Cannot handle HEIC images

[John100]

Upon trying to open a HEIC image, GIMP displays the "Opening '[...].HEIC' failed: Unknown file type" message and fails to open in.

Also, exporting to an image in the HEIC format, the "The given filename does not have any known file extension. Please enter a known file extension or select a file format from the file format list." message is shown.

Installation of the by-default missing heif-gdk-pixbuf and libheif-examples packages from the default depository did not solve the issue. (While the heif-gdk-pixbuf solved the image opening issue for the Eye of MATE Image Viewer and the Shotwell Photo Viewer on the same machine. And the libheif-examples package allowed to convert the HEIC images to JPG in a terminal.)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 23.10
Package: gimp 2.10.34-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.5.0-10.10-generic 6.5.3
Uname: Linux 6.5.0-10-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.27.0-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: MATE
Date: Mon Nov 6 16:53:44 2023
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-12-22 (2510 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-MATE 16.10 "Yakkety Yak" - Release amd64 (20161012.1)
SourcePackage: gimp
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to mantic on 2023-11-04 (2 days ago)

[John100 (john100)]

Opening of HEIC images was possible on earlier Ubuntu/GIMP versions - I guess it was on Ubuntu 23.04 or Ubuntu 22.10 and its default GIMP installation.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Cepheid (cepheid)]

I can confirm this bug on Lubuntu 23.10.
Previously, on Lubuntu 23.04, I could view HEIC images with all image viewers, using heif-gdk-pixbuf and libheif-examples.
Now, on Lubuntu 23.10, I cannot view HEIC images any more with the following image viewers:

NOT WORKING image viewers / graphics software:
gThumb
Geeqie
LXimage
GIMP

The only viewer that is working to view HEIC images now on my Lubuntu 23.10 machine is:
Eye of Mate (EOM)

[Michael Schumacher (schumaml)]

The messages

"Opening '[...].HEIC' failed: Unknown file type"

 and

"The given filename does not have any known file extension. Please enter a known file extension or select a file format from the file format list."

indicate that the file-heif plug-in of GIMP hasn't registered the file type and common file name extension, so GIMP doesn't know about them.

The file lists for the GIMP packages from https://packages.ubuntu.com/mantic/gimp shows that the plug-in is supposed to be packaged, so it seems to have been built.

Could be that something is preventing it from running when GIMP starts up - this is when plug-ins are queried about e.g. what file type they are supposed to handle.

When you run GIMP from a terminal window, are there any interesting error messages?

[John100 (john100)]

There is following output:
---------
a@b:~$ gimp
Plug-in "script-fu"
(/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu/script-fu) is installing procedure "script-fu-bw-film" with a full menu path "<Image>/Colors/BW Film Simulation" as menu label, this deprecated and will be an error in GIMP 3.0
Plug-in "script-fu"
(/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu/script-fu) is installing procedure "script-fu-selection-to-anim-image" with a full menu path "<Image>/Filters/Animation/Animators/Selection to AnimImage..." as menu label, this deprecated and will be an error in GIMP 3.0
Plug-in "script-fu"
(/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu/script-fu) is installing procedure "diana-holga2c" with a full menu path "<Image>/Filters/Artistic/diana-holga2b" as menu label, this deprecated and will be an error in GIMP 3.0
Plug-in "script-fu"
(/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu/script-fu) is installing procedure "script-fu-draw-arch" with a full menu path "<Image>/FX-Foundry/Shapes/Parametric/_Arch" as menu label, this deprecated and will be an error in GIMP 3.0
Plug-in "script-fu"
(/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu/script-fu) is installing procedure "script-fu-draw-box" with a full menu path "<Image>/FX-Foundry/Shapes/Parametric/Box" as menu label, this deprecated and will be an error in GIMP 3.0
Plug-in "script-fu"
(/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu/script-fu) is installing procedure "script-fu-draw-ellipse" with a full menu path "<Image>/FX-Foundry/Shapes/Parametric/Ellipse" as menu label, this deprecated and will be an error in GIMP 3.0
Plug-in "script-fu"
(/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu/script-fu) is installing procedure "script-fu-gap-dup-continue" with a full menu path "<Image>/Video/Duplicate Continue" as menu label, this deprecated and will be an error in GIMP 3.0
----------

There is no additional output upon trying to open a HEIC image.

[Cepheid (cepheid)]

At least on my computer, I think the source of the problem is not in GIMP, because it also effects other viewers and even imgmagick.

I have a bash script for mass conversion of jpg to heic. This shell script uses "heif-enc" and after the upgrade to Lubuntu 23.10, it's still working like before.

However, when I want to use imgmagick to display the heic file, it's not working.
display test.heic
=> nothing is happening. Imgmagick doesn't show the file. The same behaviour for gThumb, Geeqie, LXimage, GIMP

Only Eye of Mate (EOM) succeeds in displaying the photo. I think the interesting question would be: How is EOM different to these other graphics programs?
I suspect that EOM has built-in HEIC support while the others are using the generic library.

I also suspect that somehow the HEIC file type is not properly registered any more after the upgrade to Lubuntu 23.10

[Michael Schumacher (schumaml)]

EOM doesn't have a direct dependency on libheif (https://packages.ubuntu.com/mantic/eom), so my guess would be that it goes through the gdk-pixbuf loaders.

[Aleksey Lobanov (alekseylobanov)]

Problem on my system too. ImageMagick is unable to convert:

➜ convert image.heic image.jpg
convert-im6.q16: no images defined `image.jpg' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3229.

GIMP can not import heic images.

Versions:
DE: Plasma 5.27.8
OS: Kubuntu 23.10 x86_64
Kernel: 6.5.0-15-generic
GNU Image Manipulation Program version 2.10.34
Version: ImageMagick 6.9.11-60 Q16 x86_64 2021-01-25 https://imagemagick.org
Delegates (built-in): bzlib djvu fftw fontconfig freetype heic jbig jng jp2 jpeg lcms lqr ltdl lzma openexr pangocairo png tiff webp wmf x xml zlib

[seth tro (sethtro)]

Both gimp and eye of gnome weren't working on my system.
After I installed heif-gdk-pixbuf and heif-thumbnailer eog started working

[Thomas Morin (tmmorin-orange)]

I observe this issue on Ubuntu 23.10, even after installing heif-gdk-pixbuf, heif-thumbnailer and libheif-* .