[Bug] a few thumbnail issues + Vista audio preview
Posted: 01 Oct 2007 15:02
So I encountered a few bugs, and thought best to report them (though I don't think all of the vista audio problem is a bug as such). Let's start with the thumbnails:
I use the thumbnail view quite frequently, but for some reason I didn't discover this problem until recently. The problem is that if you are viewing the images in a folder using the thumb view and then save a new image file in said folder, it will only be displayed as a black square and no thumbnail gets created for it.
I've then tried to change back to details view and to thumbnails again but it doesn't change anything. Restarting Xyplorer doesn't help either. The only way to get it to create the thumbnails for these files is to refesh them all.
In addition, several times that this has happened, the thumbnail cache for the already "thumbed" in this folder suddently also gets corrupted, and a whole buch of them are now also black. When this happens, the only way I've been able to solve it is by manually deleting the thumbnail cache and re-generating it.
How to replicate problem (the first part of it anway) with a 100% success rate:
• Added: Enable thumbnail caching.
• Open a folder with some images, and set Xyplorer to thumbnail view.
• Drop a image from outside Xyplorer (e.g. using Windows Explorer) into the folder. You will now notice that it is simply represented with a black square.
• You can also use your browser and just save a image into the folder, and this will give you the same result...so I doubt it's related to DnD.
Please note that this is on Vista 32bit, so I am not sure if the same thing will happen on XP.
----
Now for the audio problems with Xyplorer on Vista. I guess I could begin with the part that I haven't managed to work around; volume control on the preview panel. This just doesn't work on Vista as you probably know (it doesn't do anything). Any chance of getting it fixed?
The more serious problem I am having with Xyplorer, Vista and audio isn't directly related to the audio, but more to the parsing of MP3 files. I am assuming you are just using DirectShow to do this? If so, the mp3 preview should play all files that works in WMP using said interface, correct? Well, it really doesn't.
Some files works just fine, but most of my music collection will not play at all. Xyplorer will just complain that it can't render the file. This doesn't surprise me all that much, as the default parser in XP and Vista isn't all that advanced when it comes to handling VBR files with ID3v2.3+ tags.
The way to get it working in WMP (and other DS based players) have usually been to install the DS-MP3 source filter, and it does work very well everywhere outside of Xyplorer. The problem is that after installing that, you get one step further in that XY will now try to render the file but locks up while doing so. No error messages is displayed, and the only way to get it working again is to kill it with the task manager.
I did mention earlier in this post that I had been able to work around this, and I did so by installing this MP3 Parser DS filter. The problem with installing this is that you can no longer stream MP3's from the web. Well, I solved that as well by installing the DC-Bass Source filter *and* the MP3 Parser DS filter, then making sure to drop the filter merit of the MP3 parser down to 00400000, while keeping DC-Bass above that (I'm using 00600000).
Why this works? Because it would seem that Xyplorer never even tries to use DC-Bass, but does work with the MP3 Parser filter. DC-Bass does take care of every other DirectShow player though, so now I can enjoy *both* streaming audio and Xyplorer audio previews.
What makes me metion this here, seeing as I've worked around it? Well, I'm mostly wondering why Xyplorer doesn't handle DirectShow the way others do. It clearly sees the DS-MP3 Source Filter, even if it crashes while trying to load the MP3 files, so something must be wrong somewhere in the chain.
...Ok, so my post got a bit to long, and reading over it now I'm not even sure if I was able to explain myself properly
If you have any questions about this or need more details, just let me know and I'll be right on it 
EDIT: Yay for white-space
Update: The problems with thumbnails only happens when thumbnail caching is enabled. If I disable that, everything works fine. It's not a solution though, as it would make Xyplorer painfully slow to use when working on large image collections.
I use the thumbnail view quite frequently, but for some reason I didn't discover this problem until recently. The problem is that if you are viewing the images in a folder using the thumb view and then save a new image file in said folder, it will only be displayed as a black square and no thumbnail gets created for it.
I've then tried to change back to details view and to thumbnails again but it doesn't change anything. Restarting Xyplorer doesn't help either. The only way to get it to create the thumbnails for these files is to refesh them all.
In addition, several times that this has happened, the thumbnail cache for the already "thumbed" in this folder suddently also gets corrupted, and a whole buch of them are now also black. When this happens, the only way I've been able to solve it is by manually deleting the thumbnail cache and re-generating it.
How to replicate problem (the first part of it anway) with a 100% success rate:
• Added: Enable thumbnail caching.
• Open a folder with some images, and set Xyplorer to thumbnail view.
• Drop a image from outside Xyplorer (e.g. using Windows Explorer) into the folder. You will now notice that it is simply represented with a black square.
• You can also use your browser and just save a image into the folder, and this will give you the same result...so I doubt it's related to DnD.
Please note that this is on Vista 32bit, so I am not sure if the same thing will happen on XP.
----
Now for the audio problems with Xyplorer on Vista. I guess I could begin with the part that I haven't managed to work around; volume control on the preview panel. This just doesn't work on Vista as you probably know (it doesn't do anything). Any chance of getting it fixed?
The more serious problem I am having with Xyplorer, Vista and audio isn't directly related to the audio, but more to the parsing of MP3 files. I am assuming you are just using DirectShow to do this? If so, the mp3 preview should play all files that works in WMP using said interface, correct? Well, it really doesn't.
Some files works just fine, but most of my music collection will not play at all. Xyplorer will just complain that it can't render the file. This doesn't surprise me all that much, as the default parser in XP and Vista isn't all that advanced when it comes to handling VBR files with ID3v2.3+ tags.
The way to get it working in WMP (and other DS based players) have usually been to install the DS-MP3 source filter, and it does work very well everywhere outside of Xyplorer. The problem is that after installing that, you get one step further in that XY will now try to render the file but locks up while doing so. No error messages is displayed, and the only way to get it working again is to kill it with the task manager.
I did mention earlier in this post that I had been able to work around this, and I did so by installing this MP3 Parser DS filter. The problem with installing this is that you can no longer stream MP3's from the web. Well, I solved that as well by installing the DC-Bass Source filter *and* the MP3 Parser DS filter, then making sure to drop the filter merit of the MP3 parser down to 00400000, while keeping DC-Bass above that (I'm using 00600000).
Why this works? Because it would seem that Xyplorer never even tries to use DC-Bass, but does work with the MP3 Parser filter. DC-Bass does take care of every other DirectShow player though, so now I can enjoy *both* streaming audio and Xyplorer audio previews.
What makes me metion this here, seeing as I've worked around it? Well, I'm mostly wondering why Xyplorer doesn't handle DirectShow the way others do. It clearly sees the DS-MP3 Source Filter, even if it crashes while trying to load the MP3 files, so something must be wrong somewhere in the chain.
...Ok, so my post got a bit to long, and reading over it now I'm not even sure if I was able to explain myself properly
If you have any questions about this or need more details, just let me know and I'll be right on it EDIT: Yay for white-space
Update: The problems with thumbnails only happens when thumbnail caching is enabled. If I disable that, everything works fine. It's not a solution though, as it would make Xyplorer painfully slow to use when working on large image collections.
Yeah!
Never imagined this would be fixed in a day! 
Looking forward to testing out the next version then!