[csapollo]

Originally Posted by pantav

Based absolutely in the diagnose by Fforde.

1) Disable MovingPictures in MP Configuration.
2) Move the directory movingpictures (inside thumbs) to another location (not in the same tree).
3) Star MP with your selected skin.
4) Put the directory in the original location and enable MovingPictures in MP Configuration.
5) Start Mediaportal.

Works for me.

Thanks mate - was just setting my brother up with MP and had this issue (never seen it before, despite many many reinstall on XP or 7 on multiple clients). Couldn't work it out but your post solved my issue.

[Vimes]

How glad that I am in finding this thread, and solution for this issue. It has taken me a few reinstalls of MP to first figure out the problem and then to find this thread to offer a solution.
I would have never had noticed it if I hadn't have tried out a new skin and thus inadvertantly triggered the issue.

[elliottmc]

Hi,

I have just had this problem, with 135 movies, and 1 GB of covers/backdrops.

IMO, you need to move these files to a folder where MP will not attempt to cache them. It should hopefully be a trivial change for you, and will mean that your users won't have to make a custom setting in MP (and one that will impact on MP performance in general) just to use your plugin.

Best wishes,

Mark

[RoChess]

Originally Posted by elliottmc

Hi,

I have just had this problem, with 135 movies, and 1 GB of covers/backdrops.

IMO, you need to move these files to a folder where MP will not attempt to cache them. It should hopefully be a trivial change for you, and will mean that your users won't have to make a custom setting in MP (and one that will impact on MP performance in general) just to use your plugin.

Best wishes,

Mark

The new SVN already changes the file extension to JPG, which are ignored by MediaPortal skin caching. But if you do not compile from SVN to get the latest version, then you are still stuck with this problem.

A solution you can use, is: Reduce storage size of 'thumbs' folder (MovPic + TVSeries)

Which will reduce all your backdrops to a size that is small enough to not cause a problem, as well as speed other things up, such as scrolling the lists. The time that MediaPortal needs to build the skin cache can run into the minutes on a large collection, but it will not crash.

[elliottmc]

Thanks for the very helpful response.

I guess for such a serious problem, would it be good to release an updated beta?

However, I can't see any reason to put the covers/backdrops in 'thumbs'. Is there a reason why they need to be there rather than a dedicated folder that is not being used by MP? That way, this sort of problem wouldn't recur at any point.

Best wishes,

Mark

[RoChess]

Originally Posted by elliottmc

Thanks for the very helpful response.

I guess for such a serious problem, would it be good to release an updated beta?

However, I can't see any reason to put the covers/backdrops in 'thumbs'. Is there a reason why they need to be there rather than a dedicated folder that is not being used by MP? That way, this sort of problem wouldn't recur at any point.

Best wishes,

Mark

There are other issues at hand that the developers would like to fix before releasing an updated beta, otherwise they are flooded with people complaining about problems they are already aware of. Everybody that is impatient is more then welcome to compile their own version, which is explained on the Wiki and Google Code sites.

It will be anyday now, but at least there are workarounds, and skin rebuilding is not something that many users do often, so for those that do there are workarounds for the time being.

[elliottmc]

Originally Posted by RoChess

There are other issues at hand that the developers would like to fix before releasing an updated beta, otherwise they are flooded with people complaining about problems they are already aware of. Everybody that is impatient is more then welcome to compile their own version, which is explained on the Wiki and Google Code sites.

It will be anyday now, but at least there are workarounds, and skin rebuilding is not something that many users do often, so for those that do there are workarounds for the time being.

Hi,

So this only happens if the skin has not been cached? If so, we need to work out if MP needs to cache anything in the thumbs folder at startup, and why this is happening.

Thanks,

Mark

[RoChess]

Originally Posted by elliottmc

So this only happens if the skin has not been cached? If so, we need to work out if MP needs to cache anything in the thumbs folder at startup, and why this is happening.

You are complicating the situation, so I'll explain it one more time and then ignore any follow up questions on this issue.

MediaPortal caches PNG files in the 'thumbs' folder to speed things up == GOOD
MovingPictures stores backdrops/covers/thumbnails in this folder, as it should == GOOD
MovingPictures v0.7.5 stores these as JPG extenstion, not causing a problem, because MediaPortal only caches PNG files == GOOD

To fix a problem related to corrupted backdrops for some users it was changed into PNG extension due to technical reasons I'm not going to explain == Good at first, until it was discovered the new fix broke something that worked before. That's why this is a beta, so those problems are discovered and fixed. So that is exactly what has happened, the problem has been located, fixed and you need to be either patient for next beta, revert to an older beta, or compile daily-build yourself.

So just to be sure it wasn't clear: Issue is FIXED.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but explaining the same thing a 3rd time in a row shouldn't be needed.

[elliottmc]

Originally Posted by RoChess

You are complicating the situation, so I'll explain it one more time and then ignore any follow up questions on this issue.

MediaPortal caches PNG files in the 'thumbs' folder to speed things up == GOOD
MovingPictures stores backdrops/covers/thumbnails in this folder, as it should == GOOD
MovingPictures v0.7.5 stores these as JPG extenstion, not causing a problem, because MediaPortal only caches PNG files == GOOD

To fix a problem related to corrupted backdrops for some users it was changed into PNG extension due to technical reasons I'm not going to explain == Good at first, until it was discovered the new fix broke something that worked before. That's why this is a beta, so those problems are discovered and fixed. So that is exactly what has happened, the problem has been located, fixed and you need to be either patient for next beta, revert to an older beta, or compile daily-build yourself.

So just to be sure it wasn't clear: Issue is FIXED.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but explaining the same thing a 3rd time in a row shouldn't be needed.

Hi,

I am asking the question, because I see no reason at all for MediaPortal to cache png files in the thumbs folder only when the skin is cached. The skin files are not stored here. If there is a need to cache thumb files, then I would expect MP to be caching them every time it starts, not just when the skin is cached. It sounds as though there could be a bug in mediaportal as well as 'unfortunate behaviour' by moving pictures.

Since this may be a problem for more plugins at some point in the future, it may be something that the team should fix. If so, I would be able to push for this to be fixed, even though MovingPictures has fixed this in SVN.

However, I'm not convinced that storing backdrops and covers in the thumbs folder is necessarily correct - this folder is for thumbs! However, no need to try to explain why you think it is correct.

Best wishes,

Mark

[grubi]

Originally Posted by elliottmc

However, I'm not convinced that storing backdrops and covers in the thumbs folder is necessarily correct - this folder is for thumbs! However, no need to try to explain why you think it is correct.

Best wishes,

Mark

Maybe I missed anything but I suspect MovingPictures uses this folder to store covers because MyVideos uses the same location for storing it's covers as well.

grubi.