Largest archive size supported?

Submitted by Quinny on Fri, 2008-05-09 10:54
in

What is the biggest archive size the QuickLook Generator can handle?

I get this while opening a (rather large, 3,57 GB) rar file:

2008-05-09 10:41:45.220 qlmanage[345:5e03] [QL] Previewing /Volumes/remotebackupdir/monthly/200805/FrameWork.rar finished
2008-05-09 10:41:45.221 qlmanage[345:5e03] [QL ERROR] Using too much memory (924 MB), hit critical threshold, exiting to clean up.
2008-05-09 10:41:45.221 qlmanage[345:2e0b] [QL] Quick Look daemon discarding 1 requests. Clients will have to retry.

I've since changed my collegues' script that creates these rar files to create multiple smaller rar files, but I'm still curious to the max size that is "viewable". (will see if I can view the smaller rars after the script is finished..)

‹ Performance
Submitted by Robert on Fri, 2008-05-09 12:11.

The size of the archive shouldn't matter here. What might be a problem is the number of files in the archive and the number of file file types (each file type adds its icon to the output.) Also the QL framework (or probably WebKit which is used for rendering the output) seems to leak memory. Anyway, I am aware that BetterZipQL needs to fall back on a simpler version for larger archives (no collapsable folders, etc.) The next version will handle this better.

Does the request work when you try a second time after you got this message? How many files are in your big RAR file?

Submitted by Quinny on Fri, 2008-05-09 13:21.

It doesn't work if I try a second time after this message. Also, 500 KB .tar.bz files give the same warning (but them with 442 MB of memory).

The RAR contains at least 20.000 files (I stopped the counter when it went past that..), it is mostly jpeg, doc and pdf files,

Submitted by Robert on Fri, 2008-05-09 17:06.

Ah okay, 20.000 files is a lot. I can imagine that this doesn't work. I will add a more graceful solution for such huge files. I don't know why the 500 kB file doesn't work, but of course, the same applies here. If the file contained 20.000 very small files, it would lead to the same problem. If you like, send me the file by mail, and I'll have a look.

Submitted by Quinny on Sat, 2008-05-10 23:34.

I'll try it again next week. I don't have access to the network share where the file is located at the moment. (smb share)

I did try the very large rar file first, everything after that which used your plugin kept crashing. Might work now I have rebooted, it does on other rar files I have on my system.

Can't send you the file, it's a backup from work I'd rather not spread around... Boss might not be very happy with me, if I do.

Submitted by Robert on Mon, 2008-05-12 09:32.

I understand. Let me know what you find out. Thanks!

Submitted by Quinny on Tue, 2008-05-13 15:21.

The smaller files work fine, the plugin just doesn't work anymore after I try to Quicklook on the bigger file.

Submitted by Robert on Tue, 2008-05-13 16:11.

After Leopard's QL framework has to kill the BetterZipQL plug-in because of the memory usage, it probably decides that the plug-in doesn't work at all instead of restarting it the next time you use it. For now, try to steer clear from archives with a huge number of files. I will fix the problem in the next version.