Source Image Thumbnails Changed to Question Mark

[Greyfox]

I've just loaded a trial version of Pro 2022, and am in the process of evaluating I I have experienced the issue identified in this post however only for 20-30 images, which did resolve itself without any undue actions by me, However I only have a small database and 7,500 image files split over a number of directories on a single internal HDD.

Sometimes it is just a matter of giving the program time to complete the process.

The help file says "ACDSee automatically adds file information and thumbnails to the database as you browse. This process is called cataloging. Once the folder you are browsing has been cataloged, ACDSee begins the process of detecting faces in your images. As you open other folders, ACDSee will continue scanning for faces in the first folder, and will queue subsequent folders as you open them. You can view the scanning progress in the bottom right corner of Manage mode. ACDSee will continue scanning until Face Detection is complete on the folders you browsed.

[Dronenz]

I've just loaded a trial version of Pro 2022, and am in the process of evaluating I I have experienced the issue identified in this post however only for 20-30 images, which did resolve itself without any undue actions by me, However I only have a small database and 7,500 image files split over a number of directories on a single internal HDD.

[BasiaKru]

but today, for no reason I can put my finger on, I opened ACDSee to find that in People Mode, if I selected any person and clicked on "Show source image thumbnails" all of the source image thumbnails were "Question Marks".

Wow, interesting. I'm glad I'm not the only one these random things happen to!

[Greyfox]

BasiaKru

Just an update.
I've been using ACDSee U2022 almost since it was released, and without the problem of the missing thumbnails, but today, for no reason I can put my finger on, I opened ACDSee to find that in People Mode, if I selected any person and clicked on "Show source image thumbnails" all of the source image thumbnails were "Question Marks".

My database is on a local SSD drive, as are the source photos.

So what I now know is forcing ACDSee to recreate the indexes did not solve the problem.

What did work is simply selecting Image Wall (which started the % processed in the status bar. When that reached 100%, the source image thumbnails in People Mode were back. That is quite a long process though.

I also found that subsequently selecting "Videos", and "Uncategorized" each started a % processed in the status bar, with the process reaching 100% far quicker than the one associated with "Image Wall"

So at this stage I don't know why this occurred.

[Greyfox]

..While I was following these instructions, at the point where I selected all the images in the Image Well, I noticed that the % meter in the lower right corner started going and a message said "Generating High Quality Thumbnail" (Screen shot of message attached). After it finished, I went back to People mode to look at the Source Image Thumbnails, and they were all displaying correctly - no more blanks! So I'm not sure what it was, but something about these steps fixed it. Yeay! Now I just hope they stay that way...

Good to hear you have them back. I suspect you have added photos to the external drive and have exited ACDSee before it has had time to complete building the thumbnails and storing them in the cache. With large numbers of images, It takes some time even when the images are on a local SSD drive. It would take even longer when on a slower external USB hard drive.

[BasiaKru]

Question: Have you actually added a large number of images during that time? If the answer to that is Yes, then did you use Tools/Database/Catalog to add them, or some other method?.

No, I added very few, probably less than 50. I just add the new photos to my Photographs folder on the external drive. Then when I open ACDSee and open the folder, face detection runs automatically, and I do the tagging from there.

If tools/Database/Catalog, can you go to Tools/Database/Catalog and see whether the item "Build and include thumbnails in database" in the Options section, bottom right is ticked?.

Yes, it is

Question, does that approximately equal the 113,602 image files count shown in the Dashboard?.

Yes, it's very close (113,628 images)

Question: are they all present? If not is it only a few that are blank, or a lot?

They are all present, none are blank.

Now write down the "Total items" count shown in the status bar.

12,244 items

Question, are they all present? If not is it only a few that are blank, or a lot?

All are present, none are blank.

Question. Are the two numbers the same?.

Yes, they are the same (12,244 items)

I would also like to see you embed the ACDSee metadata into the images, in case it turns out that the database itself has to be rebuilt.

Ok, I will work on that next.

In the Special items at the bottom of the Catalog Pane in Manage mode is an item "Embed Pending". Click on that, and post the "Total items" count shown in the Status bar.

95,121 items. So I guess that means that some of them ARE embedded?

While I was following these instructions, at the point where I selected all the images in the Image Well, I noticed that the % meter in the lower right corner started going and a message said "Generating High Quality Thumbnail" (Screen shot of message attached). After it finished, I went back to People mode to look at the Source Image Thumbnails, and they were all displaying correctly - no more blanks! So I'm not sure what it was, but something about these steps fixed it. Yeay! Now I just hope they stay that way...

Thanks so much Greyfox, for your very detailed instructions and for taking the time to help with this. Very helpful and much appreciated!

[Greyfox]

...Here is a screenshot of the Database tab.

If you look at the file information in the Dashboard/Database tab screen shot, you see there are 113,602 image files, but only 34,680 images with thumbnails. Under normal circumstances, I would expect there to be at least as many thumbnails as Image files, but in this case it appears that there are significantly less thumbnails.

Also the 11.7GB Size of the thumbnail cache seems well in excess of what I would expect for only 34,680 thumbnails.

There is a discrepancy in the database size of 13.2GB shown in the screen shot from the Dashboard, compared to the 9.2GB shown in the Database Maintenance screen shot you posted previously. That would suggest the addition of a large number of images. Question: Have you actually added a large number of images during that time? If the answer to that is Yes, then did you use Tools/Database/Catalog to add them, or some other method?. If tools/Database/Catalog, can you go to Tools/Database/Catalog and see whether the item "Build and include thumbnails in database" in the Options section, bottom right is ticked?.

In your post yesterday, you mentioned that you had optimized the database. It would appear from the Dashboard that since then further 26 files have become orphaned.

If you go into Manage mode, and in the left "Catalog" pane, scroll right down to the bottom, you should find a section called Special Items. One of those is "Image Well". If you click on that it will give you a warning that it may take some time, click OK on that and it should then display all the image thumbnails in the middle File List area. (These are the still images only, not video files.

Look at the left hand end of the status bar at the bottom of the screen. It should show the total number of (still) images. Question, does that approximately equal the 113,602 image files count shown in the Dashboard?.

Now scroll (not too fast) through all the thumbnails in the middle file list screen. Question: are they all present? If not is it only a few that are blank, or a lot?

Next, in the Catalog pane, in the People section, click on the gear cog and set it to "Match Any", then click on the Quick select icon to the left of name at the top of the list, then hold the shift key down and select the Quick Select icon to the left of the last or bottom name on the list (that should select all of the names. Now write down the "Total items" count shown in the status bar. That should be the total number of images that have a face (or faces) identified in them. Again scroll (not too fast) down through all the thumbnails. Question, are they all present? If not is it only a few that are blank, or a lot?

Now use Ctrl + A to select all of the images. In the Status bar, it should show both the total number of items and also the number selected. Question. Are the two numbers the same?.

At the moment, it would appear the database has some issues. It may be worth trying to force ACDSee to rebuild its index files, but before going down that track, I would like to see the answers to the above and I would also like to see you embed the ACDSee metadata into the images, in case it turns out that the database itself has to be rebuilt.

I was hesitant to do anything that would increase the size of the database, it's already taking up so much space on my laptop. Will embedding increase the size of the database, or just the images?

Embedding will increase the size of the images a bit (JPG, TIFF etc), and in the case of RAW files, it will add a small xmp sidecar file for each of the RAW images. It should not add significantly to the size of the database
itself.

And that is something else you can check. In the Special items at the bottom of the Catalog Pane in Manage mode is an item "Embed Pending". Click on that, and post the "Total items" count shown in the Status bar.

[BasiaKru]

Aah, ok, got it. Here is a screenshot of the Database tab. Thanks for the info about embedding. Sounds like I should start doing that. I was hesitant to do anything that would increase the size of the database, it's already taking up so much space on my laptop. Will embedding increase the size of the database, or just the images?

[Greyfox]

Basia


No, unfortunately that is not the screen shot I was referring to.

In Manage mode, at the top right hand side of the screen is a set of mode icons.

If you click on the one shown marked in red in the above screen shot it will take you to the Dashboard.
In Dashboard mode there are 4 tabs, one is the database tab. It shows details about your current database, its location, its size, the number of image files, and the number of Orphan files and folders.

If you don't think your ACDSee metadata is embedded in the images, then it almost certainly isn't because embedding the ACDsee metadata is an action you have to specifically take.

In the longer term, I would strongly recommend you consider doing this. If the ACDSee metadata is embedded in the images, and something goes badly wrong with the database, then you can build a new database and ACDSee can read the ACDSee metadata back into the new database from the images, using the Tools/Database/catalog process, retaining all of your ACDSee metadata (keywords, ratings, labels, captions, catalogs, face identification etc).

Without that, or falling back to the last database backup (which depending on how often you back your database, may not be all that current, and may also contain some of the problems that lead to the failure of the database), your only other option would be to start a new database and start the process of tagging all your images, faces etc again from scratch.

[BasiaKru]

Thanks for responding Greyfox. The database is on my laptop (Surface Pro with 28 GB free space) and the images are on a 3TB external hard drive. I wasn't sure what you meant by Dashboard, Database Tab; I'm attaching two screens that sound like it may be it, hope one of them is what you are looking for. I had been following the thread you noted, it sounds like a similar problem, but didn't find anything there that worked for me. I don't think my metadata is embedded in the images, but I'm not sure. I know at one point I was adding keywords and those seemed to be embedded in the image, but I'm not using keywords any more, just categories. Thanks.

[Greyfox]

BasiaKru

See this thread. https://forum.acdsee.com/forum/main-...ext-thumbnails
particularly those posts referring to source image thumbnails.

Can you provide a screen shot of the Dashboard, Database Tab?
Where is your database files located, and where are the images located? (local drive, external USB hard drive, NAS, etc)
Has your ACDSee metadata been embedded in the images (or in the case of raw files in xmp files)?

[BasiaKru]

I’m using ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2022 and recently encountered an issue I’m wondering if anyone can help with. I’ve been using Face Detection for weeks, and everything seemed to be working fine. In People mode, I could see the face thumbnails, as well as the source image thumbnails. But at some point, the source image thumbnails all turned into blank frames with a question mark (screen shot attached). The face thumbnails still display correctly, but the source image thumbnails do not. When I click on one of the question marks and select View, it correctly goes to the original source file. Photos that I added after this happened display correctly (both the face and source image thumbnails display). But all the ones done previously—thousands of them--do not. (In the attached screenshot, the one source image thumbnail that is displaying correctly was scanned in after this happened). As far as I know, I haven’t made any changes to any settings, it just seemed to happen randomly. I've optimized the database, but that had no impact. Any help would be appreciated.