Changing Target name during live stack

[k6inten]

Hello Robin,

I have 4.1.13268.0 from 4/14/25. I started a live stack after I framed the target using Goto Image... from a previous night. Well, I forgot to add the target name and started capturing with a blank target field. I was 30 frames in before I discovered my error and promptly changed the target name. I got the message box asking if I wanted to rename all 30 images with the new target name and I clicked yes. The problem is that those 30 frames are not in the new target folder. The sequence starts at 30. The live stack box in SC showed 30 frames stacked so I guess they have to be somewhere, but I can't find them. When I looked in the Capture folder, I see another folder named 'Capture' and there is a folder in there with the date I started the capture. But there's no files in there except for an empty stacklog.csv file.
The name I used for the target is 'M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy)'.
And there's one more strange thing. There is now a folder in my SharpCap Captures folder named 'M51', under that is a folder named ' ', then another subfolder named ' ', and a subfolder named '(Whirlpool'. When I try to get into the last subfolder, windows pops up a message box that the folder is not available. Maybe the first frames got put in there, but I can't access it. I am going to try to reboot my computer once the files finish copying over to my desktop. If that fixes it, I will update this post.

Attached is the log file from the session. The rename message box entry is at line 3432 with a timestamp of 21:12:04.139906.

Any help finding out what happened to those files is appreciated.

Thanks,

Keith

[admin]

Hi Keith,

according to the log, the files were initially saved to

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D:\SharpCap Captures\Capture\2025-04-15\Light\rawframes

and then, after the rename, the new directory was

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D:\SharpCap Captures\M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy)\2025-04-15\Light\rawframes

There are no errors shown regarding failure to move images from one folder to the other in the log, and SharpCap uses the 'MoveFile' option rather than a copy/delete to move the files, so really they should all be in the new folder, but maybe somehow it forgot about some of the frames and left them in the old folder. The code in this area is also set up to only delete directories if they are already empty, so it is trying to 'play it safe' in terms of not having any chance of deleting files even if it fails to move them.

Hope this helps,

Robin

[roelb]

I have the same problem.
Very annoying because I am unable to delete this new folder.
Windows says that it can be done now.
I have to use a program which can "force-remove" the directory.
So it would be good top have a solution for this issue.
Thanks Robin.

[admin]

Hi Roel,

this is getting odder - if there is a problem in this rename operation, it should show up in the log in SharpCap and we aren't seeing any of that so far.

From your description of the problem with deleting the folder, I've seen things like that when something has already tried to delete the folder, but it can't be removed yet because stuff inside the folder is still open in some application. Usually when the application that is holding the contents open is closed, the folder will vanish on its own.

Do you have any other software running that might be looking at or processing the raw image files (or other live stack save files)? In theory, this could include some anti-virus software, which might try to open and scan each new saved image file after it has been saved - that can leave files open when SharpCap tries to move them.

cheers,

Robin

[EduardoG]

Hi Robin,
I had the same problem a couple of nights ago when I renamed the stack to ‘M51 (NGC5194 Whirlpool Galaxy)’. I’m running version=4.1.13268.0&arch=x64.
Windows explorer displayed only files captured after renaming the sequence, but I was able to see the files (and make a copy) in the new target folder with a Windows search.

“And there's one more strange thing. There is now a folder in my SharpCap Captures folder named 'M51', under that is a folder named ' ', then another subfolder named ' ', and a subfolder named '(Whirlpool'. “
Maybe the full folder path is not enclosed with “”s?

Thanks Robin,
Eduardo

[admin]

Hi,

thanks for the further info on the issue - I think I will need to add more logging to the rename procedure to try to track down exactly what is going on - I can't quite see how/why the target name would get split up like that into subfolders - that should happen on '\' characters, not spaces.

thanks,

Robin

[k6inten]

Hello again Robin.
I am re-opening this thread because I ran into the same issue last night. I forgot to change my target name until the 28th exposure in a live stack. I clicked Yes to rename the files and they got put into a funky folder structure and I cannot access the files. Windows gives me an error that another program or process is using the folder - even though I have rebooted several times. I have attached the relevant portion of the log file from last night. It seems that Windows in interpreting the escaped spaces as folder demarcations or something. My target name 'M17 (Omega Nebula)' was made into D:\SharpCap Captures\M17\ \Omega\ \Nebula)\ and then the first part of the subframe file name was also made into the folder structure. I will let you look at all that.
I am running the latest version of 4.1 Pro.

Thanks!

Keith

[admin]

Hi Keith,

OK, I can see that the immediate problem is that you have ended up with folders named " " (ie the name of the folder is just a space). Windows allows this from applications, but doesn't like it from either the windows explorer or the command prompt.

I have set up a similar situation on my system with a directory named space and then tried to rename it to a proper name. It's not easy... Even code similar to the code that creates the setup in SharpCap cannot fix the problem

The only way out at the moment that I can find is using a tool called 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' - this is a Microsoft tool that lets you set up a sort of embedded Linux system inside Windows and then use Linux tools and software. This may be the best way for you to recover your data.

Instructions on installing can be found here - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install - but basically on recent Windows 10 versions or Win11, it comes down to running 'wsl --install' in an administrator command prompt and waiting then following instructions on screen (sometimes some stuff needs installing, then reboot, then repeat the install command).

Once you have wsl installed, go as far down the folder structure as you can, until you get to the place where you cannot go any deeper because the next folder down is named ' '. At that point, click in the top bar of the windows explorer window (the area that shows the name of the folder you are in). When you click it will highlight all the name of the folder you are in - delete all that so the bar is blank, then type 'bash' (without the quotes) and press enter.

That will bring up a Linux shell, which looks a bit like a windows command prompt. The first time you do this it might ask a couple of questions, but then you get to the actual prompt which will have the folder name in an odd format with '/' instead of '\' and a # at the end. At that prompt type

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mv " " space

which is a command to rename the file/folder called ' ' to have a new name 'space'. That folder should now be accessible to you in the normal way.

Now, from your log, it looks like there are more folders named space inside the first one, so you may have to repeat this further down the folder tree until you have got them all. You should then be able to access the files, re-arrange them, delete them, etc.

From my side, I'm going to try to work out where on earth the '\' characters before the open/close brackets are coming from, since they are causing this, and I can't think where in the code they might be being added.

Hope this helps,

Robin