we left off at how large my swap file was. Haven't been any communication since then.

I'm certainly happy to answer any questions though. I don't have anything crazy running on my machine.

Nightfall, the files are not visible per se, but if you right click on the folder it DOES say how many files are in there total. ... even if you cannot navigate to them directly.

So what apps might I have in common with others? Apps that >might< have kicked started this annoying process the OS is now doing writing out these XML files? 

I can think of two that communicate with virtual "servers" on the local machine. Two that are common among 3D users and users in general:

1) Itunes / Bonjour

1. Vue 8 Infinite

I also run several other packages that do similar things but they don't jump out at me as being common factors either between 3D users or users in general:

1. Logmein

And well.. that's about all I have that jumps out at me.

I know Vue Infinite creates similar (empty) XML files on occasion as it's rendering but it creates them in it's own temp folder. It would also write out s**tloads of *.mem files in this same folder if one didn't have enough RAM while rendering a dynamic ecosystem.

Vue 7 Infinite also did this. In fact, it's was the first app I noticed writing out essentially garbage XML files into a folder and bitched to e-on about this because it was driving me nuts. 10,000 or more in some cases.

However it seems with Vue 8, this problem as mostly gone away... for Vue.

The cool thing is, now that I know this is happening to me, I can probably figure it out.<<

As I originally said way back when... I think it's happening to EVERYone... but most people don't notice it exactly. The files are gone before they are caught. The folders are invisible. You only see "stuff" if you right click on the temporary internet folder and view details (you see # of files and sizes) but they invisible, even with system and whatnot turned on.

Or you see with something like CCleaner and you can then navigate to each folder from within that app to explorer.

So most people won't notice them. That doesn't mean this is good. Stuff is still being written back and forth. But 99% of people will think it's not happening to them and I just don't think that's the case. If You yourself just noticed it... that's big. That's great news too. I hope :)

It means we're not all going crazy with weird things on our systems.

Got to chime in...My poser 8 also builds these .xml files by the hundreds too.Maybe its a lot more common that you think but alot of people either dont report this or dont realize whats going on.Or maybe they do what Im gonna do...get my money back and buy a 3D prog that works.After reading this post and searching the SM site I realize that a solution is not forthcoming and I shouldnt wait and waste time.I have projects on the board and I see now that Poser is`nt going to be a viable solution.Good luck with your program and I hope that you get it all figured out eventually.

Well in defense of Poser and the Poser8 team, Poser 8 is significantly more stable and faster than Poser 7. I also have Daz studio advanced and honestly trying to work with figures or lights or ojbects or materials in that program is a joke.

So what other figure apps are out there? not many that I know of.

For indirect lighting rendering Vue is still way way faster than Poser, but Poser 8 is easily 100% faster (and far better looking) than what Daz has mushed together with their various "uber" environments.

This XML files issue in now way hampers the actual program but it IS annoying and if someone hadn't tossed the idea of a RAM disk or I hadn't thought of using an alternate disk for temp files, yes, I would be sticking with P7 at this point.

I am confident the P8 team will figure it out. Today? No. Tomorrow? Probably not. Couple months? I hope so and I think so.

I'll also be quite blunt though (and this is not on topic exactly) ... I don't think the new interface of P8 has helped the situation.

The library is still a pain in the uknowwhat to navigate through. You can now search for stuff which is great. But other than that I did prefer the old interface in terms of useability. The new one feels like I'm working in a web browser. The old one felt like an application on my computer. From a Poser user standpoint, I don't see much benefit to the big changeover. From a developer there may be valid reason for other application interoperability. But for me and just poser... I'm not a fan of it. Just an opinion though, same as if I was to look at two pictures: I like >that one, and not >that one. Doesn't mean one is worse than the other.

The "Library" is a hassle either way and I almost wish we could just have a plain old windows style navigator/explorer to wade through to manage all this stuff (and delete stuff too).

Still, the program otherwise is significantly better than p7 in terms of rendering and speed.

Really?

http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/

http://usa.autodesk.com/industries/media-entertainment/film

http://www.maxon.net/en/news/singleview-default/article/maxons-cinema-4d-and-bodypaint-3d-play-starring-role-in-district-9-surrogates-cloudy-with-a-chanc.html

Why are you posting links to other 3D applications?

I was talking about figure creation or figure specific apps (you buy poser to create figures quicklhy and easily, you aren't buying or using Lightwave to specifically pose people/characters although granted, you CAN do that as well).

I was not refering to modeling or rendering and layout or scene building apps.

There's poser and there's Daz for straight out figures. Lightwave and all the rest are totally different beasts.

I used to work with Newtek (and lightwave) closely and helped (with Steve Worley) create numerous plugins such as Sasquatch (grass hair fur plug).

I hate when people assume you just got into 3D yesterday and Poser is the first program you've used.

I go back to TurboSilver, Digiview, Ham-e. Amiga. Caligari :)

That's where I'm coming from :)

I'm on pro so waiting on the next pro (have not bothered with p8 despite the nice enough pricing offers, haven't got time anyway and like my pro just fine)... meanwhile been watching this thread, among many :)

Quote - dk3d said: The "Library" is a hassle either way and I almost wish we could just have a plain old windows style navigator/explorer to wade through to manage all this stuff (and delete stuff too). 

as you said, just personal preferences... this library idealism has existed since way before p8 and at least long as i've known poser (which is not as long as some!) and yarp came around with his free p3dobj explorer (i don't like to call it p3do explorer mentally sounds it out and winces ) which is now available in a pro flavour:
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=yarp
i used to run the free one to convert rsrs to pngs and vice versa (thanks yarp!) but otherwise never really used it for browsing, searching or loading content so i can't comment on that.

and more recently Dimension3d with his PX (Poser eXplorer )
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=62059&vendor=288865
which i have not used at all but i do REALLY like (and highly recommend) Dimension3d's poser file editor (his store here http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=Dimension3D - lots of nice utilities) and i just like all his UI in PFE, very compatible with me ;)

maybe there were others developers in there with their offerings but these were the only two library utilities i became aware of :)

(ot - i wish the forum quote would attribute WHO was actually quoted... pretty disconcerting to come along in the middle of a conversation and see a quote with no name if the quote or reply were of interest)

did dyou tried to run (and install) Poser8 with a low user profil (not a admin account), so maybe the process do not log the activity in these xml files...
if you are a admin, several components (dll, class, api,python) can send more signal/information/ than if you are single user.

did you tried to install poser in a virtual machine (seven under wmvare by example) ?

I did some testing and found the cause to be Anti-virus software.

The few AV I tried all evoke the temp file generation in Poser8, including Windows Defender which comes with win7/vista.

One can exclude the Temporary Internet Files folder from real-time protection as an interim solution, but it is a fairly severe security compromise.

**>>I did some testing and found the cause to be Anti-virus software.

The few AV I tried all evoke the temp file generation in Poser8, including Windows Defender which comes with win7/vista.

One can exclude the Temporary Internet Files folder from real-time protection as an interim solution, but it is a fairly severe security compromise.<<

**I don't have any A/V software running, including Windows Defender.

Files are still getting written back and forth.
So, good theory, but doesn't work in my case.**
**

I have never used anti virus software..  Still got the problem though..

Now I expect to be lectured as to why I should be using...

Quote - I have never used anti virus software..  Still got the problem though..

Now I expect to be lectured as to why I should be using...

do you know windows defender is installed and operational by default in windows seven ? did you desable it ?

Quote - > Quote - I have never used anti virus software..  Still got the problem though..

Now I expect to be lectured as to why I should be using...

do you know windows defender is installed and operational by default in windows seven ? did you desable it ?

Ooops...   Sorry...   I am an Apple Mac user...

A little follow up.

When I last spoke to SM about this issue, they seemed to indicate the build up of files (if it exists which they seemed skeptical of) happens, it would have little impact on system performance.

I beg to differ. I differ because of

(a) drive cluster size (1k stored on a 4k cluster drive (which is NTFS default) is taking up 4k.... not 1k.). So you may have 20,000 1k temp files that total 8 megs, but it can take up 70 or megs of drive space quite quickly.

(b) it's not an IE Cache or Firefox Cache issue exactly. Setting your IE cache to 8megs doesn't solve the problem, especially If you never run IE (like me).

This is my response to Tech:

I think you also found the reason why everone does not see this build up.. I only have 8MB of Cache on my system. if you do not have a large Cache, you will not see the build up. I have passed this on to the Project Team.<<

Well I have couple observations

1. The buildup of files can go way beyond the "Cache" limit of IE if IE is never run to effectively clean them out. For example I always have my IE limit set to 8 and Firefox to 0 (firefox doesn't use this same cache so it's not really relevant). Yet if IE is not run this cache can grow way up beyond 8 megs.

2. More importantly, because of the way the file sizes are (typically 1k) and because of the huge amounts of them, what I've noticed on various drive types and cluster sizes (NTFS and Fat and Fat32 trying various cluster sizes of 512bytes to 16kb) is that these files do not compress well even with drive compression turned on.

So while 20,000 1k or 2k files may add up to maybe 8 megs... that actual space they take up on a drive can be 50, 70, 90 megabytes because as you know, a 1k file stored under with a 4k cluster size takes up 4k.

THIS is why is DOES have a serious impact on performance. And disk fragmentation.

Now, as I said, the solution I've worked with using a 200 meg RAM drive. I've found that within 2 hours, 100 megs get gobbled up by these XML files. The actual size of the files is only about 10 megs or so but because of the issue above, it's take up huge amounts of space per session. If you don't run IE, they don't necessarily get cleaned out.

Why don't people see them? They are truly hidden, even with view system and OS files selected. You can only find them IF you know the random name of the folder within the temporariy internet files/ie5 folder.

I have spoken (via a message board) to the person who claims to be the "Quarterback" of this project. HE only realized last week he's getting the buildup as well. Right away all kinds of alarms and red whistles went off around me. This is a major problem. I'm not blaming The Poser 8 folk, but I'm not blaming the OS either. If there's any culprit it's Adobe product used to build this new interface in P8. P7 does not exhibit this issue. 

I'm truly convinced everyone's poser 8 writes these files. But not everyone notices them.

snicker "claims to be" - When you start Poser 8, my name is on the splash screen.

LOL. I know :)
I said "claims" to SM tech because I didn't want them to take it the wrong way like, "Hey, I spoke to the lead developer," or lead ui developer or whatever..  because really, I don't know what goes on back there, who does what where, why, or when  so I was playing it safe.

btw, this is what SM tech wrote back, "The files are part of Flash and are Temp Files."

That's why I originally mentioned about or brought up flash a few posts back. I didn't say it... SM did :)

Heheh.

They aren't part of Flash. Flash isn't allowed to write into Temporary Internet Files - that is controlled by the HTTP services provided by the OS browser component that wraps the Flash interpreter.

We're still investigating the temp files. They have mysteriously stopped appearing on my machine again. I have no idea how to make them come back. Like I said, we're giving all the necessary info to the system telling it that it is NOT allowed to write these to disk.

Cache-control: no-cache
Cache-control: no-store

... and a few others.

That last one, no-store, is an explicit directive. The HTTP specification says that when that command is present, the OS is absolutely positively not allowed to write the information to disk. The official reason for this command is to protect sensitive information that is only to be presented to the user, and not remembered persistently on the file system. The fact that this directive is being ignored is very troubling. My theory is that it is the result of some anti-malware, perhaps Windows Defender or similar, that is causing it. Anti-malware plugins want to see everything that goes through HTTP. Forcing them to disk is one way it might get at them. That's only a theory, though. I know - many who have the problem believe they have no anti-malware running, and refute that theory. My counter theory is that most users don't know what they don't know, and so the possibility exists that something they are unaware of can exist, even if they claim that it doesn't exist. Believing something doesn't exist has little impact on its existence.

Here's another clue. I dumped the contents of the browser cache master control file, index.dat. It contains info about everything you've ever done, even if you clear the cache.

In it, I found tons of "LEAK" records that named the Poser files we're seeing. The LEAK record, as best as I've been able to research, means that the cache manager tried to delete the file, but couldn't, because some other program was using the file. That's pretty interesting, don't you think?

Poser is not using the file - it doesn't even know it exists. So some other program is holding it open. Something like, oh, I don't know, anti-malware filters?

I moved my temp folder to a new place, like you did dk3d, and since then I'm not getting any LEAK records and I'm not seeing any left-over files. What does that mean? I don't know yet but it's an interesting data point.

means that the cache manager tried to delete the file, but couldn't, because some other program was using the file.<

If i had to guess it's not anti-malware but rather some service like Volume Shadow Copy or UAC that's preventing the file from being removed, or that's logging this entry and not preventing it from being removed.

I don't know enough about all the windows services to really dig too deep, but I know those two alone if enabled (and they are on most people's machines) can cause ... how do I phrase this... troublesome.... issues.

With UAC i've seen instances of applications not being able to permanently store config files or registration/serial/activation issues (Vue and others comes to mind). With VSS I've seen cases where files say they are in use but I know for a fact they really aren't. And of course you can delete them but you really aren't deleting them. Until they get deleted... hehe.... it's very weird.

And there's hundreds of services like this just on windows alone. Mac I don't know.

I know for fact I have windows defender off and no AV app turned on. (Win keeps bugging me about it too). I've also tried shutting off various other 'logging' type services but to no avail.

However, I will say I've NOT yet tried turn back off UAC and watched what happens with Poser. I'm sure I've tried it before but now I can't say for sure. Going to give this and some other ideas a try.

Well I spent quite a bit of time trying to track down which, if any service or exe or whatever is actually writing out these temp files.

I did this by simply watching disk activity and what  process was writing out these new temp files.

The best I could figure out, of all the process writing out ANY disk activity, was that it was simply the "System" process that was tied to the particular temp files related to Poser. 

I saw other process such as the disk defragmentor, the antivirus app I DO have running now, search indexer, service host. exe, etc etc etc... basically everything reading or wrting out to the disk and specifically writing these files.

Basically with my browser open right now, and Poser, there's 7 processes actively writing out to the disk.

One of them is simply called "system" and this is what is writing these files.

Unfortunatley that really doesn't tell me too much.

What else have I tried?

Turned off Volume shadow copy + system restore.
Turned off firewall
Booted into a minimal driver mode (not quite safe but basically everything shut off including almost all hardware such as wireless cars, graphic and sound drivers. I started up Poser and still getting these temp files written.

Tried safe mode and now because network was entirely shut off, poser library didn't load at all (in told me a network connection was not avail and couldn't write out library, basically).

Tried turning off search index.

Nothing. Still seeing the files build up.

Baffling :)

You would think there would be a way to actually look at a file and see what process or application or service created the file. That might give some clue as to the path this is all taking. But I'm not smart enough.

Attached Link: Sysinternals

I think process explorer is the tool you need<<

Yes, that's what I was using. "System" was the actual processing specifically writing out these xml files.

I did notice this in one of the index.dat files:

Client UrlCache MMF Ver 5.2

I couldn't copy the whole line but it may be a clue.

I went back into some of the temp files being written out and found a few items of interest perhaps.

index.dat contains several curious entries:

First line:
Client UrlCache MMF Ver 5.2 (the rest of the line is garbled)

Next was the I dug a bit into some of the other XML files that had more detail info. Info that actually has more than just empy type statements:

There were several files called simply "api[1].xml or api[2].xml and they contained entries such as:

Another entry in a different file (api[4].xml):

The first line of the index.dat is just the version info of that file. It's a binary file so you have to use a program to decode it. I researched the content but there's really nothing in it of interest, other than the LEAK records.

There's no point in listing the XML. It's simply the data that Poser is sending to the GUI. The first one you listed is a response to the GUI asking Poser to list all your libraries. The second is a response to the GUI asking Poser to scan the contents of one of your folders. Everything is being cached. Doesn't matter what the messages are.

The empty ones, as I said earlier, are responses to the GUI asking "Do you have anything to tell me about what should be displayed." The empty OK is "No - nothing special - go on about your day."

Ok, cool.