Seem to see the same pictures when Variety is running

[mrbungle1982]

Variety Version 0.4.17
Desktop Environment MATE
Linux Mint

With a folder of over 400 pictures I tend to see the same pictures over and over again with a 10 minute timer it should be a while before I see the same picture again. How about adding an alphabectical or play pictures in alphabetical order option. I think this could be the same as Bug #1138253.

Thanks

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Hm, the referenced bug turned out to not be a real bug. Some questions:

1. Can you confirm you still experience this bahaviour?
2. Have you turned off the filtering options in Color ans size tab? "Use only landscape images" is checked by default.
3. Are the majority of those 400+ images big enough for wallpapers - Variety will avoid small images when possible.
4. Are these ordinary jpeg/png images? Variety does not support RAW and other exotic formats.

If you still think this is a bug, please run Variety with "-v" option, let it run for a while and then attach here the log file (~/.config/variety/variety.log).

[viking777 (viking-f2s)]

I use Variety on both MInt and Ubuntu (Cinnamon and lxde respectively) and I get the same problem as OP, at one time, it selected the same wallpaper so often (every other time) that I had to delete the image to stop seeing it. Now it selects about 6 or 8 options from 50+ images.

In answer to the questions above:

1)Yes
2)Yes, all of them
3)All the images work if selected manually.
4)Yes

Can't run variety from command line - "no such command".
Can't attach a log file, I emptied it yesterday to see if it made any difference - so far there is no evidence that is has, but it will take a couple of weeks to be sure about that.

I agree with the OP if there was an option to load the files in order instead of just the ineffective random option the bug could be ignored.

[viking777 (viking-f2s)]

Solved one problem anyway:

/opt/extras.ubuntu.com/variety/bin/variety

Is not in the shell's path hence the command not found.

BTW version number is 0.4.17

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Ok, please run it with -v now, let it run for a while and then attach here the log file (~/.config/variety/variety.log).

There is no option to show images in order and it is not in the works for now. It is not trivial to implement properly, and for now I'd rather fix the current image selection engine than implement a new one.

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Actually please run with "-vv", not "-v"

[viking777 (viking-f2s)]

Sorry your last post was too late, I ran it with -v instead.

The results were totally different than I have previously observed.

I have 49 wallpapers total and so set it to change at 1/min and let it run for 50 mins.

The results were that I had 13 duplications (although each was only duplicated once) and 10 wallpapers that were not shown at all.

I guess this may be within the limits of a random spread and so by that criteria there is no bug.

But I know that there is, I am not the only one to have noticed how often certain wallpapers turn up when I am running normally. Maybe it has something to do with the frequency of changes, my normal practice is to change wallpapers every two hours. Obviously for this to be tested will take a week or more probably.

I will attach the log file anyway just in case you want to see it and I will go back to my original two hour cycle than have another look at the log file myself.

I will let you know but as I say it will take some time to create the log.

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

This is perfectly within the expected behaviour.
Variety does not try to show you every single image in the folders before starting to repeat them, and relies on a certain (large) amount of randomness. It never lists the whole contents of the image folders, this enables it to work sufficiently well both with 10 or 50000+ images in the folders.

Here is the relevant log part: It fills the queue with 44 images, then shows them one by one until less than 10 images are left in the queue, than it refills it again, shuffles it and continues cycling them. Given enough time, every image will have appeared roughly equal number of times on screen.

INFO: 2014-02-03 12:06:44,754: reload_config() 'No need to clear prepared queue'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:06:44,755: update_indicator() 'Setting file info to: /home/Wallpapers/Winter_Poland.png'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:06:44,756: prepare_thread() 'Prepared buffer contains 44 images'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:06:45,157: do_set_wp() 'Calling do_set_wp with /home/Wallpapers/Winter_Poland.png'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:06:45,158: update_indicator() 'Setting file info to: /home/Wallpapers/Winter_Poland.png'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:07:29,831: regular_change_thread() 'regular_change changes wallpaper'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:07:29,832: set_wallpaper() 'Calling set_wallpaper with /home/Wallpapers/29.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:07:29,832: prepare_thread() 'Prepared buffer contains 43 images'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:07:30,133: do_set_wp() 'Calling do_set_wp with /home/Wallpapers/29.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:07:30,134: update_indicator() 'Setting file info to: /home/Wallpapers/29.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:08:30,282: regular_change_thread() 'regular_change changes wallpaper'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:08:30,282: set_wallpaper() 'Calling set_wallpaper with /home/Wallpapers/28.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:08:30,283: prepare_thread() 'Prepared buffer contains 42 images'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:08:30,584: do_set_wp() 'Calling do_set_wp with /home/Wallpapers/28.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:08:30,585: update_indicator() 'Setting file info to: /home/Wallpapers/28.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:09:30,741: regular_change_thread() 'regular_change changes wallpaper'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:09:30,742: set_wallpaper() 'Calling set_wallpaper with /home/Wallpapers/04.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:09:30,742: prepare_thread() 'Prepared buffer contains 41 images'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:09:31,043: do_set_wp() 'Calling do_set_wp with /home/Wallpapers/04.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:09:31,045: update_indicator() 'Setting file info to: /home/Wallpapers/04.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:10:31,244: regular_change_thread() 'regular_change changes wallpaper'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:10:31,245: set_wallpaper() 'Calling set_wallpaper with /home/Wallpapers/17.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:10:31,245: prepare_thread() 'Prepared buffer contains 40 images'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:10:31,546: do_set_wp() 'Calling do_set_wp with /home/Wallpapers/17.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:10:31,547: update_indicator() 'Setting file info to: /home/Wallpapers/17.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:11:31,687: regular_change_thread() 'regular_change changes wallpaper'
INFO: 2014-02-03 12:11:31,687: set_wallpaper() 'Calling set_wallpaper with /home/Wallpapers/42.jpg'
INFO: 2014-02-03...

[viking777 (viking-f2s)]

Don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. My history.log for Mint is untouched since first install (the file .firstrun states 25Oct2013). This illustrates much more clearly what the problem is, and is attached below. I can't attach variety.log because it is empty (probably due to me running 'Bleachbit' regularly - which deletes .log files)

Analysis of the first page of this file indicates the following:

13 wallpapers have been loaded twice
3 wallpapers have been loaded 3 times
21 wallpapers have never been loaded.

I didn't analyze page 2 of the file but a quick look indicates that one wallpaper has been loaded 4 times in 13 changes.

This is the problem I refer to.

[viking777 (viking-f2s)]

Mistake in my last post.

Bleachbit only deletes rotated logs, not current ones, so that does not explain why 'variety.log' is completely empty - maybe it only creates a log file when run with the -v option, I don't know for sure.

[viking777 (viking-f2s)]

I also run Variety on Ubuntu 12.04LTS. Now I don't use this distro much these days, but I did a quick analysis of its history.text and it shows the following:

Of 49 wallpapers

2002-11-*** has been shown 6 times including twice in four changes
04.jpg has been shown 3 times including twice in three changes
06.jpg has been shown 3 times including twice in four changes

12 wallpapers have never been shown.

Slightly better than on Mint, but still wouldn't call it properly random.

First run date is the same as Mint 25 Oct 2013.

[mrbungle1982 (bm1982)]

Hi

To answer your questions above

1. Yes I believe so
2 I have no filters active
3 Yes the majority are 1920 by 1080 and from a digital camera
4 Yes no exotic formated pictures

I have set variety to start on login with the -vv but everytime i logout it seems to create a new log. I have attached the same log you requested from my ubuntu laptop. I will try not to logout from my mint machine for a few days and i will also pass that log onto you.

Thanks

[mrbungle1982 (bm1982)]

Hi

Please find enclosed the same log file from my mint machine. I have let this run for about 4 or 5 days so let me know if you would like anthing else.

Thanks

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Ok, analyzing these logs it seems they are perfectly within the expected behaviour - histograms look fine from all the logs you attached.
Still, I checked the relevant image-selecting code and simplified it, changing the behavior somewhat - I didn't find problems with the code, but there might have been something I didn't notice. Please check if the attached version behaves better for you.

[mrbungle1982 (bm1982)]

Hi Peter

Thank you for taking the time to look into this. I have installed the
attached on both my Linux Mint machine and my Ubuntu laptops. I will let
you know how it goes and after a couple of weeks will upload some new logs
for your opinions. If you would like me to try this on another version of
Ubuntu please let me know and I will upgrade one of my laptops to the
latest build of Ubuntu.

Thanks again

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 1:12 AM, Peter Levi <email address hidden>wrote:

> Ok, analyzing these logs it seems they are perfectly within the expected
> behaviour - histograms look fine from all the logs you attached.
> Still, I checked the relevant image-selecting code and simplified it,
> changing the behavior somewhat - I didn't find problems with the code, but
> there might have been something I didn't notice. Please check if the
> attached version behaves better for you.
>
> ** Attachment added: "variety_0.4.17ubuntu1_all.deb"
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/variety/+bug/1256417/+attachment/4020264/+files/variety_0.4.17ubuntu1_all.deb
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1256417
>
> Title:
> Seem to see the same pictures when Variety is running
>
> Status in Variety wallpaper changer:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> Variety Version 0.4.17
> Desktop Environment MATE
> Linux Mint
>
> With a folder of over 400 pictures I tend to see the same pictures
> over and over again with a 10 minute timer it should be a while before
> I see the same picture again. How about adding an alphabectical or
> play pictures in alphabetical order option. I think this could be the
> same as Bug #1138253.
>
> Thanks
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/variety/+bug/1256417/+subscriptions
>

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Don't get out of your way to do it, but when you have the opportunity,
please do test it on whatever distributions/versions you can - this always
helps. Thanks.

[mrbungle1982 (bm1982)]

Hi Peter

Well it seems that the version of variety you have provided is still not rotating images and I am still seeing the same images every now and then, although i did change the permissions to access files in my pictures folder just to make sure this was not the problem. I have been running this for 3 days on my Mint machine and I have included the logs for this.

Is or would it be possible to load all images within the folder so that it can at least go through them before loading a new set? According to the log it only seems to load 100 images and my desktop wallpapers folder contains over 400 images. I guess this may not be a possiblity as it may chew up too much memory or cause instability within the program.

I have not loaded a newer version of Ubuntu on my laptops as I think it might be better to wait for a LTS version. Attached is the latest log file and if you need anything else please let me know.

Thanks

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

This log shows it has shown you 341 images in 536 image changes, perfectly within what is expected following a random selection at every change. The histogram for the previous version looks similar. I'm attaching the current histogram.

Listing all files in memory might be possible, but will have some side effects, I'll think about it.