crazy thumbnail syndrome

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crazy thumbnail syndrome

Gian Paolo Sanino Vattier
Hi all,
This sounds like a total nightmare but I found some hints that could lead to a solution. We can simplify the definition of a syndrome as a set of symptoms that seems to be related by a common cause. My DK is experiencing several symptoms that seems to have a common cause despite their differences.

First the main symptoms of this "crazy thumbnail syndrome":
- when grouping by Album, there are some album/folders that do not show all their content. As an example it shows two thumbnails despite the counter states 10 and using dolphin I confirmed there are indeed 10 photos there. Some of my albums appear completely empty. So, the hidden thumbnails is the first symptom.
- large empty spaces between the albums. This may be just a consequence of the previous symptom because albums that showup with all their thumbnails, have no empty spaces separating from next album.
- the most weird, is that passing the pointer over some thumbnails, they change!!! I mean the thumbnail changes and even the text underneath too corresponding to other photo. It switches from the thumbnail corresponding to the file A to the file B just by passing the mouse on top rendering the thumbnail itself unreliable since I do not really know if it corresponds or not to that album. Funny, when I scroll up or down a bit, these switched thumbnails return to the previously shown thumbnail. Again, mouse-over makes the thumbnail to switch again repeating consistently the behavior.
- the switching thumbnails can occur as a complete change among thumbnails or a partial case as overlapped thumbnails depending on the zoom setting of the Thumbnail view mode.
- when filtering it is the same nightmare showing lesser thumbnails that the real content of the folders.
- this is only happening to some images and not all images, they are always the same with problematic thumbnails and despite their thumbnails show-up perfectly fine when selecting their album directly (not as sub-tree).

Too complex or needing a visual? ok, look this unlisted video and focus on the content of albums 04 and 02...  http://youtu.be/FaIYpzCxYO0

Now some light over this syndrome...

* I checked the database connecting externally to it, and it is perfect. Data allocated inside is fine, with all the tags perfect etc. Great. So it is just the way DK presents on screen the thumbnails.

* erasing thumbnail.db to force rebuild the thumbnails or using the rebuild tool does not solve the problem.

* Using Table instead of Thumbnail view mode, the thumbnails are all shown and there is no crazy mouse-over nor large black empty spaces. However the "group images by album" does not do anything on Table view (that is another issue anyway). The point is that the problem occur only under Thumbnail view mode and that all these symptoms have a common cause because all of them are solved by simply changing the view mode.

* I tested every visualization combination and all the previous symptoms occur under a specific visualization setting and only to some images (not all). I did not find anything special (yet) to the images whose thumbnails are shown under some settings and those that are shown properly despite the settings.
The combination of terror is when having menu/View/ all the next settings:

a) Thumbnail view mode
b) enable the "include album sub-tree" and "include tag sub-tree"
c) Sort Images set on "by Date"
d) Group Images set on "by Album"

Any other combination is fine, but sadly this is the most useful for me...

Partial solution
just by changing "Sort Images" from "by Date" to "by Name" solves the problem, no more crazy mouse-over behavior changing thumbnails, nor missing thumbnails nor empty spaces. Since the file names from my camera are time correlative, it ends by presenting the Thumbnails in an almost same way to "by Date". Also, by changing "Group Images" from "by Album" to "Flat list" solves the symptoms.

These findings suggest that our files are fine, since DK is able to show their thumbnails properly in most cases but something is weird when combining the "Group Images by Album" with "Sort Images by Date" visualization settings.

Probable related issues:
Some time ago, Audun posted a similar symptom (no thumbnails). Also this link to a post that seems to have similarities as well:
http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/no-photos-or-thumbnails-tp3073787.html
They do not mention the swuitching thumbnail mouse-over behavior but as I mentioned it before, it happens also to some and not all thumbnails.
I cannot confirm my case is in fact related to audun's or others, but maybe these cases can check if changing "sort images" from "by date" to another option, solves their issues of "hidden thumbnails".


Other details:
This is happening to most of our boxes:

BOX1: asus desktop / nvidia / 6 cores / opensuse 13.2 / DK 4.6.0 / KDE 4.14.3 / Linux (x86_64) release 3.16.7-7-desktop.
BOX2: asus 4 cores / all the rest the same except it has DK 4.5.0.
BOX3: notebook HP pavillion / ATI / also with opensuse 13.2 (x86_64)/ DK 4.5.0
BOX4: notebook HP mini / ATI / also with opensuse 13.2 / DK 4.6.0 / KDE 4.14.3 / Linux (x86_64) release 3.16.6-2-default.
BOX5: asus 4 cores quite old / opensuse 13.2 / DK 4.6.0 / KDE 4.14.3 / Linux (x86_64) release 3.16.7-7-desktop.

So the syndrome happens on DK4.5.0 and DK4.6.0 but not always. BOX3 does not have this visualization issue (tested with the same images). All my other boxes have the problem despite they have just being clean-reinstalled and have different hardware. I know BOX3 had a patch recently and BOX2 did not. Both are at the field right now and it is hard for me to perform tests on them. However, in the case a patch solved the problem on BOX3 (which I cannot confirm and do not know if the problem was ever there before the patch neither), why boxes with 4.6.0 (a more recent version) have the issue anyway?

Hope this helps to solve the issue.
gps

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Re: crazy thumbnail syndrome

Mark Fraser


On 19 Jan 2015 20:13, "Gian Paolo Sanino Vattier" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> This sounds like a total nightmare but I found some hints that could lead to a solution. We can simplify the definition of a syndrome as a set of symptoms that seems to be related by a common cause. My DK is experiencing several symptoms that seems to have a common cause despite their differences.

The symptoms you reported sound exactly like the problems I've been having since upgrading to 4.5 and I'm sure I reported it to this mailing list at the same time.
Good to see someone else is now seeing it, perhaps I should now file a bug report.


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Re: crazy thumbnail syndrome

Anders Stedtlund

Hi,

Can you have a look and see if the album dates are out of sync for the albums that don't show correct thumbnails?

/Anders

Den 20 jan 2015 07:00 skrev "Mark Fraser" <[hidden email]>:


On 19 Jan 2015 20:13, "Gian Paolo Sanino Vattier" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> This sounds like a total nightmare but I found some hints that could lead to a solution. We can simplify the definition of a syndrome as a set of symptoms that seems to be related by a common cause. My DK is experiencing several symptoms that seems to have a common cause despite their differences.

The symptoms you reported sound exactly like the problems I've been having since upgrading to 4.5 and I'm sure I reported it to this mailing list at the same time.
Good to see someone else is now seeing it, perhaps I should now file a bug report.


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Re: crazy thumbnail syndrome

Gian Paolo Sanino Vattier
Hi,
it has been some time already that I was loosing some photos I was sure I had. This was the cause but took time to really notice it properly. So Mark, for me this is a bug because DK should be able to show the entire content despite the "sorting" settings and certainly the switching mouse-over effect adds uncertainty of what you see.
Can you have a look and see if the album dates are out of sync for the albums that don't show correct thumbnails? 

Anders, I have no idea how an album can be "on sync" with some date. With what date should they be synced? I enabled the tool-tip feature for albums and files. Then with the mouse over the albums I can see a date assigned to each of them. I found albums with and without the issue, sharing the same date.
However, your hint had results. I do not know what it means but I set the combination of problems (images sorted by Date and grouped by albums) then opened the properties of an album that as a sub-tree it showed lesser thumbnails than its counter stated. There as date I set "Oldest" and accepted. Magic, the folder now shows all. Checked this with other folders, like one with mouse-over issue, and set the album date to "Newest", with the same healing result. Same with other albums.

In conclusion it did not matter what date I assigned to the album, but just by assigning one, all the weird symptoms of this syndrome were gone. I really do not know what differences an image made since this happened with files sharing the same dates (creation and modification) with some having mouse.over issues and other do not. Same about the album dates. All I see is that assigning a date to the album, solves the issue.

When creating an album in DK, a date is always assigned from what I recall. But maybe this rises up when creating a folder externally (with a file manager) under a tree that is managed by DK. I am just speculating but perhaps these folders have different date properties for DK. No idea really, but at least by assigning a date on album properties, solves their thumbnails issues when visualized as sub-trees with images sorted by date and grouped by albums.

    
On 01/20/2015 03:12 AM, Anders Stedtlund wrote:

Hi,

Can you have a look and see if the album dates are out of sync for the albums that don't show correct thumbnails?

/Anders

Den 20 jan 2015 07:00 skrev "Mark Fraser" <[hidden email]>:


On 19 Jan 2015 20:13, "Gian Paolo Sanino Vattier" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> This sounds like a total nightmare but I found some hints that could lead to a solution. We can simplify the definition of a syndrome as a set of symptoms that seems to be related by a common cause. My DK is experiencing several symptoms that seems to have a common cause despite their differences.

The symptoms you reported sound exactly like the problems I've been having since upgrading to 4.5 and I'm sure I reported it to this mailing list at the same time.
Good to see someone else is now seeing it, perhaps I should now file a bug report.


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Re: crazy thumbnail syndrome

Anders Stedtlund
2015-01-20 16:21 GMT+01:00 Gian Paolo Sanino Vattier <[hidden email]>:

> Hi,
> it has been some time already that I was loosing some photos I was sure I
> had. This was the cause but took time to really notice it properly. So Mark,
> for me this is a bug because DK should be able to show the entire content
> despite the "sorting" settings and certainly the switching mouse-over effect
> adds uncertainty of what you see.
>
> Can you have a look and see if the album dates are out of sync for the
> albums that don't show correct thumbnails?
>
>
> Anders, I have no idea how an album can be "on sync" with some date. With
> what date should they be synced? I enabled the tool-tip feature for albums
> and files. Then with the mouse over the albums I can see a date assigned to
> each of them. I found albums with and without the issue, sharing the same
> date.
> However, your hint had results. I do not know what it means but I set the
> combination of problems (images sorted by Date and grouped by albums) then
> opened the properties of an album that as a sub-tree it showed lesser
> thumbnails than its counter stated. There as date I set "Oldest" and
> accepted. Magic, the folder now shows all. Checked this with other folders,
> like one with mouse-over issue, and set the album date to "Newest", with the
> same healing result. Same with other albums.
>
> In conclusion it did not matter what date I assigned to the album, but just
> by assigning one, all the weird symptoms of this syndrome were gone. I
> really do not know what differences an image made since this happened with
> files sharing the same dates (creation and modification) with some having
> mouse.over issues and other do not. Same about the album dates. All I see is
> that assigning a date to the album, solves the issue.
>
> When creating an album in DK, a date is always assigned from what I recall.
> But maybe this rises up when creating a folder externally (with a file
> manager) under a tree that is managed by DK. I am just speculating but
> perhaps these folders have different date properties for DK. No idea really,
> but at least by assigning a date on album properties, solves their
> thumbnails issues when visualized as sub-trees with images sorted by date
> and grouped by albums.
>

Out ot sync was probably not the best wording I have to admit. Out of
sequence would have been better, at least in my case. I'm sorry I was
a bit brief in my first reply, I didn't have that much time... I'm
glad you had some progress though.

I was struggling with the same symptoms last week and in my case it
was the dates of subalbums that was out of sequence.

I have organized my collection like this:
<YEAR>
    <MONTH>
        <DAY>

I found that the <DAY> subalbums was not properly "dated". I.e. some
days was had the wrong date. This made the thumbnails to not show for
all the images even if they were there on disk.

I only use digiKam to create and delete folders, I don't let any other
application do that. I import all images with digiKam which
automatically creates the folder structure. But for some reason, the
date on some albums had the wrong date set.

I also had imported some images twice but to the wrong month in my
case. I.e. some images from September were imported to subalbums to
December. That was an error from my side. The same symptoms was seen
in this case though. Some thumbnails were not shown and there were
large empty areas instead.

Hope I made my findings a bit clearer now!

/Anders

> On 01/20/2015 03:12 AM, Anders Stedtlund wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Can you have a look and see if the album dates are out of sync for the
> albums that don't show correct thumbnails?
>
> /Anders
>
> Den 20 jan 2015 07:00 skrev "Mark Fraser" <[hidden email]>:
>>
>>
>> On 19 Jan 2015 20:13, "Gian Paolo Sanino Vattier" <[hidden email]>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi all,
>> > This sounds like a total nightmare but I found some hints that could
>> > lead to a solution. We can simplify the definition of a syndrome as a set of
>> > symptoms that seems to be related by a common cause. My DK is experiencing
>> > several symptoms that seems to have a common cause despite their
>> > differences.
>>
>> The symptoms you reported sound exactly like the problems I've been having
>> since upgrading to 4.5 and I'm sure I reported it to this mailing list at
>> the same time.
>> Good to see someone else is now seeing it, perhaps I should now file a bug
>> report.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Digikam-users mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-users mailing list
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> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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Re: crazy thumbnail syndrome

Mark Fraser
In reply to this post by Anders Stedtlund
On Tuesday 20 Jan 2015 07:12:40 Anders Stedtlund wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Can you have a look and see if the album dates are out of sync for the
> albums that don't show correct thumbnails?

I've checked the dates of all my albums and I have made sure that they are set
to the average date of all photos in that album. Digikam still doesn't display
the thumbnails correctly if images are set to be sorted by date.

--
Registered Linux User #466407 http://counter.li.org
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