thumbnail problem in Thunar

diy · 2014-12-04 05:50:34

I am running Xubuntu 14.04. I encountered a wield problem in Thunar: in one directory which contains only pictures and videos, only first half of the files have thumbnails, see the screenshot.

I have tumbler installed, and all files are on a local hard drive. I did the "thunar -q" in a terminal, and restarted it, but got exactly the same behavior as before.
Any solution? Thanks.

sixsixfive · 2014-12-04 11:13:18

you could try to remove your thumbnails dir to force recreation

rm -drf ~/.thumbnails/*

killall Thunar && thunar

also whats set as the maximum file size? (/etc/xdg/tumbler/tumbler.rc and ~/.config/tumbler/tumbler.rc )

http://docs.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/tumbler

diy · 2014-12-04 14:40:26

@sixsixfive: I tried your suggestion, it made the problem worse, as I saw no thumbnails at all. However, logging out and back in helps a little, ie, some thumbnails are back, but I have no thumbnails in other directories, also the partial thumbnail problem persists.
More info:
I have no ~/.config/tumbler/tumbler.rc, all MaxFileSize in /etc/xdg/tumbler/tumbler.rc are zeros. "show thumbnails" in thunar preference is set to "local files", I have no symlinks in the directories in question.

Also, in my initial problem, I have 600 pictures and videos in the directory, the thumbnail generation stopped on the "first page", ie scrolling down revealed generic icons without further thumbnail generation. I just logged out and back in, this time the thumbnail generation stopped in the middle of the "first page" just before a .mov file (of another directory).
I don't know if this is a known bug. Can anyone reproduce what I have seen? Is there a command to force thunar to generate thumbnails?
Thanks for your help.

ToZ · 2014-12-04 15:46:06

There are quite a few tumbler bug reports. See:
- https://bugzilla.xfce.org/buglist.cgi?c … lution=---
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tumbler

In addition to what @sixsixfive suggests, you might also have a look to see if a thumbnails directory exists in your ~/.cache folder. If so, delete them both, kill tumblerd ("pkill tumblerd") and thunar ("pkill [Tt]hunar") and revisit the directory with Thunar to see if that helps.

If the problem persists, look for error messages in dmesg:

dmesg | grep -i tumblerd

...and you might want to run an strace on the tumblerd process. Its a little tricky to get it running, but basically repeat the the process above of deleting the thumbnail folders and killing tumbler and thunar, then open thunar and go to a directory with a few images. Then run:

sudo strace -p $(pgrep tumblerd)

...(to grab the newly fired up tumblerd process) and then visit the problem directory and see if you get any error messages. Cross-reference those error messages against the bug reports.

Also look for high CPU/Ram/IO usage of the tumblerd process. If that happens, pkill tumblerd and reload (Ctrl+R) the directory contents again to see if any progress is made.

Out of curiosity, which version of tumbler do you have running?

apt-cache policy tumbler

diy · 2014-12-05 16:11:16

The suggestion "pkill tumblerd" really helped. There is no need to kill Thunar, just "pkill tumblerd", and moving out then back into the directory in Thunar generates the thumbnails, provided there is no problematic files in the directory.
After repeatedly using "pkill tumblerd", I was able to regenerate most of the thumbnails.

"dmesg | grep -i tumblerd" did not show anything. From this experience, it seems that tumbler (version 0.1.30) is fragile, or buggy. When it crashes, it becomes a zombie (instead of killing itself). This leads to following question:
Is there a way to configure Thunar to use a different thumbnail generator? I would imagine that thumbnail generation is a mature technology, why does Thunar choose to use such an immature package?
Forgive me for wondering on this point, I am a first-time Xubuntu user. In light of what I did was ordinary, this wasn't a great user experience.

ToZ · 2014-12-05 16:37:59

Were you able to run an strace on it? It would help with the bug reports.

I'm not sure about using other thumbnailers - I've never tried. Tumbler is an Xfce component and its always worked for me (I don't have huge image or video collections though). Perhaps someone else can comment who has tried replacing it.

Since the killing of the tumblerd process helped, have a look at this script (its in the Arch wiki, but it will work for other distros as well). It auto-kills tumblerd when it misbehaves - kind of a workaround to this bug.

MountainDewManiac · 2014-12-05 16:46:31

What thumbnailer does PCFileMan use? I tried it a while back (but went back to Thunar) and noticed that it was capable of creating lots of thumbnails quickly.

Regards,
MDM

ToZ · 2014-12-05 17:00:26

MountainDewManiac wrote:

What thumbnailer does PCFileMan use? I tried it a while back (but went back to Thunar) and noticed that it was capable of creating lots of thumbnails quickly.
Regards,
MDM

Apparently it uses a built-in thumbnailer with image support, but like Thunar, relies on third-party thumbnailing engines (ffmpegthumbnailer, freetype2, gstreamer0.10, libgsf, libopenraw, etc) to do the actual thumbnailing (reference). This is why I think it would be interesting to see an strace of the errors - to see if its being caused by tumbler or one of the 3rd party thumbnailing engines. For example, look at the strace snippet from this bug report:

StacktraceTop:
 ?? () from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tumbler-1/plugins/tumbler-gst-thumbnailer.so
 ?? ()
 ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
 ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
 start_thread () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0

Although tumbler crashed, the bug is actually in the gstreamer thumbnailer (a separate package/project).

diy · 2014-12-06 04:55:03

@ToZ: strace is a little over my head, so I did not run. From your answer, it seems that running it might help improving tumbler, so I fire strace up, and went into the problematic directory in Thunar, here is the strace output on the terminal screen:

restart_syscall(<... resuming interrupted call ...>) = 1
read(4, 0x7fff35bb3e40, 16)             = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
write(4, "\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 8)         = 8
recvmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(1)=[{"l\1\0\1\230\3\0\0D\n\0\0\307\0\0\0\1\1o\0(\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 2048}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC}, MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC) = 1136
write(4, "\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 8)         = 8
recvmsg(3, 0x7fff35bb3cb0, MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
write(4, "\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 8)         = 8
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 1 ([{fd=4, revents=POLLIN}])
futex(0x7f95b294d9a4, FUTEX_WAKE_OP_PRIVATE, 1, 1, 0x7f95b294d9a0, {FUTEX_OP_SET, 0, FUTEX_OP_CMP_GT, 1}) = 1
sendmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(2)=[{"l\2\1\1\4\0\0\0\n\0\0\0\37\0\0\0\6\1s\0\6\0\0\0:1.106\0\0"..., 48}, {"\1\0\0\0", 4}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 52
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 1 ([{fd=4, revents=POLLIN}])
read(4, "\4\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16)         = 8
sendmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(2)=[{"l\4\1\1\4\0\0\0\v\0\0\0\217\0\0\0\1\1o\0(\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 160}, {"\1\0\0\0", 4}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 164
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 2, 300585

I hope this would be useful to developers of thumbler (version 0.1.30 on my system).

Last edited by ToZ (2014-12-06 14:26:44)

MountainDewManiac · 2014-12-06 12:31:05

Yikes! Can you put text output in CODE tags? <MUTTERS>There ought to be a sticky about that...

[CO DE]Text you wish to be displayed cleanly[/CO DE] (Remove spaces to implement.)

Regards,
MDM

ToZ · 2014-12-06 14:32:13

diy wrote:

@ToZ: strace is a little over my head, so I did not run. From your answer, it seems that running it might help improving tumbler, so I fire strace up, and went into the problematic directory in Thunar, here is the strace output on the terminal screen:

restart_syscall(<... resuming interrupted call ...>) = 1
read(4, 0x7fff35bb3e40, 16)             = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
write(4, "\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 8)         = 8
recvmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(1)=[{"l\1\0\1\230\3\0\0D\n\0\0\307\0\0\0\1\1o\0(\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 2048}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC}, MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC) = 1136
write(4, "\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 8)         = 8
recvmsg(3, 0x7fff35bb3cb0, MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
write(4, "\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 8)         = 8
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 1 ([{fd=4, revents=POLLIN}])
futex(0x7f95b294d9a4, FUTEX_WAKE_OP_PRIVATE, 1, 1, 0x7f95b294d9a0, {FUTEX_OP_SET, 0, FUTEX_OP_CMP_GT, 1}) = 1
sendmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(2)=[{"l\2\1\1\4\0\0\0\n\0\0\0\37\0\0\0\6\1s\0\6\0\0\0:1.106\0\0"..., 48}, {"\1\0\0\0", 4}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 52
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 1 ([{fd=4, revents=POLLIN}])
read(4, "\4\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16)         = 8
sendmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(2)=[{"l\4\1\1\4\0\0\0\v\0\0\0\217\0\0\0\1\1o\0(\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 160}, {"\1\0\0\0", 4}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 164
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 2, 300585

I hope this would be useful to developers of thumbler (version 0.1.30 on my system).

Is this strace from when tumbler was hanging and not creating thumbnails?

diy · 2014-12-06 16:04:42

@MDM: I would like to help. As I stated that I have never used strace before, I don't know the CODE tags format. Please give me detailed instruction on what to type in from a terminal.

@ToZ: I know that a particular directory contains a file that causes tumbler to crash. I moved out of that directory in Thunar, then on a terminal I did "pkill tumblerd", then followed by "sudo strace -p $(pgrep tumblerd)". Afterwards I enter the problematic directory in Thunar. The terminal output was then pasted into my previous post. Hope this clarifies the situation.

MountainDewManiac · 2014-12-06 17:21:01

diy wrote:

@MDM: I would like to help. As I stated that I have never used strace before, I don't know the CODE tags format. Please give me detailed instruction on what to type in from a terminal.

You misunderstood(*). CODE tags aren't typed into a terminal, you use them on forums to bracket the output of your terminal so that it is easier to read. (Or, more literally, for displaying code.) They are case-insensitive.

[co de]A bunch of text
that
you
want
displayed
the way it looks in your terminal.[/co de]

With the spaces removed, becomes:

A bunch of text
 that
  you
   want
    displayed
      the way it looks in your terminal.

It can make it easer to read because it does not wrap lines and it uses a monospace font, so anything that is displayed in rows/columns should appear correctly. It's not something that will keep a person from getting helped if they do not use them. It's just... <SHRUGS>

Regards,
MDM

(*) There REALLY ought to be a sticky titled "How to Ask for Help" that explains how to determine which (and which version) distro a person is using, which version of XFCE, how to get basic information about their hardware, and how & why to use CODE tags. There are probably other things that would be useful that I'm too poorly educated about linux to know, lol. ToZ, if you create one and then lock it, I promise to put a link to it in my .SIG.

ToZ · 2014-12-06 19:11:53

diy wrote:

@ToZ: I know that a particular directory contains a file that causes tumbler to crash. I moved out of that directory in Thunar, then on a terminal I did "pkill tumblerd", then followed by "sudo strace -p $(pgrep tumblerd)". Afterwards I enter the problematic directory in Thunar. The terminal output was then pasted into my previous post. Hope this clarifies the situation.

Thanks for the clarification. strace outputs alot of information and we're only seeing the last bit. Can you try the same process with this command instead:

sudo strace -p $(pgrep tumblerd) -o /tmp/strace.out

...this will create a /tmp/strace.out file with all of the output. Probably won't be a good idea to copy/paste the contents here because of the sheer amount of information it will contain. Instead, can you host the file to an online paste site like http://pastebin.com/ and post back the link to the paste?

diy · 2014-12-06 21:54:53

@ToZ: I agree with MountainDewManiac that there should be a Tab at the top on the forum with the title "How to ask for help". In there various procedures should be explained, eg, how to post a screenshot, how to post an output file. I learned the former from the reply of my first post in this forum on a different topic. As for the latter (posting a link to an uploaded file), I still don't know how to do it. I went to http://pastebin.com/, it's unclear to me how to proceed from there. Please advice as to how the strace.out file can be uploaded to the forum post.

A thought just occurred to me. Is tumbler used exclusively by Thunar? If this is the case, then make Thunar check the return status of the call to tumbler, and kill tumblerd if abnormality occurs. I know this can be implemented with one or two lines of code in Thunar. This does not fix the buggy issue with tumbler, but makes Thunar more robust.

ToZ · 2014-12-07 01:35:37

diy wrote:

@ToZ: I agree with MountainDewManiac that there should be a Tab at the top on the forum with the title "How to ask for help". In there various procedures should be explained, eg, how to post a screenshot, how to post an output file. I learned the former from the reply of my first post in this forum on a different topic. As for the latter (posting a link to an uploaded file), I still don't know how to do it. I went to http://pastebin.com/, it's unclear to me how to proceed from there. Please advice as to how the strace.out file can be uploaded to the forum post.

I'll look at creating a help file for these specific issues. In the meantime:

1. Open the strace.out file in mousepad (or your editor of choice)
2. Select all text (Edit->Select All or Ctrl+a)
3. Copy it (Edit->Copy or Ctrl+c)
4. Paste it into the pastebin.com "New Paste" window
5. Click on the webiste's "Submit" button.
6. You'll be asked to verify that you are human (answer the captcha) and then the paste will be created.
7. Copy/paste the link from the url bar into your post so that we can view it.

A thought just occurred to me. Is tumbler used exclusively by Thunar? If this is the case, then make Thunar check the return status of the call to tumbler, and kill tumblerd if abnormality occurs. I know this can be implemented with one or two lines of code in Thunar. This does not fix the buggy issue with tumbler, but makes Thunar more robust.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to submit patches for review to fix issues. Find the relevant bug report (https://bugzilla.xfce.org/buglist.cgi?c … lution=---) and comment on it with the patch as an attachment. The developer looking after the package will review it and offer comments and/or approve it.

Keep in mind that there are limited developers working on Xfce, so this process may take some time.

diy · 2014-12-07 04:02:12

@ToZ: Thanks. Here is the link to the strace output of a trashed tumblerd: http://pastebin.com/4ZJgpMUu

With regard to the Thunar code change, I hope you can pass my suggest to the right people. I have been repeatedly doing "pkill tumblerd" manually, it makes sense for Thunar to do it automatically after a crash. It would take me tens of hours just find where things are. My sincere thanks to open source developers who make linux possible.

MountainDewManiac · 2014-12-07 12:19:06

diy wrote:

@ToZ: I agree with MountainDewManiac that there should be a Tab at the top on the forum with the title "How to ask for help".

ToZ, I just hope I haven't gotten on your last nerve by asking you to take on that little project. It seems like a worthwhile thing and I'd be about 92% useless at it. For example, I remember that there's a command to execute that'll return information about the graphics hardware - or was that the currently installed graphics driver, lol? - but never can remember it and have to cursor-up in my terminal until I find it roll ... (If I ever manage to pooch my terminal command history, I'll be helpless.) But the existence of such a sticky might make yours and some of the other members who have both the knowledge and the willingness to share it... It'd (hopefully) mean that people who are asking for help could be referred to it at the outset and that there'd be less "back and forth" posting before the actual help begins because of it. Hopefully.

I would be happy to add some screenshots here and there to such a thing (if you felt that it would be helpful), write a paragraph about Synaptic Package Manager and how to use it to check to see which version of any particular file is installed and view the history of installed/removed/upgraded packages in it, whatever little things I know if you think it would help - and help keep you from having to do everything.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled HelpFest, starring cool ToZ cool .

Regards,
MDM

ToZ · 2014-12-07 13:59:34

There already exists a sticky thread on how to ask a question. Perhaps we could add to it.

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#1 2014-12-04 05:50:34

thumbnail problem in Thunar

#2 2014-12-04 11:13:18

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#3 2014-12-04 14:40:26

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#4 2014-12-04 15:46:06

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#5 2014-12-05 16:11:16

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#6 2014-12-05 16:37:59

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#7 2014-12-05 16:46:31

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#8 2014-12-05 17:00:26

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#9 2014-12-06 04:55:03

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#10 2014-12-06 12:31:05

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#11 2014-12-06 14:32:13

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#12 2014-12-06 16:04:42

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#13 2014-12-06 17:21:01

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#14 2014-12-06 19:11:53

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#15 2014-12-06 21:54:53

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#16 2014-12-07 01:35:37

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#17 2014-12-07 04:02:12

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#18 2014-12-07 12:19:06

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

#19 2014-12-07 13:59:34

Re: thumbnail problem in Thunar

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