Hi guys, I just noticed that Rhino 7 starts downloading files that are in the preview of last used documents. Probably because it want’s to show the thumbnails, but it should not syncronize files with out my concent IMO.
If I work on two projects and am travelling then I don’t want to use my mobile net just to let Rhino show a thumbnail.
Cheers.
Can you tell me more about “downloading files that are in the preview of last used documents”?
I don’t think Rhino even has the ability to download files from the splash screen. Can you tell me more about what you’re experiencing? I don’t understand at all.
I think this relates to the render content that come with Rhino. Textures are not bundled with Rhino, but downloaded once a material is added to a document, and the file is not found on disk.
Sorry, I use Rhino with files saved to dropbox a lot.
On the laptop I have syncronzie only used files, and don’t use the laptop so often for modelling, mostly in meetings, so when I modify files on my workstation that I also use on my laptop, then when I open Rhino on the laptop Rhino looks for the icon of the files to display in the “recently used dialog pop up” and dropbox realized that these are modified since Rhino looks for the icon, and then dropobox descides to download them and Rhino has to wait for that… Does that make more sense?
Sorry for not being clearer in the first place 
So it is not Rhino downloading anything, but Dropbox. Wouldn’t the same happen if you used your file explorer to look at the files?
Anyway, if you don’t want those previews to show (which are loaded only from local files really), then you could always start rhino with /nosplash…
Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but dropbox handles those icons snappy…
Is Rhino just using the default Windows thumbnails for the files, or is it making it’s own?
I guess I have to investigate.
OK, So I see that if I turn on Thumbnail viewing for an unsyncronized dropbox folder then dropbox quickly handles all the thumbnails but the Rhino file ones. And IF I click a Rhino file once (Not double click to open) so it becomes selected, then Dropbox downloads the entire file to be able to show the thumbnail… And that’s odd. Why does it NOT have to download all the other files to show their thumbnails?
So to sum it up:
Dropbox has to download Rhino files to show thumbnails in the Rhino splash screen and in explorer, but does not download other files to show their thumbnails in explorer.
I don’t know how Dropbox works in this regard. It shouldn’t have to download anything to show a thumbnail. There is a thumbnail handler registered with Windows that shows the thumbnail embedded in the file. No updates needed. You know that when you look at previews of files that are only locally. Works just fine, and no internet connection needed.
Sounds to me like Dropbox is doing weird things. Maybe something to do with icon overlays.
Well, if it’s embedded in the file then the file needs to be updated to be able to show the Updated thumbnail doesn’t it?
Maybe dropbox has done something to handle this for common files, but not for all?
This might be related:
To show uppdated thumbnail that isn’t on your machine, yes. But the thumbnail handler should be perfectly happy to show the thumbnail that is already embedded in the version you have on your disk. If you don’t need the updated 3dm file, then perhaps you should not have dropbox running at that time?
If anything Dropbox should generate these thumbnails for your uploads. We have no control over what Dropbox does. Maybe log a feature request with them?
I think part of the confusion is that Dropbox’s Smart Sync shows the file in the dropbox directory but does not actually maintain a copy of it on the file system until you download it.
Certain file system actions (like “open” or “copy”) will cause dropbox to go just-in-time fetch the file. So it can’t very well use the thumbnail “embedded in the file” because there IS no file — it’s just a shadow copy of that file until you go asking for it. Apparently dropbox has found a way to serve up thumbnails for some file types, and adds them to the “shadow” file records it uses to make the non-downloaded files look like normal files — but this is not working for Rhino files for whatever reason. And apparently when rhino wants to render the thumbnail, it triggers some action that causes Dropbox to actually go fetch the entire file.
Anyway, I don’t have a good solution for this but I just wanted to clarify a bit!
Great, then it’s on the radar!
Thanks.
The action most likely is opening the file to extract the thumbnail.
Hmm, whose radar? 
Yours, if you know then McNeel knows you know 
At least you know that it is an issue and that Rhino can work with dropbox on this.
Maybe together with the annoying saving toolbars to dropbox bug that causes a “locked file syndrome” even though dropbox isn’t updating anyting
I renamed and updated the YT issue to reflect the Dropbox bit. https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-58826