Can someone tell me what all these are in my profile folder?

\Cache
subfolders = 0-9, then A-F, all dated 11/29/2015. Then each of those with around 240 subfolders, some with files. Almost 4000 folders total. Clearing cache in F2/prefs did nothing.

\cache2
After clearing cache in F2/prefs, there are still almost 21,000 files in the entries subfolder.

\OfflineCache
folders = 0-9 then A-F, then each with their own 0-9 and A-F subfolders, with some files in each.

Should all this be there??



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2016 03:29AM by Slickone.

These are engine-related cache folders. Mozilla preconfigures place for cache files as well as for history (file places.sqlite).

You can avoid them if you have broadband connection - just switch disk cache off and then delete cache folders in file manager (not from KM itself).

YIKES - sorry I find that absolutely crazy too!! 8000 folders is an awful lot, even if empty! But typical Mozilla again... even in the ancient versions like KM1.6 the cache was a nightmare, unlike IE5 gecko had only unreadable filenames (hate it), and after a crash all was lost (hated it while on slow modem). And now what do they do, finally use the much more user-friendly old IE-cache system, with real filenames? NO of course not, instead they manage to even multiplicate the nightmare thousend times. So typical again.

Now from the description with the 0-F folders that must be the hexadecimal system, similar as used for color names (#AABBCC), with 16 characters 0-F. It's like having a single folder for A-Z, with each containing A-Z subfolders again, and each of those containing their own A-Z subfolders again, only with an alphabet of 16 instead of 26 characters. All in all as many folders as colornames exist - they are NUTS!
So I suppose deleting cache will delete only the files inside those fix frame folders. But what about those entries files??

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rodocop
These are engine-related cache folders. Mozilla preconfigures place for cache files as well as for history (file places.sqlite).

You can avoid them if you have broadband connection - just switch disk cache off and then delete cache folders in file manager (not from KM itself).

That's what I've been doing, but the Cache2 folder gets recreated on startup. It always stays empty, but has two subfolders: "entries" and "doomed". Fortunately, those stay empty, as well.

I read somewhere that Cache2 is a result of a design change by Mozilla, and that it can be disabled with the following entry in about_config:

browser.cache.use_new_backend

It's an integer entry, and should be set to 0.

It still doesn't eliminate the Cache2 folder, however.

And what's this talk about "doomed" ? :s

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Gerry

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siria
Now from the description with the 0-F folders that must be the hexadecimal system, similar as used for color names (#AABBCC), with 16 characters 0-F. It's like having a single folder for A-Z, with each containing A-Z subfolders again, and each of those containing their own A-Z subfolders again, only with an alphabet of 16 instead of 26 characters. All in all as many folders as colornames exist - they are NUTS!

Actually, IE has some of that craziness, too. In AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\ there are usually 4 subfolders, each with a hexadecimal name, for example:

539WUB1P
UH5UYNM2
V55WLB1B
WQNOTD3K

Often the files cached will appear in more than one of these subfolders. Add to that, there's "index.dat", which cannot be deleted.

Cookies are stored in AppData\Local\Temp\Cookies, with another "index.dat" that can't be deleted.

There's also AppData\Local\Temp\History.IE5 with its subfolders and yet another index.dat that you can't get rid of.

Not only that, but you can't turn off disk caching in IE. All you can do is set a maximum size for the cache.

Nuts? Yes, but all the big three browsers are nuts. Don't know what Google Chrome is like, but it probably just serves up a different kind of nut.

PS: Now that I think about it, W is not a valid hex character, nor is P, Q or N, etc., but those examples were copied from an actual IE run. I disabled IE a long time ago, but one of the features in an offline dictionary uses IE's engine.

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Gerry



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2016 03:23PM by foliator.

I have disk cache set off and there is 'cache2' folder in profile with 'doomed' and 'entries' subs - both empty.

Regarding the cache2 folder, I just found this blog discussion, which may shed some light on that folder's function:

http://www.janbambas.cz/mozilla-firefox-new-http-cache-is-live

It doesn't apply to me, however, or anyone else who has disabled disk caching.

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Gerry

Why does clearing disc cache in F2 not clear the files in cache2\entries? Can I delete these? How do I prevent so many in the future? They go back to November.


Not a big deal, but can any of the many thousands of seemingly non-used folders be deleted without disabling disk cache?

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Slickone
Why does clearing disc cache in F2 not clear the files in cache2\entries?

My guess is that the browser's cache clearing feature is still unaware of the changes to the new cache system, which uses cache2 if it's enabled by the user.

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Can I delete these? How do I prevent so many in the future? They go back to November.

Not a big deal, but can any of the many thousands of seemingly non-used folders be deleted without disabling disk cache?

I can't see why not. If KM isn't running, you can delete all those files manually, even their folders. What will happen, of course, is the next browser session will automatically re-create the folders, and obviously the cache files will start accumulating again as you start visiting sites.

As for cache2, the blog post I referred to in my previous message mentioned that the new caching system (cache2) does not automatically delete files once the maximum cache limit has been reached, which means the disk can get flooded by heavy browsing.

If you need to use disk caching, I'd advise you to delete the cache folders and files manually after each KM session. That's what I wound up doing when I was still using disk caching.

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Gerry



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2016 04:49AM by foliator.

So I can safely delete the Cache, cache2, and OfflineCache folders?

Anyone up to building a macro to delete the cache2/entries files?

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Slickone
So I can safely delete the Cache, cache2, and OfflineCache folders?

Anyone up to building a macro to delete the cache2/entries files?

I'm not sure that you can delete them while KM is running, and it would have to be running for the macro to work. Instead the folders and files should be removed after you exit KM, but the process can be automated, as I've done in the past:

In any plain-text editor, such as Notepad, you could create a Windows batch file that removes the Cache and cache2 folders. Once the file has been saved, create a desktop shortcut for it. The batch file contents would look like what's below, except that the profile path is different on my system, since I don't use the Program Files folder. Just substitute the full path of your profile folder, and make sure to enclose it in quotes if it contains spaces:

@echo off
if exist "C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\Profile\cache2" rd "C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\Profile\cache2" /S /Q
if exist "C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\Profile\Cache" rd "C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\Profile\Cache" /S /Q

---

Unfortunately that example extends beyond the right margin here, but I needed to make sure it didn't wrap, since there should only be three lines.

You can use any filename you want for the batch file, as long as you give it a .bat extension. Example: ZapCache.bat

@echo off prevents the command from being displayed as it's carried out. If you want to see it, however, just leave out that first line.

/S tells the command to delete not only the folder, but all its subfolders and files, as well. /Q skips the confirmation prompt. If you feel that's too risky, you can omit the /Q.

The offline cache and the startup cache needn't be removed; they're always small by comparison, anyway.

---
Gerry



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 03:13AM by foliator.

Interesting solution, with bat file

Another thought, but needs testing: what happens if you set the empty folders write-protected, before KM start? If they get reset and still filled, next try: delete them and create a file with their name, setting those files write-protected?

^^ Thanks a lot, foliator.

The startupCache just has one small file in it, which is why I didn't mention it. But the OfflineCache folder contents seem to be about the same as the Cache folder, and I mention it because you said the OfflineCache is small. However it's not small like the startupCache

Also the startupCache and Cache folders didn't get recreated after running KM, which is good I guess.

Loading and working in KM are faster now.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 03:45PM by Slickone.

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Slickone
^^ Thanks a lot, foliator.

The startupCache just has one small file in it, which is why I didn't mention it, but the Cache folder contents seem to be about the same as the Cache folder.

Also the startupCache and Cache folders didn't get recreated after running KM, which is good I guess.

Startup and working in KM are faster now.

Unless a change in K-meleon 76, it is recreated again.

StartupCache caches internal K-meleon (any Gecko browser) chrome files. It doesn't harm to delete, but also, it hasn't sense to delete either.

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siria
Interesting solution, with bat file

I used what's known as the "brute force method".

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Another thought, but needs testing: what happens if you set the empty folders write-protected, before KM start? If they get reset and still filled, next try: delete them and create a file with their name, setting those files write-protected?

Well, folders can be filled whether they're write-protected or not. I doubt if the browser would notice their protected status anyway, as it wouldn't need to re-create folders that already exist.

The file approach seems possible; in other words, you'd have a whole mess of files instead of a whole mess of folders. If they're write-protected, KM would find no place to put the cache files. It might try to re-create folders with the same names in the same location, however, so there could be a conflict, and a resulting error message or a crash.

Write-protecting a file worked for me in a very old version of Firefox. There used to be an .sqlite file somewhere in my profile connected with reporting forged websites, and it used to get larger and larger with each session if the reporting option was enabled. What I eventually did was uncheck that option, delete the file, and create a new zero-byte, write-protected text file with the same name. I had to change the extension to .sqlite. That worked -- another example of the "brute force method".

Still, getting a browser to behave the way I wanted it to was much more work in Firefox than in K-Meleon, and even harder in the recent versions of FF. ¬_¬

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Gerry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 03:09PM by foliator.

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Slickone
^^ Thanks a lot, foliator.

You're welcome!

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...the startupCache and Cache folders didn't get recreated after running KM, which is good I guess.

If you mean the main Cache folder, that's surprising, especially if you still have disk caching enabled. The browser is bound to look for a place to store the cache files.

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Gerry

^
I mean "startupCache" and "Cache". The main cache folder seems to be "cache2". After starting, cache2 was recreated and files were continually added as I browsed.



BTW, I made a typo in my last post, saying the Cache folder is like the Cache folder but I meant to say OfflineCache is like the Cache folder. Fixed now, so don't look at my quoted post in JohnHell's post.

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Slickone
^
I mean "startupCache" and "Cache". The main cache folder seems to be "cache2". After starting, cache2 was recreated and files were continually added as I browsed.

In about:config, do you have this key? browser.cache.use_new_backend

If the value is 1, that explains why cache2 is being populated. If it's 0, the browser is supposed to use the old cache system, so that all the cache files go under Cache.

If that key doesn't exist, perhaps I added it myself, having seen it in Firefox. I can't remember whether it was already there or not, having made so many adjustments.

(Man, the server for this forum has sure been slow over the past few days!)

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Gerry

I have browser.cache.use_new_backend with a value of 0.
Also have browser.cache.use_new_backend_temp with a value of true.

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Slickone
I have browser.cache.use_new_backend with a value of 0.
Also have browser.cache.use_new_backend_temp with a value of true.

The temp setting isn't even in my about:config for some unknown reason. Explanations of that setting over at Mozilla are about as clear as mud, but I gather it allows temporary use of the new cache for testing purposes without actually making it the default. Oh well, as long as the browser is working OK for you, I guess there's no point in worrying about those settings.

In my case, of course, neither of them make any difference, since I use only the memory cache. I disabled disk caching roughly a year ago and haven't re-enabled it since then. It speeds up browsing on some systems, and slows it down on others.

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Gerry

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foliator
In my case, of course, neither of them make any difference, since I use only the memory cache. I disabled disk caching roughly a year ago and haven't re-enabled it since then. It speeds up browsing on some systems, and slows it down on others.

Depending on what? What do you have?

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Slickone

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foliator
In my case, of course, neither of them make any difference, since I use only the memory cache. I disabled disk caching roughly a year ago and haven't re-enabled it since then. It speeds up browsing on some systems, and slows it down on others.

Depending on what? What do you have?

Well, I'm on a broadband connection. Even so, the speed is not as high as my ISP claims. I'm using a little netbook with Windows 7. The computer has enough memory to rely solely on the memory cache. There's plenty of drive space for the disk cache, too, but if I use it, the browsing performance is considerably slower.

If your system is short on memory, then you're quite right to be using the disk cache, but that can fill up your drive space quickly if you have a long session online, so deleting those cache files after each session is a good workaround.

There are so many variables. If you're on a slow connection, that can make a big difference, too, especially if it's a dial-up connection.

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Gerry

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foliator
Actually, IE has some of that craziness, too. In AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\ there are usually 4 subfolders, each with a (hexadecimal) name, for example:

539WUB1P
UH5UYNM2
V55WLB1B
WQNOTD3K

And there will be even more of such subfolders through caching under ...\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5.

I use caching sometimes to search files which must be downloaded before and I can't find them otherwise. Or if I want to download for example a bigger amount of pictures, I see as the simplest to clear the cache (eventually), than to display and look all the pictures on the screen and finally I find them all in the cache, where I can them copy from to their final destination. (In KM-cache I set to all files the extention .jpg in such case and display the thumbnails of them with IrfanView to see the pics I can use.)

Sometimes also I look there the time of my last Internet access in cache before I switched the PC off and went to sleep, if I was allready such tired that I don't know more when it was

I think it's only for such purposes meaningful. Even at my old IBM-machine (Pentium MMX 233 MHz, 320 MB RAM, W98SE, ADSL up to 5 MBit/s netto, formerly also much less than it) I don't see its relevance to speed the surfing (but in my 14'400 Bps dialup 15 years ago indeed).

And while you can the files only see and copy them to other places in the folder Temporary Internet Files, you cannot work with them directly, in the other folders you can open and change them. In case of clearing the cache they will be deleted too, anyway.

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foliator
Add to that, there's "index.dat", which cannot be deleted.

Cookies are stored in AppData\Local\Temp\Cookies, with another "index.dat" that can't be deleted.

There's also AppData\Local\Temp\History.IE5 with its subfolders and yet another index.dat that you can't get rid of.

The index.dat's you can delete with CCleaner (freeware) e.g. They will not be deleted directly there, anyway, but marked for deleting at the next boot up.

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foliator
all the big three browsers are nuts. Don't know what Google Chrome is like, but it probably just serves up a different kind of nut. .

I come allready to terms with the fact, nothing is perfect in Internet. Each must look for his own ways to optimalize the surfing for his own needs. If somthing seems to be perfect, it's allways only short time limited, allready in the next days it doesn't need to be so more necessarily. I learned allready to reduce my comfort requirements very wide and I accept even, some ranges I could reach only under unacceptable efforts, thats why I abstain from it or refuse, respectively.

Eg. Google Chrome seems to be allmost perfect (for its compatibility ranges) according to common reports, except of one "small" detail: The privacy, the security ahead of Googles data collection and analysis mania is only with third party supplements perheaps given.

I use IE and KM both, mostly for differnt purposes. Sometimes is better one of them, sometimes the other one.

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foliator

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Slickone
So I can safely delete the Cache, cache2, and OfflineCache folders?

I'm not sure that you can delete them while KM is running

I delete sometimes up to all ...\Profiles\3y2fjpuo.default\Cache files problemless while KM is running with exception of the 4 files _CACHE_001..3_ and _CACHE_MAP_. These four I can delete only when KM not running. I think that are the pendants of index.dat files at IE. They will be set to volume zero by clearing cache in KM too, anyway.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2016 12:37PM by Mikk.

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foliator

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Slickone

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foliator
In my case, of course, neither of them make any difference, since I use only the memory cache. I disabled disk caching roughly a year ago and haven't re-enabled it since then. It speeds up browsing on some systems, and slows it down on others.

Depending on what? What do you have?

Well, I'm on a broadband connection. Even so, the speed is not as high as my ISP claims. I'm using a little netbook with Windows 7. The computer has enough memory to rely solely on the memory cache. There's plenty of drive space for the disk cache, too, but if I use it, the browsing performance is considerably slower.

If your system is short on memory, then you're quite right to be using the disk cache, but that can fill up your drive space quickly if you have a long session online, so deleting those cache files after each session is a good workaround.

There are so many variables. If you're on a slow connection, that can make a big difference, too, especially if it's a dial-up connection.

Actually I'm using what some call a netbook with Win7 and 2GB RAM. I'll try disabling disk cache and see how it goes.

FYI netbook is actually a misnomer.

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Slickone
Actually I'm using what some call a netbook with Win7 and 2GB RAM. I'll try disabling disk cache and see how it goes.

Mine has only 1GB of RAM, and a 1.66 Ghz processor, but overall this machine gets me by quite nicely, even with its 10-inch (25 cm) screen. My only complaint is the non-standard aspect ratio of the display: 1024x600, which limits my vertical space. With some apps that causes a few problems, and in K-Meleon I hide the bookmarks bar for that very reason.

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FYI netbook is actually a misnomer.

It's actually just a small laptop, which is in itself a misnomer, since many people, including myself, don't place it on their laps. The bigger laptops are too big and heavy for that, anyway -- unless the user is built like a gorilla.

I use this computer like a desktop PC. Most of the time I run it on AC current, and use an external wireless keyboard, since the internal keyboard is now toast.

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Gerry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2016 04:57PM by foliator.

^Hah. They should have just called them all Portable PC's. No netbook, no laptop, no notebook...
I had a 10" Acer for awhile but came across a good deal on an Acer 11.6" so I moved to it. It's resolution is 1366x768. The 600 vertical res on the 10" drove me crazy since some popup window buttons would even be hidden below the screen and couldn't be selected if I couldn't grab the title bar to move it up.
The screen hinges on my 11.6 inch have fallen apart though so I'm moving up soon. Also the battery only lasts maybe 30 minutes.

I've noticed something I've done while browsing finally made my startupCache and Cache folders to be recreated. Remember they didn't at first.
Also I'm wondering if the reason my F2 option doesn't clear cache is because if I click the View button in F2, the path for cache shown is "...\cache2", but again the entries are in "cache2\entries", not "\cache2". ?

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Slickone
The 600 vertical res on the 10" drove me crazy since some popup window buttons would even be hidden below the screen and couldn't be selected if I couldn't grab the title bar to move it up.

Not many of my 3rd-party apps have windows where buttons disappear off the screen; it's mostly Windows 7's native dialog boxes. You can't resize them, either. Windows Explorer's copy/move dialogs are so damned wordy, and the submit button is at the very bottom. I solved the problem by installing a little utility callled AltWindowDrag, written in AutoHotKey, and always running in the background. I can just hold the Alt key down while dragging the window up or down, whichever is needed. It will stay there until I move it back in place or close it. Not only that, but I don't have to drag the window by its titlebar; any area in the window will do. I no longer use Windows Explorer for file management, however.

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The screen hinges on my 11.6 inch have fallen apart though so I'm moving up soon. Also the battery only lasts maybe 30 minutes.

Things are so cheaply constructed these days; weak plastic parts, etc.! The hinges on my friend's old laptop (not an Acer) went the same way.

As for the battery, I used to get as much as 7 hours out of mine unless the WiFi was powered up, which drained the battery a lot faster. This is a replacement battery with a larger than normal capacity. Now the battery is about 3 years old; I can still get around 5 hours out of it, but if I'm online that drops significantly. I have to be very careful, because for some reason, the power management feature no longer gives me warnings, and it no longer hibernates when the power drops to the critical point; the system will simply shut right down in the middle of something important. So I use AC power most of the time.

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I've noticed something I've done while browsing finally made my startupCache and Cache folders to be recreated. Remember they didn't at first.
Also I'm wondering if the reason my F2 option doesn't clear cache is because if I click the View button in F2, the path for cache shown is "...\cache2", but again the entries are in "cache2\entries", not "\cache2". ?

That's why I suspect that the browser is still not fully aware of the new cache system. I just looked in about:config; no paths are specified for cache files, and there's no way of specifying them there. Under "Cache" in KM's settings menu there's a place where you can do that, but the instructions there state that the files will be placed in a subfolder of the one you specify, and it will be named "Cache".

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Gerry

Wouldn't this be an easy fix for the developer? But seems like development and fixes have pretty much stopped.

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Slickone
Wouldn't this be an easy fix for the developer? But seems like development and fixes have pretty much stopped.

I don't know whether it would be easy or not. Dorian is KM's developer, of course, but there's also the Mozilla team, and since KM is based on the Gecko engine, some of Mozilla's changes would likely impact KM, as well.

At any rate, KM's development hasn't stopped; it's ongoing, although more gradual and cautious than the development of Firefox, which seems to get a new version almost weekly, even if it's unnecessary.

Don't forget, our user feedback helps keep KM's development alive. Check out some of the issues raised by FF users on the Mozilla site and you'll see lots of frustration and unanswered questions. There are canned responses from Mozilla staff, too, similar to the responses on Microsoft's forums.

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Gerry

http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?8,136880,page=6
I've posted about 3-4 different problems there but never got a way to fix them. I didn't have those problems with Firefox.

Having no history is probably going to force me to switch browsers. Probably Opera or Light.