FileSystemWatcher Changed event is raised twice

Question

I have an application where I am looking for a text file and if there are any changes made to the file I am using the OnChanged eventhandler to handle the event. I am using the NotifyFilters.LastWriteTime but still the event is getting fired twice. Here is the code.

public void Initialize()
{
   FileSystemWatcher _fileWatcher = new FileSystemWatcher();
  _fileWatcher.Path = "C:\\Folder";
  _fileWatcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.LastWrite;
  _fileWatcher.Filter = "Version.txt";
  _fileWatcher.Changed += new FileSystemEventHandler(OnChanged);
  _fileWatcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
}

private void OnChanged(object source, FileSystemEventArgs e)
{
   .......
}

In my case the OnChanged is called twice, when I change the text file version.txt and save it.

Answer 1

I've "fixed" that problem using the following strategy in my delegate:

// fsw_ is the FileSystemWatcher instance used by my application.

private void OnDirectoryChanged(...)
{
   try
   {
      fsw_.EnableRaisingEvents = false;

      /* do my stuff once asynchronously */
   }

   finally
   {
      fsw_.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
   }
}

Answer 2

Here is my solution which helped me to stop the event being raised twice:

watcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.FileName | NotifyFilters.Size;

Here I have set the NotifyFilter property with only Filename and size.
watcher is my object of FileSystemWatcher. Hope this will help.

Answer 3

Alot of these answers are shocking, really. Heres some code from my XanderUI Control library that fixes this.

private void OnChanged(object sender, FilesystemEventArgs e)
{
    if (FSWatcher.IncludeSubdirectories == true)
    {
        if (File.Exists(e.FullPath)) { DO YOUR FILE CHANGE STUFF HERE... }
    }
    else DO YOUR DIRECTORY CHANGE STUFF HERE...
}

Answer 4

My scenario is that I have a virtual machine with a Linux server in it. I am developing files on the Windows host. When I change something in a folder on the host I want all the changes to be uploaded, synced onto the virtual server via Ftp. This is how I do eliminate the duplicate change event when I write to a file ( which flags the folder containing the file to be modified as well ) :

private Hashtable fileWriteTime = new Hashtable();

private void fsw_sync_Changed(object source, FileSystemEventArgs e)
{
    string path = e.FullPath.ToString();
    string currentLastWriteTime = File.GetLastWriteTime( e.FullPath ).ToString();

    // if there is no path info stored yet
    // or stored path has different time of write then the one now is inspected
    if ( !fileWriteTime.ContainsKey(path) ||
         fileWriteTime[path].ToString() != currentLastWriteTime
    )
    {
        //then we do the main thing
        log( "A CHANGE has occured with " + path );

        //lastly we update the last write time in the hashtable
        fileWriteTime[path] = currentLastWriteTime;
    }
}

Mainly I create a hashtable to store file write time information. Then if the hashtable has the filepath that is modified and it's time value is the same as the currently notified file's change then I know it is the duplicate of the event and ignore it.

Answer 5

Try with this code:

class WatchPlotDirectory
{
    bool let = false;
    FileSystemWatcher watcher;
    string path = "C:/Users/jamie/OneDrive/Pictures/Screenshots";

    public WatchPlotDirectory()
    {
        watcher = new FileSystemWatcher();
        watcher.Path = path;
        watcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.LastAccess | NotifyFilters.LastWrite
                               | NotifyFilters.FileName | NotifyFilters.DirectoryName;
        watcher.Filter = "*.*";
        watcher.Changed += new FileSystemEventHandler(OnChanged);
        watcher.Renamed += new RenamedEventHandler(OnRenamed);
        watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
    }



    void OnChanged(object sender, FileSystemEventArgs e)
    {
        if (let==false) {
            string mgs = string.Format("File {0} | {1}",
                                       e.FullPath, e.ChangeType);
            Console.WriteLine("onchange: " + mgs);
            let = true;
        }

        else
        {
            let = false;
        }


    }

    void OnRenamed(object sender, RenamedEventArgs e)
    {
        string log = string.Format("{0} | Renamed from {1}",
                                   e.FullPath, e.OldName);
        Console.WriteLine("onrenamed: " + log);

    }

    public void setPath(string path)
    {
        this.path = path;
    }
}

Answer 6

Here is a new solution you can try. Works well for me. In the event handler for the changed event programmatically remove the handler from the designer output a message if desired then programmatically add the handler back. example:

public void fileSystemWatcher1_Changed( object sender, System.IO.FileSystemEventArgs e )
    {            
        fileSystemWatcher1.Changed -= new System.IO.FileSystemEventHandler( fileSystemWatcher1_Changed );
        MessageBox.Show( "File has been uploaded to destination", "Success!" );
        fileSystemWatcher1.Changed += new System.IO.FileSystemEventHandler( fileSystemWatcher1_Changed );
    }