The process cannot access the file xxxxxx because it is being used by another process

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I am writing a WinForm application using VS2010 & VS2012 with .Net4.

In the application I load individual images into pictureboxes and then delete those images the user does not wish to keep.

Everytime I try to delete these "unwanted" images I get the above error message:
"The process cannot access the file xxxxxx because it is being used by another process"

The following is used to load an image into a dynamically created picturebox together with the code to delete the unwanted images.

Option 1:
Load Image:

VB

picBox.Image = Image.FromFile(imgInfo.FullName).GetThumbnailImage(128, 128, Nothing, Nothing)

Delete Image:

VB

For Each imgFile As String In Directory.GetFiles(imgSharedFolder)
   File.Delete(imgFile)
Next imgFile

Option 2:
Since loading an image file into a picturebox will "lock" the image file I tried the following by reading the image file into a FileStream and then Close the FileStream after loading the image into the picturebox

Load:

VB

fs = New System.IO.FileStream(imgInfo.FullName, IO.FileMode.Open, IO.FileAccess.Read)
picBox.Image = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(fs).GetThumbnailImage(128, 128, Nothing, Nothing)
fs.Close()

Delete:

VB

Dim picList As String() = Directory.GetFiles(imgSharedFolder, "*.jpg")
For Each f As String In picList
   File.Delete(f)
Next f

I get the same error message.

Option 3:
After some more searching, reading and trying I came across this suggestion to create an image object and then Dispose of the image object once the image is loaded into the picturebox:

Load:

VB

Dim newImage As Image
newImage = Image.FromFile(imgInfo.FullName).GetThumbnailImage(128, 128, Nothing, Nothing)
picBox.Image = newImage

Unfortunately I just got the same error message.

Is there any other possible solution to this problem, something I may have overlooked ?

Posted 2-Jun-14 7:59am

Tino Fourie

Updated 3-Jul-18 0:36am

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2 solutions

Solution 2

I had a similar issue to this where I needed to delete an image file after displaying the image in a picturebox control.
It always worked with framework 3.5 then became an issue with framework 4.0
We resolved this by forcing the garbage collection after setting the picturebox image to nothing
Example:
picPhoto.Image = Nothing
picPhoto.Refresh()
GC.Collect()

Posted 3-Jul-18 0:36am

Member 7676097

Comments

Richard Deeming 3-Jul-18 9:04am

FOUR YEARS too late. And that issue has been around since .NET 1.0:
Image file is locked when you set the PictureBox Image property to a file[^]

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OriginalGriff · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-02T08:15:00

Image.FromFile and Image.FromStream require that the file / stream are available for the life of the Image that is created from them - as a result, they hold the file handle until they Image is Disposed.

The easiest way to do it is to load the image, copy it into a new Image, and then Dispose the original. This is the code I use for C#:

C#

/// <summary>
/// Get an Image without locking the file.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// Image.FromFile and Image.FromStream have problems in that the first
/// locks the file until the Image is Disposed, and teh latter requires
/// the stream to be opena nd available until the Image is Disposed, which
/// effectively locks the file as well.
/// This doesn't, because it uses a copy of the image.
/// </remarks>
/// <param name="path"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static Image GetImage(string path)
    {
    Image img;
    using (Image temp = Image.FromFile(path))
        {
        img = new Bitmap(temp);
        }
    return img;
    }

Unfortunately the online translator I use isn't responding at the moment, so...

VB

Dim img As Image
Dim tmp as Image = Image.FromFile(path)
img = new BitMap(tmp)
tmp.Dispose()

Should do it, but it's not tested.