Cover Thumbnailer has stopped working completely

[Justin]

Hi, thanks for Cover Thumbnailer, I've been using it for sometime.
Unfortunately, it has stopped working. As in at all.
I discovered this when I added some new albums to my music library and no thumbnail was was produced. I cannot speculate as to when it actually stopped working, it's not something that I necessarily notice often.
Anyway, the recent Cover Thumbnailer update may have broken it (but probably not, see below); I also use Nautilus Elementary, perhaps that has something to do with it.

I find nothing in any logs, and I can find no debugging instructions to give more info.

I have reinstalled Cover Thumbnailer to no avail.

I have of course cleared the thumbnail cache, which simply removed all Cover Thumbnailer's custom thumbs, never to return.

Clearing the thumbnail cache and logging out/rebooting has no effect.

Other thumbnailing operations work, such as IMDB Thumbnailer and the Wine/exe thumbnailer (both of which I installed after Cover Thumbnailer stopped working).

I have also tried downgrading to 0.7.2 using the GNOME Look website, which also did not have any effect.

Running manually, i.e., "cover-thumbnailer '/home/justin/Music/Music/Adolescents' '/home/justin/Music/Music/Adolescents/.folder.jpg'" completes successfully but simply makes the .folder.jpg file look like the folder should look without altering the appearance of the folder itself.

If you would like me to do something else let me know. I can't think of anything else.

[Justin (deadite81)]

Sorry I forgot to mention that I'm using Ubuntu 10.04!

[Jan (jancborchardt-deactivatedaccount)]

Since you mention Nautilus Elementary: I tried that once on my old install and Cover Thumbnailer stopped working there too. I can not tie it directly to that but it may be a hint.

I guess Cover Thumbnailer is different from other thumbnailers as it works for folders, not for files. That might explain why they are working.

On my newly installed 10.04 system, the newest 0.7.3 works flawlessly.

Sorry for not being really that helpful – we’ll have to wait for Fabien. ;)

[Justin (deadite81)]

On 06/26/2010 06:33 PM, Jan-Christoph Borchardt wrote:
> Since you mention Nautilus Elementary: I tried that once on my old
> install and Cover Thumbnailer stopped working there too. I can not tie
> it directly to that but it may be a hint.
>
> I guess Cover Thumbnailer is different from other thumbnailers as it
> works for folders, not for files. That might explain why they are
> working.
>
> On my newly installed 10.04 system, the newest 0.7.3 works flawlessly.
>
> Sorry for not being really that helpful – we’ll have to wait for Fabien.
> ;)
>
>
When I wrote this report I was thinking that Nautilus Elementary has
something to do with it. Your experience makes this the likely cause.
Are they really that different? I didn't think they would be, but I'm
no developer.

This could cause confusion as to which program this is a bug for,
Nautilus Elementary or Cover Thumbnailer. I mention this because I did
notice that Nautilus Elementary does not create video file thumbnails
either, which was default behavior in the normal Nautilus. But after I
installed IMDB Thumbnailer the default thumbnailing behavior resumed
again if IMDB Thumbnailer could not find a movie thumb. (Default
behavior being a thumb of a still picture from within the video file.)
It may be that Nautilus Elementary is made this way on purpose, raising
the question whether this is a bug at all.

Maybe your friend will know more, I'm confusing myself already! Thanks
for the quick reply, I hope there's a fix because I miss my thumbnails!

[Fabien LOISON (flozz)]

Hello

Can you give me the result of those command :

gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/command
gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/enable

I will make tests with Nautilus Elementary for finding why it does not work...

[Justin (deadite81)]

On 06/27/2010 04:50 AM, Fabien LOISON (FLOZz) wrote:
> Hello
>
>
> Can you give me the result of those command :
>
> gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/command
> gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/enable
>
>
> I will make tests with Nautilus Elementary for finding why it does not work...
>
>
$ gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/command

No value set for `/desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/command'

gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/enable

No value set for `/desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/enable'

I checked in the gconf-editor and do not find these values.

[Fabien LOISON (flozz)]

Ok... the problem is here... It very strange that the key vanishes in gconf like that... and somebody else reports me the same problem by mail... :s

For solving your problem you can try those commands :

  → For Debian/Ubuntu :

gconf-schemas --register /usr/share/cover-thumbnailer/cover-thumbnailer.schema

  → For other distros :

export GCONF_CONFIG_SOURCE=`gconftool-2 --get-default-source`
gconftool-2 --makefile-install-rule /usr/share/cover-thumbnailer/cover-thumbnailer.schema

Then you have to logout and login again for cover-thumbnailer starts working.

I'll try to understand why the GConf keys disappear :/

[Jan (jancborchardt-deactivatedaccount)]

Then it’s no wonder. ;)

The values should be:
gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/command
cover-thumbnailer %u %o
gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/enable
true

I don’t know if that can be fixed by just setting them (as they may need schemas), but you might want to try:
gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/command "cover-thumbnailer %u %o"
gconftool-2 --type bool --set /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory/enable true

[Justin (deadite81)]

On 06/27/2010 08:20 AM, Fabien LOISON (FLOZz) wrote:
> Ok... the problem is here... It very strange that the key vanishes in
> gconf like that... and somebody else reports me the same problem by
> mail... :s
>
>
> For solving your problem you can try those commands :
>
> → For Debian/Ubuntu :
>
> gconf-schemas --register /usr/share/cover-thumbnailer/cover-
> thumbnailer.schema
>
> → For other distros :
>
> export GCONF_CONFIG_SOURCE=`gconftool-2 --get-default-source`
> gconftool-2 --makefile-install-rule /usr/share/cover-thumbnailer/cover-thumbnailer.schema
>
> Then you have to logout and login again for cover-thumbnailer starts
> working.
>
>
> I'll try to understand why the GConf keys disappear :/
>
>
This command has fixed the problem:

sudo gconf-schemas --register
/usr/share/cover-thumbnailer/cover-thumbnailer.schema

Even if installing Nautilus Elementary removes this, I wonder why
reinstalling Cover Thumbnailer does not bring it back... Anyway, Thank
you very much :)

[Fabien LOISON (flozz)]

I installed Nautilus Elementary and there is no problem... Nautilus Elementary is maybe not the problem... I keep searching the problem :)

[Justin (deadite81)]

On 06/27/2010 09:01 AM, Fabien LOISON (FLOZz) wrote:
> I installed Nautilus Elementary and there is no problem... Nautilus
> Elementary is maybe not the problem... I keep searching the problem :)
>
> ** Changed in: cover-thumbnailer
> Importance: Undecided => Low
>
> ** Changed in: cover-thumbnailer
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
>
On my end all I can say is that I do install and uninstall programs
quite often; I quite literally try all the new stuff, so if it's not an
internal Cover Thumbnailer problem it could be any number of conflicts
as far as my box concerned.

It is worth noting that a Complete Removal through Synaptic followed by
reinstalling through Synaptic or through GNOME Look's .debs did not
replace the missing schema.

If you need me to do anything else let me know and thanks for the quick fix.

[Justin (deadite81)]

On 06/27/2010 09:21 AM, Justin wrote:
> On 06/27/2010 09:01 AM, Fabien LOISON (FLOZz) wrote:
>
>> I installed Nautilus Elementary and there is no problem... Nautilus
>> Elementary is maybe not the problem... I keep searching the problem :)
>>
>> ** Changed in: cover-thumbnailer
>> Importance: Undecided => Low
>>
>> ** Changed in: cover-thumbnailer
>> Status: New => Incomplete
>>
>>
>>
> On my end all I can say is that I do install and uninstall programs
> quite often; I quite literally try all the new stuff, so if it's not an
> internal Cover Thumbnailer problem it could be any number of conflicts
> as far as my box concerned.
>
> It is worth noting that a Complete Removal through Synaptic followed by
> reinstalling through Synaptic or through GNOME Look's .debs did not
> replace the missing schema.
>
> If you need me to do anything else let me know and thanks for the quick fix.
>
Hello again! I'm afraid there is a new development :(
It took a minute to for me to catch this, but every time I reboot my
computer Cover Thumbnailer stops working. The key in gconf-editor,
desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/inode@directory, simply disappears.

If I want to update the thumbs created by Cover Thumbnailer I have to:

$ sudo gconf-schemas --register
/usr/share/cover-thumbnailer/cover-thumbnailer.schema

Then:

$ killall nautilus ; nautilus

After that Cover Thumbnailer works correctly again until the next reboot.

[Fabien LOISON (flozz)]

It's very strange... I'll inquire on that !
Thanks for feedback

[Juan Simón (simonbcn)]

Ubuntu 10.04 32 bits
Nautilus Elementary 1:2.31.1-0ubuntu2~ppa92

I have updated to 0.8.2 version and now it stops working. :-(
I can't use the Justin solution because "/usr/share/cover-thumbnailer/cover-thumbnailer.schema" doesn't exist.

[Fabien LOISON (flozz)]

The problem can be solved with an :

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure cover-thumbnailer

or

    gconf-schemas --register cover-thumbnailer.schemas

NOTE : It is for Debian based distributions only ↑

[Juan Simón (simonbcn)]

"sudo dpkg-reconfigure cover-thumbnailer" does nothing to me.
"/usr/share/cover-thumbnailer/cover-thumbnailer.schema" still doesn't exist.

[Juan Simón (simonbcn)]

Ok, I've written too fast.
"gconf-schemas --register cover-thumbnailer.schemas" solves the problem to me.
Thanks. ☺