Thanks for the ideas, Nik. I don't have the "Get Images Info" option available in my Tools menu - I am a Standard user, and maybe this is a Power feature. If you can confirm that this problem will definitely go away for me when I upgrade, I will upgrade to Power (unless I need to go all the way up to Professional - let me know).
I'll temporarily disable quick check for this batch as you suggested - but I won't be able to do this each time. There will be SmugMug comments attached to each of these photos over time, and the ability to replace the photo (with a new version that has updated metadata) but keep the SmugMug comments is essential for me. But for now, that's the SmugMug issue I mentioned, still an open issue with them.
Best,
-- Ben
Ben,
yes, any download in S*E is a Power/Pro feature. Difference between Power and Pro is that with Power you can only download info or images for one album at at time, while with Pro you can do that for any set of albums/images, including search results and whole account;-).
And yes, that's true that the comments/ratings will be gone if you replace the image, but that's how SM has it, not much I can do about it.
Ben,
yes, any download in S*E is a Power/Pro feature. Difference between Power and Pro is that with Power you can only download info or images for one album at at time, while with Pro you can do that for any set of albums/images, including search results and whole account;-).
Great! So, all I need is confirmation from you that upgrading to Power and using the "Get Photos Info" feature will resolve this issue - it didn't sound like you were quite sure:
I *think* if you redo "get image info" it should remove those that were deleted, but I'm not sure about it right now.
I did just test out disabling the quick check, as you suggested: even with this feature off, I still get the same "RPC-XML: system error (invalid image id) (5)" error with each upload attempt. I also tried clearing the "Use current cache data to update sync tree" checkbox, with no improvement.
Another possible approach: do I (as an enduser) have the ability to wipe out the local cache completely? If I do this and the problem goes away, it may simply be something wonky in my local machine's cache. Thanks,
Great! So, all I need is confirmation from you that upgrading to Power and using the "Get Photos Info" feature will resolve this issue - it didn't sound like you were quite sure:
I did just test out disabling the quick check, as you suggested: even with this feature off, I still get the same "RPC-XML: system error (invalid image id) (5)" error with each upload attempt. I also tried clearing the "Use current cache data to update sync tree" checkbox, with no improvement.
Another possible approach: do I (as an enduser) have the ability to wipe out the local cache completely? If I do this and the problem goes away, it may simply be something wonky in my local machine's cache. Thanks,
-- Ben
Ben, I can issue you a temporary Power (or Pro) license, so you can see for yourself it it actually helps. Send me an email to support@starexplorer.com.
As to the cleaninig up: look up system Info tab in about dialog, last line is cache. Locate this file, close S*E, rename this file, start S*E. Mind you, all the info will be lost and replace feature will become pretty useless unless you have Pro.
Ben, I can issue you a temporary Power (or Pro) license, so you can see for yourself it it actually helps. Send me an email to support@starexplorer.com.
Nik,
Forgive the long note here, but I wanted to give you every detail I could.
I applied the temporary Professional key you generated for me (thanks again for doing that so quickly) and logged into my SM account. I went to Tools > Get Images Info for the target gallery, and watched all the HTTP calls coming back to SE - no errors.
I then set SE to Quick Check for duplicates and uploaded one of the problem files; same error = RPC-XML: system error (invalid image id) (5). I set it to No Check, with the same result.
So, as a next step, I decided I would blow away my local cache, thinking it must be corrupted. I followed the instructions you sent me, determining where my cache file was located by going to the Help > About menu and clicked the Account Information tab, where the Cache= setting can be partially seen. I say "partially" here because the path is deep down in the Documents & Settings area, and the About dialog does not allow me to scroll to the right to see the full string, or copy the string out of the dialog (feature request!).
I think I figured it out from what I could see and found the .MDB file in my [...]\Application Data\StarExplorer\Data\Cache\ folder. Rather than just delete it, I opened up into Access and looked at the T_IMAGES table. The photos listed there as individual records represent all of the images from the gallery and all have each of their fields fully filled out with what appears to be expected data, EXCEPT for the problem batch that I am working with.
For the problem batch, there is data only in the following fields:
The other thing these problem images have in common: the F_TIME_STAMP field is about three weeks old, whereas all the other files have a time stamp of today (presumably due to my Get Photos Info, which probably refreshed these values).
I deleted all of the problem records from the table, and saved the database.
You'll recall that I previously had deleted these problem files from SM server side. So, heading back to SE, I uploaded half of the same problem set (No Check), this time without error! . The second half of the problem set I configured for Quick Check / Replace If Detected (I love to break things) but was pleased to find that this worked fine as well.
So far, so good. I then tried to replace (Quick Check / Replace If Detected) one of the just-uploaded files, but this consistently failed with a "The operation timed out" error (this was a new error). I quit SE and went back to my MDB cache, and saw records for all my just-uploaded files now present in the T_IMAGES table (good), but they only have the same six fields I list above populated (bad); the remainder of the records are fully populated.
I went back to SE and forced another Get Images Info, quit SE and rechecked the MDB, which now showed all the expected data for the set of files. In SE, I tried to replace the same file again, with the same error. I dunno, maybe this is a SM issue that's occurring right now (but wasn't occurring just a few minutes ago).
Final thoughts:
* Maybe I will always only see data in the above six fields until I do the Get Images Info, when everything else is filled in? This is how I tried to work around the issue, but this sure doesn't sound quite right in that the replace feature would not really be available to Standard users (as the Get Files Info is not available to Standard users). I still plan to upgrade to Power, as I liked being able to pull down the metadata from the server.
* The bigger related issue: what do you suppose happened to all that missing data for the problem set? This apparently was the root cause here.
Forgive the long note here, but I wanted to give you every detail I could.
...
Ben, thank you very much for the detailed report!
I really think you need to start from a fresh mdb, get albums/categories and the get image info. It may take a while, but should give you a fresh start.
HTH
AFAIK, unlike stills images, SM does not store original video, but always converts it to something else internally (please see SM help on this).
Hence you are getting the results of that conversion, which is most likely incompatible with your software...
Got it. I missed that part in the SM help of that section.
Bulk update albums/categories?
Hi, just started trialing this cool program and have a (two) question(s):
Is there way to modify the category of multiple galleries in one go?
Or alternatively, move multiple galleries to another category?
Hi, just started trialing this cool program and have a (two) question(s):
Is there way to modify the category of multiple galleries in one go?
Or alternatively, move multiple galleries to another category?
Unfortunately no, not at the moment. It's in the plans, but no ETA yet.
However, please check SM's bulk settings editor, it should do the trick.
The only gotcha - you'd have to call get albums/categories in S*E after you make this changes online, otherwise S*E's cache will be out of sync. :-(
KEYWORDS, search Album Titles ?
I add keywords to my albums in Star Explorer before upload. nothing comes of it in SMUGMUG. Anyone know anything about the arcane mysteries of why you can find an album titile (and sometimes a word from an album description) and other times not. Sometimes it appears in the search after awhile, sometimes never. Sometimes because one of the photos in the album has same word, sometimes - nope, sometimes no photo in the album has any key word, or caption but the gallery's name shows up right away in a search.
Is "comedy" involved here or is there actually an answer ? Be nice to tell my guest , just put word in "search" and find the album/gallery : the pics are in there.... instead of having to caption, keyword each photo.
"Search" issues always have a pie in the face, seltzer bottle, wobble head clown aspect to them here in SMUGMUG. You never want to ask about it, like it's just distasteful to point out something so shameful. Very dramatic. Did something tragic happen with the search capacity once ?
I had to go out to some nifty normal person to have them come up with some code so that pics would auto caption and be searchable by SMUGMUG.
Wish someone could help me figure out the weirness here, cue some creepy music.
I add keywords to my albums in Star Explorer before upload. nothing comes of it in SMUGMUG. Anyone know anything about the arcane mysteries of why you can find an album titile (and sometimes a word from an album description) and other times not. Sometimes it appears in the search after awhile, sometimes never. Sometimes because one of the photos in the album has same word, sometimes - nope, sometimes no photo in the album has any key word, or caption but the gallery's name shows up right away in a search.
Is "comedy" involved here or is there actually an answer ? Be nice to tell my guest , just put word in "search" and find the album/gallery : the pics are in there.... instead of having to caption, keyword each photo.
"Search" issues always have a pie in the face, seltzer bottle, wobble head clown aspect to them here in SMUGMUG. You never want to ask about it, like it's just distasteful to point out something so shameful. Very dramatic. Did something tragic happen with the search capacity once ?
I had to go out to some nifty normal person to have them come up with some code so that pics would auto caption and be searchable by SMUGMUG.
Wish someone could help me figure out the weirness here, cue some creepy music.
Marty (dotfur.com gets you to my SmugMug site)
Marty, I'd love to help you, but with all due respect I have no idea what you're tlaking about. So many words, not enough specifics. I'm a techie, not a mind reader. Please try to describe a simple use case from the purely factual point of view. I'm sure it's something very simple, since this whole keywords/caption/search functionality has been working for months if not years.
Marty, I'd love to help you, but with all due respect I have no idea what you're tlaking about. So many words, not enough specifics. I'm a techie, not a mind reader. Please try to describe a simple use case from the purely factual point of view. I'm sure it's something very simple, since this whole keywords/caption/search functionality has been working for months if not years.
Nikolai,
1.) If I upload a photo that I have titled here on my hard drive, the title/name/caption I have given it does not become a caption or a keyword on SMUGMUG automatically. Other way of putting it, I guess, is that "filenames" do not become captions or keywords on upload - you have to go in and caption each one manually or using the smugmug caption/keyword option. I've asked about it in posts before and was told that filenames were supposed to become keywords automatically, and that was how things use to work, and that this was currently a "bug" that SmugMug intended to fix.
see this post from Mar-03-2008 http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=85963 especially Andy's answer. I like to/need to title each photo here on my hard drive ( "spot running", "dweeble catching ball ") then upload . Which means I've got to caption and /or keyword all over again in order for visitors to the site to use the SEARCH FUNCTION. As far as that goes : I researched and found a great little tool called Exif Tool. The guy who wrote the tool code was nice enough to go step by step with me until we made a nice little app that embeds the right IPTC info in each photo bulkwise/batch .... each different filename becoming quickly its' own iptc type name, upload to SmugMug and there you have it all captioned and searchable. Nothing strange or weird about wanting the filenames to become captions or keywords for searchability reasons. Gee, I wonder if that possibly covers that issue.
A.) SmugMug does not SEARCH/find filenames. Must be captions or keywords. I dunno .... am I getting something wrong here ?
B.) Wanting SmugMug to automate in someway the captioning or keywording from filenames must not be a real exotic desire since they once use to do just this and have stated that not doing it is a "bug" that they intend to fix. I dunno .... what point am I missing here?
C.) Batch automating the individual filenames to captions/keywords/IPTC info isn't that big of a deal. I do it every time before I upload a batch of photos. Does it almost instantly. Upload, all photos are individually auto captioned and immediately findable by SEARCH.
E.) I could be completely delusional about all this. Try uploading a photo and see if it automatically becomes a keyword or a caption. Or is findable by SEARCH . I think you still have to caption or keyword it before SEARCH will find it. I'd really like to know if I'm somehow the only one with this problem.
But that's not even what I'm asking about at the moment. I gave up on all that a long time ago. I've got the EXIF TOOL on my own now to automate all that. It's just you're statement : "I'm sure it's something very simple, since this whole keywords/caption/search functionality has been working for months if not years." made me want to get into all that with you.
What I'm wondering about now is a quirk I came across months ago. Instead of captioning/keywording each individual photo so visitors to thsite could find the photo they were looking for, I just listed the names of all the dogs ( I photograph a dogpark) in that day's album/gallery in the description field of the album/gallery. Turns out that the names were findable by SEARCH. see this post. http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=87046
Now , I'm trying to use STAR EXPLORER to create Categories , Sub-Categories , albums and upload it all that way. Bypass all the captioning, IPTC stuff even here on my hard drive ; just list the names in that album in the description field of that album. Let the visitor search the rest of the way. System would be working fine if the searchability of the description fields or album titles was more consistent. Sometimes findable by SEARCH, sometimes not. Sometimes findable instantly, sometimes gotta wait for hours before SEARCH recognizes it, sometimes it never becomes findable by SEARCH.
Was just wondering what the quirkiness was all about.
For instance : on my site http://dotfur.smugmug.com/ if you put into the SEARCH field ( top right) the words "buffy maddie," SEARCH will display 3 "dotfur galleries matching : buffy maddie " one of which is titled " buffy maddie TEST " which is from a category titled JUNE 2008 (way down bottom on my homepage) in which is a sub-category Titled 01 June in which are albums..... one of which is titled " buffy maddie TEST." Far as I can tell , the 2 photos in that album have no captions, no keywords (one's file name is IMG_1321.JPG, and the other's is : IMG_0666.JPG ) yet they show up in the SEARCH due either to their album title or the words "buffy maddie" in the description field ? Put "Butch Jack" in SEARCH - that album ( 02 June sub -category from same June 2008 category) shows up in results - also no photos with any caption or key word. BUT Put "charlie (dingo boy)" (or charlie or dingo or charlie dingo) in the SEARCH field and you will not find that album/gallery from same June 2008 , 02 June sub-category in the results for Galleries Matching "Charlie Dingo" or results for " charlie" or just "dingo". But it's got those words in the Title and The Description field like the other findable galleries mentioned above.
Just strange. Would make my life easier if I just knew that all titles or description fields were findable by SEARCH.
Marty, apparently you have an issue with SM itself, not S*E.
Just to clarify a few things:
1) if you do set the IPTC keywords/title for your JPEG images by some reputable tool (photoshop, for one) and upload this JPEG image via S*E or standard SM uploader, those keywords and title should be picked up by SM servers and become online image title/keywords.
2) S*E provides you with a way to override this data by assigning Caption and Keywords for the images in queue via Caption Editor. Any non-empty value will take precendence over correspondent IPTC one. Empty values will mean that IPTC ones will come to play. Note: it does not affect IPTC itslef, but simply passes the information along with the image via Smugmug image uplaod API.
3) I have absolutely no clue how SM search engine work. I mean, I can make an educated guess or two, but I think you better take this whole issue to SM techsupport
4) S*E has its own search engine, but it's for you, not for your customers.
CLEAR, make gone, start over ?
So, make a category, then a sub category, dragging and dropping albums into su-category... all fine uploads, all nice sub-category is in Category, albums with titles are in the sub-category.
BUT!!! Make a sub - category only put some of the albums ( dragging & dropping) into it , upload... all nice.... BUT!!!! can't then go back and ADD more albums to that sub-category in the same quick drag & drop fasion ? Keeps trying to put the files from the new album into some already existing album.
Want to CLEAR what I've done and start fresh. Now ADD new albums to the Sub-category I created. WANT TO : know how to make things "go away", clear, vanish... want -sometimes - to start afresh.
Have made a sub-category in STAR EXPLORER that I could not add to - in drag & drop style. OKAY, start over. First, get rid of, erase the sub - category. Can't do. Went up into SMUG MUG , deleted the sub - category, re did star explorer tree. Sub-category still there. Keeps asking... files in queue - want me to upload ? No, go away, clear, erase.... start again, fresh, new.
Re-did sub-category with slightly different name. Am trying it with one huge upload. Old failed upload seems like it will be there forever. Will it always ask now if I want to upload its' files still in the queue.
I've thrown two harddrives out the window and bought two more still it persists. Have flown to other countries and changed idenities and used etch - a - sketch instead of computer. Still those files are there, that sub-category : " want me to upload files in queue?"
Oh well.... still it's all kinda "boing boing" amusing.
So, make a category, then a sub category, dragging and dropping albums into su-category... all fine uploads, all nice sub-category is in Category, albums with titles are in the sub-category.
BUT!!! Make a sub - category only put some of the albums ( dragging & dropping) into it , upload... all nice.... BUT!!!! can't then go back and ADD more albums to that sub-category in the same quick drag & drop fasion ? Keeps trying to put the files from the new album into some already existing album.
Want to CLEAR what I've done and start fresh. Now ADD new albums to the Sub-category I created. WANT TO : know how to make things "go away", clear, vanish... want -sometimes - to start afresh.
You need to understand one simple thing (which may not be so simple after all, lol): Star*Explorer is a *VERY* context-sensitive application.
At first you didn't have any albums selected on the top-right pane, only a category/subcategory on the tree. Hence when you dragged a whole bunch of folders onto S*E window it understood your desire to create matching albums automatically and proceeded to do just that.
Now, there are some albums in that (sub)category, and one or more of them is(are) probably selected (highlighted). This is a convenience feature: S*E remembers your last choice. And since album creation is less frequent operation than adding files to existing albums, it tries to save you clicks and remembers what album you were working last time.
However, you're going against the grain, so to speak:-), and want to add more autocreated albums to the same (sub)category. All you have to do is to ensure than no album is selected on the top-right pane. To achieve this, simple navigate to ANY other (sub)category in S*E, and then navigate back to where you were. S*E would lose the album selection and become primed for autocreation again. That's all there is to it!
Have made a sub-category in STAR EXPLORER that I could not add to - in drag & drop style.
Most likely you were trying to add files, not folders. Since SM does not allow images to be album-less, S*E has to obey this strategy and requires a single album be highlighted first before files (not folders) can be added to the queue.
OKAY, start over. First, get rid of, erase the sub - category. Can't do.
That was a conscious design decision. S*E does not allow you to perform ANY destructive actions for a simple liability reasons. I can't afford you or somebody else start calling SM tech-support and complaining that they ignored my 10 warning dialogs and erased their entire year collection in one click, which of course wasn't backed up anywhere else.
Went up into SMUG MUG , deleted the sub - category, re did star explorer tree. Sub-category still there.
You need to perform both "Get albums" AND "Get categories" actions after such destructive deschyncronization measures. There is no silver bullet to it.
Keeps asking... files in queue - want me to upload ? No, go away, clear, erase.... start again, fresh, new.
Just say no:-) and start another upload - it will be gone. Worst comes to worst, search for StarExplorerQueue file in your Application data folder (may be hidden) and delete it.
Re-did sub-category with slightly different name. Am trying it with one huge upload. Old failed upload seems like it will be there forever. Will it always ask now if I want to upload its' files still in the queue.
I've thrown two harddrives out the window and bought two more still it persists. Have flown to other countries and changed idenities and used etch - a - sketch instead of computer. Still those files are there, that sub-category : " want me to upload files in queue?"
Oh well.... still it's all kinda "boing boing" amusing.
Marty ( dotfur.com)
Wow, I hope you didn't really replace the harddrives:-) As I said above, the queue is stored in the application data folder.
At any rate, you seem to push it too much. Relax. S*E wasn't designed to make your life harder, quite the opposite. But since it's a complex application with a very rich a context sensitive UI, you may need to get used to it, learn it.
If you don't feel it at first - try small. One folder, one file.
Read the warnings. Cancel at any time.
Use the right mouse button often - most of the stuff is there, otherwise the main menu would be spanning across two 30" widescreen mointors.
If things get out of sync - Get albums, Get Categories.
Worst case scenario - locate the cache file (system info tab in About dialog) and delete it, or even delete the whole starexplorer fodler in which this file resides - that would give you a complete tabula rasa (aka "from scratch":-) effect you seem to desire so much:-)
Does RESIZE WORK ?
Nikolai, Does the resize before upload work ? I selected it under tools, options, conversion . Tried 800 x 800 max. Don't think it's doing it
It does. You only need to add jpegs to the list of files masks to convert, though, otherwise they go "as is". Sounds silly to convert jpegs to jpegs, but there is a logic to it.
It does. You only need to add jpegs to the list of files masks to convert, though, otherwise they go "as is". Sounds silly to convert jpegs to jpegs, but there is a logic to it.
Got SmugVault?
This AMAZing (pun intended) new service allows you to use your SM account to store ANY types of files online, not just jpegs. Sky is the limit (well, technically 512Mb per file:-).
And the best thing - if you already have Star*Explorer, you don't have to worry about it :ivar .
Sign up for SmugVault in your SM Control Panel and then simply add the desired extensions to your "Video" files extension list (and set the limit to 512 if it wasn't set that way yet).
I added .CR2;.XMP;.PSD to my "video" list and now I can upload both RAW/XMP and PSD files...
NOTE: These files a huge and mishaps can and most likely will happen.
But S*E's persistent queue still guarantees - as always - no file gets lost, large or small!
"May the f/stop be with you!"
0
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited June 21, 2008
Thanks for the great support, Nik!
We went out in stealth mode tonight with this so that dgrinners could use it and we could see what wording isn't clear enough, etc. We had to make some very difficult decisions about how things work and we'll be watching closely to see which ones we got right and which ones need more tweaking.
We went out in stealth mode tonight with this so that dgrinners could use it and we could see what wording isn't clear enough, etc. We had to make some very difficult decisions about how things work and we'll be watching closely to see which ones we got right and which ones need more tweaking.
Chris, you guys did all the hard work , I was simply hopeful enough to put some user-configured things in S*E design hoping that one day they will be used:-) Well, one of these days just arrived!
Now getting them back - that's gonna be an interesting task. We don't want to deal with Roach Hotel MkII, do we? :-)
I mean, geting them back one by one via WEB UI is fairly easy, but some guys (e.g. yours truly) prefer doing this stuff en masse..
Now It's just too weird and sad
I don't get it - is my trial time up ?
Just want to make a "category," inside of which: sub-categories, inside of which : albums.
Nothing, can't get anything done.
Made a category, created a list of sub-categories : dragged folders onto sub-categories. Nothing.
I don't get it - is my trial time up ?
Just want to make a "category," inside of which: sub-categories, inside of which : albums.
Nothing, can't get anything done.
Made a category, created a list of sub-categories : dragged folders onto sub-categories. Nothing.
I can't even think straight now .
Marty (dotfur.com)
If the trial time was up you wound't even see the main screen:-)
I think you have folders with no images or non-registered images. S*E doesn't autocreate albums for such folders.
You can still hit Create New Albums, you know, and thus create a whole bunch in one shot...
It's Just a Joke.
I create a "category." I want to add an album to that category. In that category, there are photos.
Add album : can't even remember all the options : get images for, auto-create, etc. I SEEM to have made an album / folder . I click on the gallery I made ("bark in the park 2008") highlight, a list of what seem like albums appear in the top right hand pane. Drag folder of images to the album I want ( " ie: "agility course" ) ... drag it onto album, drag it to pane below with album I want highlighted. Drag individual files to either top pane, bottom.... select all drag all those files onto this, onto that... on and on... arrrghghgh !!!!
Marty (dotfur.com)
I create a "category." I want to add an album to that category. In that category, there are photos.
Add album : can't even remember all the options : get images for, auto-create, etc. I SEEM to have made an album / folder . I click on the gallery I made ("bark in the park 2008") highlight, a list of what seem like albums appear in the top right hand pane. Drag folder of images to the album I want ( " ie: "agility course" ) ... drag it onto album, drag it to pane below with album I want highlighted. Drag individual files to either top pane, bottom.... select all drag all those files onto this, onto that... on and on... arrrghghgh !!!!
Marty (dotfur.com)
You gotta be doing something wrong. Everything you're describing can be done in exactly 3 steps:
1) select category/subcategory (just make sure no albums are hilighted in the top right pane)
2) drag the folder with images onto any place in S*E window
3) hit Upload button
as a result an album will be created and images uploaded to it.
I said it before - don't sweat it. It should be easy. If it's not, you ARE doing something totally wrong...
resize loses iptc info ?
When resizing , all my IPTC info is lost _ or at least, no longer uploads as an auto caption. Have to add caption.
Overwrite, skip, use existing, unique : all wipe out my iptc.
Isn't there a way to resize and just leave the naming etc alone ?
Comments
Ben,
yes, any download in S*E is a Power/Pro feature. Difference between Power and Pro is that with Power you can only download info or images for one album at at time, while with Pro you can do that for any set of albums/images, including search results and whole account;-).
And yes, that's true that the comments/ratings will be gone if you replace the image, but that's how SM has it, not much I can do about it.
I did just test out disabling the quick check, as you suggested: even with this feature off, I still get the same "RPC-XML: system error (invalid image id) (5)" error with each upload attempt. I also tried clearing the "Use current cache data to update sync tree" checkbox, with no improvement.
Another possible approach: do I (as an enduser) have the ability to wipe out the local cache completely? If I do this and the problem goes away, it may simply be something wonky in my local machine's cache. Thanks,
-- Ben
Ben, I can issue you a temporary Power (or Pro) license, so you can see for yourself it it actually helps. Send me an email to support@starexplorer.com.
As to the cleaninig up: look up system Info tab in about dialog, last line is cache. Locate this file, close S*E, rename this file, start S*E. Mind you, all the info will be lost and replace feature will become pretty useless unless you have Pro.
Forgive the long note here, but I wanted to give you every detail I could.
I applied the temporary Professional key you generated for me (thanks again for doing that so quickly) and logged into my SM account. I went to Tools > Get Images Info for the target gallery, and watched all the HTTP calls coming back to SE - no errors.
I then set SE to Quick Check for duplicates and uploaded one of the problem files; same error = RPC-XML: system error (invalid image id) (5). I set it to No Check, with the same result.
So, as a next step, I decided I would blow away my local cache, thinking it must be corrupted. I followed the instructions you sent me, determining where my cache file was located by going to the Help > About menu and clicked the Account Information tab, where the Cache= setting can be partially seen. I say "partially" here because the path is deep down in the Documents & Settings area, and the About dialog does not allow me to scroll to the right to see the full string, or copy the string out of the dialog (feature request!).
I think I figured it out from what I could see and found the .MDB file in my [...]\Application Data\StarExplorer\Data\Cache\ folder. Rather than just delete it, I opened up into Access and looked at the T_IMAGES table. The photos listed there as individual records represent all of the images from the gallery and all have each of their fields fully filled out with what appears to be expected data, EXCEPT for the problem batch that I am working with.
For the problem batch, there is data only in the following fields:
F_IMAGE_ID
F_ALBUM_ID
F_IMAGESMID
F_IMAGE_KEY
F_IMAGE_NAME
( lots of empty fields )
F_TIME_STAMP
The other thing these problem images have in common: the F_TIME_STAMP field is about three weeks old, whereas all the other files have a time stamp of today (presumably due to my Get Photos Info, which probably refreshed these values).
I deleted all of the problem records from the table, and saved the database.
You'll recall that I previously had deleted these problem files from SM server side. So, heading back to SE, I uploaded half of the same problem set (No Check), this time without error!
So far, so good. I then tried to replace (Quick Check / Replace If Detected) one of the just-uploaded files, but this consistently failed with a "The operation timed out" error (this was a new error). I quit SE and went back to my MDB cache, and saw records for all my just-uploaded files now present in the T_IMAGES table (good), but they only have the same six fields I list above populated (bad); the remainder of the records are fully populated.
I went back to SE and forced another Get Images Info, quit SE and rechecked the MDB, which now showed all the expected data for the set of files. In SE, I tried to replace the same file again, with the same error. I dunno, maybe this is a SM issue that's occurring right now (but wasn't occurring just a few minutes ago).
Final thoughts:
* Maybe I will always only see data in the above six fields until I do the Get Images Info, when everything else is filled in? This is how I tried to work around the issue, but this sure doesn't sound quite right in that the replace feature would not really be available to Standard users (as the Get Files Info is not available to Standard users). I still plan to upgrade to Power, as I liked being able to pull down the metadata from the server.
* The bigger related issue: what do you suppose happened to all that missing data for the problem set? This apparently was the root cause here.
Thanks!
-- Ben
Ben, thank you very much for the detailed report!
I really think you need to start from a fresh mdb, get albums/categories and the get image info. It may take a while, but should give you a fresh start.
HTH
Got it. I missed that part in the SM help of that section.
Thanks
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Hi, just started trialing this cool program and have a (two) question(s):
Is there way to modify the category of multiple galleries in one go?
Or alternatively, move multiple galleries to another category?
However, please check SM's bulk settings editor, it should do the trick.
The only gotcha - you'd have to call get albums/categories in S*E after you make this changes online, otherwise S*E's cache will be out of sync. :-(
That you for trying Star*Explorer!
I add keywords to my albums in Star Explorer before upload. nothing comes of it in SMUGMUG. Anyone know anything about the arcane mysteries of why you can find an album titile (and sometimes a word from an album description) and other times not. Sometimes it appears in the search after awhile, sometimes never. Sometimes because one of the photos in the album has same word, sometimes - nope, sometimes no photo in the album has any key word, or caption but the gallery's name shows up right away in a search.
Is "comedy" involved here or is there actually an answer ? Be nice to tell my guest , just put word in "search" and find the album/gallery : the pics are in there.... instead of having to caption, keyword each photo.
"Search" issues always have a pie in the face, seltzer bottle, wobble head clown aspect to them here in SMUGMUG. You never want to ask about it, like it's just distasteful to point out something so shameful. Very dramatic. Did something tragic happen with the search capacity once ?
I had to go out to some nifty normal person to have them come up with some code so that pics would auto caption and be searchable by SMUGMUG.
Wish someone could help me figure out the weirness here, cue some creepy music.
Marty (dotfur.com gets you to my SmugMug site)
Marty, I'd love to help you, but with all due respect I have no idea what you're tlaking about. So many words, not enough specifics. I'm a techie, not a mind reader. Please try to describe a simple use case from the purely factual point of view. I'm sure it's something very simple, since this whole keywords/caption/search functionality has been working for months if not years.
Nikolai,
1.) If I upload a photo that I have titled here on my hard drive, the title/name/caption I have given it does not become a caption or a keyword on SMUGMUG automatically. Other way of putting it, I guess, is that "filenames" do not become captions or keywords on upload - you have to go in and caption each one manually or using the smugmug caption/keyword option. I've asked about it in posts before and was told that filenames were supposed to become keywords automatically, and that was how things use to work, and that this was currently a "bug" that SmugMug intended to fix.
see this post from Mar-03-2008 http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=85963 especially Andy's answer. I like to/need to title each photo here on my hard drive ( "spot running", "dweeble catching ball ") then upload . Which means I've got to caption and /or keyword all over again in order for visitors to the site to use the SEARCH FUNCTION. As far as that goes : I researched and found a great little tool called Exif Tool. The guy who wrote the tool code was nice enough to go step by step with me until we made a nice little app that embeds the right IPTC info in each photo bulkwise/batch .... each different filename becoming quickly its' own iptc type name, upload to SmugMug and there you have it all captioned and searchable. Nothing strange or weird about wanting the filenames to become captions or keywords for searchability reasons. Gee, I wonder if that possibly covers that issue.
A.) SmugMug does not SEARCH/find filenames. Must be captions or keywords. I dunno .... am I getting something wrong here ?
B.) Wanting SmugMug to automate in someway the captioning or keywording from filenames must not be a real exotic desire since they once use to do just this and have stated that not doing it is a "bug" that they intend to fix. I dunno .... what point am I missing here?
C.) Batch automating the individual filenames to captions/keywords/IPTC info isn't that big of a deal. I do it every time before I upload a batch of photos. Does it almost instantly. Upload, all photos are individually auto captioned and immediately findable by SEARCH.
E.) I could be completely delusional about all this. Try uploading a photo and see if it automatically becomes a keyword or a caption. Or is findable by SEARCH . I think you still have to caption or keyword it before SEARCH will find it. I'd really like to know if I'm somehow the only one with this problem.
But that's not even what I'm asking about at the moment. I gave up on all that a long time ago. I've got the EXIF TOOL on my own now to automate all that. It's just you're statement : "I'm sure it's something very simple, since this whole keywords/caption/search functionality has been working for months if not years." made me want to get into all that with you.
What I'm wondering about now is a quirk I came across months ago. Instead of captioning/keywording each individual photo so visitors to thsite could find the photo they were looking for, I just listed the names of all the dogs ( I photograph a dogpark) in that day's album/gallery in the description field of the album/gallery. Turns out that the names were findable by SEARCH. see this post. http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=87046
Now , I'm trying to use STAR EXPLORER to create Categories , Sub-Categories , albums and upload it all that way. Bypass all the captioning, IPTC stuff even here on my hard drive ; just list the names in that album in the description field of that album. Let the visitor search the rest of the way. System would be working fine if the searchability of the description fields or album titles was more consistent. Sometimes findable by SEARCH, sometimes not. Sometimes findable instantly, sometimes gotta wait for hours before SEARCH recognizes it, sometimes it never becomes findable by SEARCH.
Was just wondering what the quirkiness was all about.
For instance : on my site http://dotfur.smugmug.com/ if you put into the SEARCH field ( top right) the words "buffy maddie," SEARCH will display 3 "dotfur galleries matching : buffy maddie " one of which is titled " buffy maddie TEST " which is from a category titled JUNE 2008 (way down bottom on my homepage) in which is a sub-category Titled 01 June in which are albums..... one of which is titled " buffy maddie TEST." Far as I can tell , the 2 photos in that album have no captions, no keywords (one's file name is IMG_1321.JPG, and the other's is : IMG_0666.JPG ) yet they show up in the SEARCH due either to their album title or the words "buffy maddie" in the description field ? Put "Butch Jack" in SEARCH - that album ( 02 June sub -category from same June 2008 category) shows up in results - also no photos with any caption or key word. BUT Put "charlie (dingo boy)" (or charlie or dingo or charlie dingo) in the SEARCH field and you will not find that album/gallery from same June 2008 , 02 June sub-category in the results for Galleries Matching "Charlie Dingo" or results for " charlie" or just "dingo". But it's got those words in the Title and The Description field like the other findable galleries mentioned above.
Just strange. Would make my life easier if I just knew that all titles or description fields were findable by SEARCH.
Gotta go,
Marty http://dotfur.smugmug.com
Marty, apparently you have an issue with SM itself, not S*E.
Just to clarify a few things:
1) if you do set the IPTC keywords/title for your JPEG images by some reputable tool (photoshop, for one) and upload this JPEG image via S*E or standard SM uploader, those keywords and title should be picked up by SM servers and become online image title/keywords.
2) S*E provides you with a way to override this data by assigning Caption and Keywords for the images in queue via Caption Editor. Any non-empty value will take precendence over correspondent IPTC one. Empty values will mean that IPTC ones will come to play. Note: it does not affect IPTC itslef, but simply passes the information along with the image via Smugmug image uplaod API.
3) I have absolutely no clue how SM search engine work. I mean, I can make an educated guess or two, but I think you better take this whole issue to SM techsupport
4) S*E has its own search engine, but it's for you, not for your customers.
HTH
So, make a category, then a sub category, dragging and dropping albums into su-category... all fine uploads, all nice sub-category is in Category, albums with titles are in the sub-category.
BUT!!! Make a sub - category only put some of the albums ( dragging & dropping) into it , upload... all nice.... BUT!!!! can't then go back and ADD more albums to that sub-category in the same quick drag & drop fasion ? Keeps trying to put the files from the new album into some already existing album.
Want to CLEAR what I've done and start fresh. Now ADD new albums to the Sub-category I created. WANT TO : know how to make things "go away", clear, vanish... want -sometimes - to start afresh.
Have made a sub-category in STAR EXPLORER that I could not add to - in drag & drop style. OKAY, start over. First, get rid of, erase the sub - category. Can't do. Went up into SMUG MUG , deleted the sub - category, re did star explorer tree. Sub-category still there. Keeps asking... files in queue - want me to upload ? No, go away, clear, erase.... start again, fresh, new.
Re-did sub-category with slightly different name. Am trying it with one huge upload. Old failed upload seems like it will be there forever. Will it always ask now if I want to upload its' files still in the queue.
I've thrown two harddrives out the window and bought two more still it persists. Have flown to other countries and changed idenities and used etch - a - sketch instead of computer. Still those files are there, that sub-category : " want me to upload files in queue?"
Oh well.... still it's all kinda "boing boing" amusing.
Marty ( dotfur.com)
You need to understand one simple thing (which may not be so simple after all, lol): Star*Explorer is a *VERY* context-sensitive application.
At first you didn't have any albums selected on the top-right pane, only a category/subcategory on the tree. Hence when you dragged a whole bunch of folders onto S*E window it understood your desire to create matching albums automatically and proceeded to do just that.
Now, there are some albums in that (sub)category, and one or more of them is(are) probably selected (highlighted). This is a convenience feature: S*E remembers your last choice. And since album creation is less frequent operation than adding files to existing albums, it tries to save you clicks and remembers what album you were working last time.
However, you're going against the grain, so to speak:-), and want to add more autocreated albums to the same (sub)category. All you have to do is to ensure than no album is selected on the top-right pane. To achieve this, simple navigate to ANY other (sub)category in S*E, and then navigate back to where you were. S*E would lose the album selection and become primed for autocreation again. That's all there is to it!
Most likely you were trying to add files, not folders. Since SM does not allow images to be album-less, S*E has to obey this strategy and requires a single album be highlighted first before files (not folders) can be added to the queue.
That was a conscious design decision. S*E does not allow you to perform ANY destructive actions for a simple liability reasons. I can't afford you or somebody else start calling SM tech-support and complaining that they ignored my 10 warning dialogs and erased their entire year collection in one click, which of course wasn't backed up anywhere else.
You need to perform both "Get albums" AND "Get categories" actions after such destructive deschyncronization measures. There is no silver bullet to it.
Just say no:-) and start another upload - it will be gone. Worst comes to worst, search for StarExplorerQueue file in your Application data folder (may be hidden) and delete it.
Wow, I hope you didn't really replace the harddrives:-) As I said above, the queue is stored in the application data folder.
At any rate, you seem to push it too much. Relax. S*E wasn't designed to make your life harder, quite the opposite. But since it's a complex application with a very rich a context sensitive UI, you may need to get used to it, learn it.
If you don't feel it at first - try small. One folder, one file.
Read the warnings. Cancel at any time.
Use the right mouse button often - most of the stuff is there, otherwise the main menu would be spanning across two 30" widescreen mointors.
If things get out of sync - Get albums, Get Categories.
Worst case scenario - locate the cache file (system info tab in About dialog) and delete it, or even delete the whole starexplorer fodler in which this file resides - that would give you a complete tabula rasa (aka "from scratch":-) effect you seem to desire so much:-)
HTH
Nikolai, Does the resize before upload work ? I selected it under tools, options, conversion . Tried 800 x 800 max. Don't think it's doing it
Love the app,
Marty (http://dotfur.smugmug.com/)
It does. You only need to add jpegs to the list of files masks to convert, though, otherwise they go "as is". Sounds silly to convert jpegs to jpegs, but there is a logic to it.
Good stuff. Thanks again. What a quick reply.
marty
And yes, I probably can't beat SM techsupport (which is #1 on the web bar none), but I'm trying to match it:-)
I'd bet on you, Nikolai......
This AMAZing (pun intended) new service allows you to use your SM account to store ANY types of files online, not just jpegs. Sky is the limit (well, technically 512Mb per file:-).
And the best thing - if you already have Star*Explorer, you don't have to worry about it :ivar .
Sign up for SmugVault in your SM Control Panel and then simply add the desired extensions to your "Video" files extension list (and set the limit to 512 if it wasn't set that way yet).
I added .CR2;.XMP;.PSD to my "video" list and now I can upload both RAW/XMP and PSD files...
NOTE: These files a huge and mishaps can and most likely will happen.
But S*E's persistent queue still guarantees - as always - no file gets lost, large or small!
We went out in stealth mode tonight with this so that dgrinners could use it and we could see what wording isn't clear enough, etc. We had to make some very difficult decisions about how things work and we'll be watching closely to see which ones we got right and which ones need more tweaking.
Chris, you guys did all the hard work
Now getting them back - that's gonna be an interesting task. We don't want to deal with Roach Hotel MkII, do we? :-)
I mean, geting them back one by one via WEB UI is fairly easy, but some guys (e.g. yours truly) prefer doing this stuff en masse..
Nice work mate
There is no doubt that there will be extensive api support for retrieval of SmugVault archives. Will most probably be working on it next week.
Cheers,
David
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
The doubt never crossed my mind, mate!
I don't get it - is my trial time up ?
Just want to make a "category," inside of which: sub-categories, inside of which : albums.
Nothing, can't get anything done.
Made a category, created a list of sub-categories : dragged folders onto sub-categories. Nothing.
I can't even think straight now .
Marty (dotfur.com)
If the trial time was up you wound't even see the main screen:-)
I think you have folders with no images or non-registered images. S*E doesn't autocreate albums for such folders.
You can still hit Create New Albums, you know, and thus create a whole bunch in one shot...
I create a "category." I want to add an album to that category. In that category, there are photos.
Add album : can't even remember all the options : get images for, auto-create, etc. I SEEM to have made an album / folder . I click on the gallery I made ("bark in the park 2008") highlight, a list of what seem like albums appear in the top right hand pane. Drag folder of images to the album I want ( " ie: "agility course" ) ... drag it onto album, drag it to pane below with album I want highlighted. Drag individual files to either top pane, bottom.... select all drag all those files onto this, onto that... on and on... arrrghghgh !!!!
Marty (dotfur.com)
You gotta be doing something wrong. Everything you're describing can be done in exactly 3 steps:
1) select category/subcategory (just make sure no albums are hilighted in the top right pane)
2) drag the folder with images onto any place in S*E window
3) hit Upload button
as a result an album will be created and images uploaded to it.
I said it before - don't sweat it. It should be easy. If it's not, you ARE doing something totally wrong...
When resizing , all my IPTC info is lost _ or at least, no longer uploads as an auto caption. Have to add caption.
Overwrite, skip, use existing, unique : all wipe out my iptc.
Isn't there a way to resize and just leave the naming etc alone ?
marty (dotfur.com)