Operating System crash&hardreset clears FileZilla queue

[karatedog]

I've some video card problem, and sometimes my XP crashes, only hard-reset helps. If FileZilla is running in the background, this reset causes FileZilla to clear the queue file (I think it is being open for writing).
It is very annoying, because after half an hour I won't remember what I wanted to download, which of them were successful, etc.
I could Export the queue list, I know, but it would be much convenient if it was automagically saved (I could export Site Manager entries too, but they don't disappear after a reset...)

[Alexander Schuch]

Which version of FileZilla are you using?

[karatedog]

Sorry, forgot the basics...
FileZilla version 3.0.5.2, by the checker it is the latest update
Op.Sys: Windows XP, SP2

[Tim Kosse]

A good system never crashes and can even take power outages (UPS).

This is by design as saving the queue all the time would completely kill performance.

[karatedog]

I checked the queue file, I think its management is a bit strange.

• if the queue file (%appdata\FileZilla\queue.xml) is empty, its size is 74 bytes.
• when I add some files to the queue inside FileZilla, queue.xml won't be updated until I exit FileZilla
• when I open FileZilla, then queue.xml is cleared immediately (meaning it get replaced by a simple - 74 byte long - xml file). So it seems while FileZilla is running, the content of the queue exists in memory only.

Did I get it right? That sounds a bit unsafe.

Is it important to empty the queue on start? You could just update the queue when a single file download/upload finished, that wouldn't kill any performance.

[Tim Kosse]

Is it important to empty the queue on start?

Yes, its needed in order to support multiple running instances of FileZilla. Otherwise I would have to implement a rather complex synchronization protocol which would be quite error-prone.

You could just update the queue when a single file download/upload finished, that wouldn't kill any performance.

Yes it would. I sometimes have queues with several thousand tiny files. Saving the queue can easily a couple of seconds during which FZ won't be able to do anything else.

[karatedog]

I understand the concept (and the problem), although I use only one instance of FileZilla every time. However running multiple instances of FileZilla has its convenient use until you quit every one of them with leaving files in the queue. Beacuse all instance will append their queue to the global queue file, the next time you start one FileZilla, all files that were in the different queues will appear mixed in the newly started FileZilla queue. (several exotic situation can apply here: start 3, then close 2, and open 1 instance).

A different idea:
Every instance saves their own queue into different files (name convention could apply), and upon starting FileZilla I could select an existing queue to load and run, as queues are destined to be finished, therefore their queue file can be deleted. This way that rather complex sync protocol would be done by the user.