Suddenly Notepad++ repeatedly crashing on opening >250MB FASTA files
-
It started happening this morning. The same files that I had opened until yesterday evening are crashing Notepad++ repeatedly. These are FASTA (plain text) files with protein sequence data. I haven’t changed or updated anything. Only four plugins seem to be installed (by default) - Converter, MIME Tools, NppExport and Plugin Manager. My computer is a Core i7 CPU with 16 GB RAM running 64bit Win10 Pro. Can someone please help with this issue? Thanks in advance.
-
You’ll have to provide more info. What version are you using? When does it crash? Define “crash”…is there an error message? Do you have periodic backups enabled?
-
Thank you for answering, @dail. My apologies for the inadequate information. The version seems to be the latest, v.6.9.2.
By ‘crash’, I mean that the Windows Crash Dialog Box comes up, saying “This Program has stopped responding. Windows is checking.[…] Close Program”.
Even if a file opens after I relaunch Notepad++ several times, it crashes again the moment I try to select all the text by pressing Control-A (necessary for a file wide operation - removal of blank lines).
I have no clue about the ‘periodic backups’ you mention, sorry. I don’t know why this is happening, especially since Notepad++ is apparently rated for ~2GB-sized files without any issue.
-
I have no clue about the ‘periodic backups’ you mention, sorry
Make sure
Settings > Preferences > Backup > Enable session snapshot and periodic backupis turned off. When working with large files this doesn’t play nice.since Notepad++ is apparently rated for ~2GB-sized files without any issue.
This has never been the case. Depending on file syntax, etc I’ve never been able to open a file over 500MB.
Couple things to try:
- Most likely you have your settings saved in the
%APPDATA%directory, so delete (or temporarily move if you want to save them) any XML files which has your settings. - Disable your plugins. You can rename your
pluginsfolder (probably inC:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++) to something else and restart N++ - Open the file and run
View > Summaryto see if that works, if so tell me the file length.
- Most likely you have your settings saved in the
-
Thanks again, @dail. I have turned off the periodic backup, and also deleted the backup file I found in the backup folder in %AppData%.
I was mistaken about Notepad++'s file opening capabilities then. In any case, my files are FASTA/text files about 250MB in size. Since you have opened 500MB files, mine shouldn’t be any problem.
I moved the themes and plugins subfolders, as well as the XML files, from N++ AppData folder; I disabled the plugins by renaming the plugins folder. On opening the file (it opened this time), I ran the view summary. It took a little while (and I noticed it was using ~12.5% of the CPU to do so), but the summary box popped up. The file length is 273 651 070 bytes, which sounds about right.
However, the moment I tried to select all the text (in order to run the blank line removal operation), it crashed again. So, no joy! :(
-
Since you have opened 500MB files, mine shouldn’t be any problem.
That isn’t a hard limit and there are other factors that play into this, but if the file is too large then you’ll immediately get a message when trying to open it that the file is too large.
Thanks for the info. I’ll try a few things but really don’t know anything else you can do other than possibly trying an older version of N++.
-
Thank you for trying to help, @dail. I really appreciate it. However, since my need was immediate (I have to use these files at work today), I searched on the internet and found another text editing program - which opened the file without any issue and also handled the blank line removal smoothly. I really liked the N++ interface, but sadly, I must move on.
Best regards to you.
