Please add webp loader to gdk-pixbuf

[Akkana Peck]

Attempting to load a webp image -- for instance,
  https://images.theweek.com/sites/default/files/styles/tw_image_9_4/public/FKK78W.jpg.webp
or
  https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2YtWB5zH7sPycyc0FYv3JSB6SFw=/60x0:1140x720/920x613/filters:focal(60x0:1140x720):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49663815/timburton.0.0.jpg
-- in a gdk-pixbuf app results in a "Couldn’t recognize the image file format" error.

Bug 1318327 covers this issue in eye of gnome, and bug 1407644 in libwebp, but isn't this really a gdk-pixbuf issue? If it really does belong to libwebp, my apologies, please dup this bug to 1407644 (I'm confident it doesn't belong to eog since I don't use that program; I have other programs that use libgdk-pixbuf).

You can probably use eog to test this, or run
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders | grep -i webp
(I assume the loader would mention webp if there was a loader for it).

I have these packages installed in addition to libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0: libwebp-dev libwebp6 libwebpdemux2 libwebpmux3 webp. file recognizes the format:

$ file /tmp/FKK78W.jpg.webp
/tmp/FKK78W.jpg.webp: RIFF (little-endian) data, Web/P image, VP8 encoding, 1200x533, Scaling: [none]x[none], YUV color, decoders should clamp

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10
Package: libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 2.40.0+dfsg-1build1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-40.32-generic 5.3.18
Uname: Linux 5.3.0-40-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Feb 21 08:48:36 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-10-10 (133 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Beta amd64 (20190926.1)
SourcePackage: gdk-pixbuf
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Akkana Peck (akkzilla)]

See also bug #1407644 (libwebp) and bug #1318327 (eog). Still a problem in focal fossa.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[tudo75 (tudo75)]

I solved using this loader
https://github.com/aruiz/webp-pixbuf-loader

[Jonathan Yip (helkaluin)]

In case you don't want to wait for aruiz's loader to be packaged in Debian (and then trickled down to Ubuntu), here's a PPA:
https://code.launchpad.net/~helkaluin/+archive/ubuntu/webp-pixbuf-loader

[Marcos Alano (mhalano)]

The correction was released? the pixbuf-loader was packaged in Ubuntu?

[Vivien GUEANT (vivienfr)]

The webp-pixbuf-loader package is still not available with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. It is impossible to view a WebP image, except to open it with Firefox.

It is really important to add WebP format natively in Uuntu.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

No it's not fixed, the upstream gdk-pixbuf task got closed because they don't want to accept new loaders in source so it needs to be fixed in another component.

We should probably push to integrate it as a new package at some point but there hasn't been high demand for it so far and it's not frequent to find webp images yet which means it's still a low priority item.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

webp-pixbuf-loader is in the Debian new queue now, https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

webp-pixbuf-loader was just packaged for Ubuntu 22.10 (which will be released in October). If you install that package, you can open webp files in eog, etc.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

and it's handled by eog now
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eog/43~beta-1ubuntu2

[Ken Sharp (kennybobs)]

This still isn't in Jammy

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

webp-pixbuf-loader package is added to ppa:baltix and to ubuntu-defaults-baltix metapackage recommends, see commit:

https://salsa.debian.org/baltix-team/baltix-defaults-metapackages/ubuntu-defaults-baltix/-/commit/45d2bdff366a8125a079d3ec10a274df22d00d36#5c28d8ddb90b37ffdfa1108948fbd9ff73f845a1