topic Re: Very huge ".shared" file in QlikView

Very huge ".shared" file

nicolas_martin — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:19:17 GMT

Hello,

I have a QV application of 1 GB on my server.

When I look at the ".shared" file, the file is about 4 GB!

Unfortunatly, this prevents me to access the properties of this application in the management console.

I don't understand why the ".shared" file is so big, whereas it should only contain bookmarks.

Can you tell me:

- what other data is stored in this file?

- how to prevend this?

- how to reduce the size of this ".shared file" without loosing all bookmarks?

Thank you.

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

Gysbert_Wassenaar — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 13:31:33 GMT

The PowerTools 1.1 for QlikView contains a shared file viewer you can use to see what's stored in it.

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

nicolas_martin — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 16:52:16 GMT

I can't open the file with the shared file viewer

I reduced it with the QVS.EXE command line --> now it's "only" 850 MB.

I still can't open the file in the shared file viewer.

After 1 hour, the shared file viewer showed me: 12 bookmarks. That's all!

I tried to log in the app, make few selections, change 1 "input field", close --> 1 GB.

The simple fact to change the input field cost me 150 MB in the ".shared" file!

Is there a way to say "don't save the values associated with the input fields"?

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

Gysbert_Wassenaar — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 17:01:10 GMT

Not as far as I know. The input field values are stored per user and meant to survive reloads. You could remove the .shared file, but that will remove all other server objects (like user-created bookmarks) for that document too.

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

ashfaq_haseeb — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 12:25:38 GMT

Hi,

Follow this to repair your .shared file in case they are corrupted.

Cleaning corrupt shared files

Regards

ASHFAQ

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

nicolas_martin — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 12:54:43 GMT

My files are not corrupted.

The problem is that every bookmark (like "$LASTKNOWNSTATE") takes 80 MB, and the ".Shared" file is not automatically purged.

I don't understand why it takes 80 MB.

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

arieidel — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 13:34:31 GMT

Hello Nicolas,

I am also dealing with .Shared file so I understand you. I'm still looking at some solutions for a few issues...

With Shared File Viewer you can see the content of a bookmark, just double-clicking it and expanding it properties on "Bookmark" section, then expanding "FieldItems". These are fields stored inside the Bookmarks with their values. Suppose you have an attribute with 30.000 values. If a user selects a value from it and after that selects excluded values, a Bookmark with that selection will be stored with 29.999 values for that attribute increasing file size consequently.

Unfortunately, it happens. I believe that the only solutions is teaching users not to do that, but I know is a difficult achievement.

Regards,

Ariel

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

nicolas_martin — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 16:26:22 GMT

When I look at my bookmarks in the "Shared File Viewer", I see that each bookmarks takes about 80'000'000 B (80 MB).

But when I export the bookmark (xml), the file is only few KB.

I don't understand what and where are the 80 MB of data...

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

vgutkovsky — Thu, 28 May 2015 14:39:58 GMT

Under the Tools menu in your screenshot above, select Defrag. The QlikView server does a very poor job of recovering unused bytes from shared files so a defrag becomes necessary from time to time.

Cheers,

Vlad

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

scottparry — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 19:29:14 GMT

Hi,

I've opened several QLIK tickets with no route cause as to why the .Shared file is growing so large in several of our applications. Unfortunately, the powertools cannot read the .shared file and for the most part we are deleting .shared files daily now as size is increasing.

there is 1 input field, but we already tested that theory months ago, we changed it to a list box and the Shared file size was still growing after that implementation

I has become more unncessary maintenance to delete .shared files when you can't file the route cause.

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

luciancotea — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 22:52:55 GMT

Hi Scott,

Shared files grows and QlikView (especially older versions) does a poor job in cleaning them. But bookmarks are the reason for huge increases, they don't just store the current selections definition, they store also values from the tables.

If you really need the .shared files, you have to manually delete the user bookmarks from time to time and ask them to refrain from using them in excess.

Regards,

Lucian

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

scottparry — Sat, 08 Apr 2017 03:10:36 GMT

Hi,

Thank you for the reply. My biggest concern is that the server performance is terrible when the .shared files grow over 300,000KB and staff cannot even open the qvw application. We've started deleting the .shared files daily, which really voids any need to even offer bookmarks as a feature/function to the user, as they are being wiped out every day. Qlik has come back to us saying it's working as it's designed, but do not recommend using bookmarks.

Unfortunately, we've offered this feature since release on all apps to 30k users, so it's diffcult to now take it away on 25 applications, but that seems to be the only option. It's unfortunate that Qlik has offered a feature, but it has such poor performance on the system and users. We are planning to upgrade to QlikView 12.1R3 in the next month or so and Qlik did say there is better optimization for .shared files, so it's a wait and see now, as we do not have a permanent technical solution to offer users for bookmarks.

Regards

Scott

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

Miguel_Angel_Baeyens — Sat, 08 Apr 2017 08:37:08 GMT

Plus, use the built in tool to purge and cleanup the shared files as explained in the release notes, section 12, but basically running

qvs.exe -x file.shared -v shared.verify.log

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

scottparry — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 14:53:49 GMT

Hi,

My admin attempted running the internal program on our DEV server with the problem QVW, but did not see any change in size of the .shared file. Again, the file grows over 1 gig a day and performance continues to impact users, so I believe deleting the .shared file offers the resolution, but we are still trying to address the root cause of the size growth. If it's truely bookmark size that's increasing, then it appears the only option we have is to remove the ability to set bookmarks to minimize extra processes on the server to delete or clean up the .shared file. Thoughts?

Regards,
Scott

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

Miguel_Angel_Baeyens — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 15:01:24 GMT

1GB per day of shared file means thousands of objects being created, or a bug causing a corruption in the server objects which could be causing that. Of course performance is impacted since shared files are run through (almost) every time you open the application.

And yes, deleting the shared file will fix the issue but if people are using shared objects they will be losing them as well. I would try reducing the writing on shared files by disabling session recovery, for example, and see whether that makes any difference, then disabling the objects in the QMC > User Documents > click on the document > Server Objects > Allow Creation of Server objects

Re: Very huge ".shared" file

korsikov — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 11:58:45 GMT

Also Using Inputfields will often lead to .shared files increasing in size

https://support.qlik.com/articles/000002629