I have a serious problem here. My jpeg thumbnails are not what they're supposed to

When I'm editing I'm looking at my thumbnails a lot. But sometimes the thumbnails are not the picture they appear to be. I notice when I take a closer look to edit using Microsoft Office Picture Manager or just filmstrip mode. Sometimes I notice when I change the name of the picture and it magically changes back into the real one.

Another question is why some and not the others? I have over 20,000 pictures on my computer-almost all from a digital camera, some from scans-and this has only happened like 30 times.

But still enough to bother me.grrrrrrrrrrr It's very annoying if you're trying to edit, organize, name and rename pictures and you can't know what you're working with just by looking at the thumbnails.*grumble, grumble*

Simply put the thumbnails are wrong. I wonder if this is supernatural? Is my comp possessed and do I need and exorcist. If not, what do I need?

Any help would be appreciated. Oh, I have an eMachines T3256 with Windows XP Home.

Desperate,

John

PS The problem is contagious! I put the folder with all the pictures on a USB flash drive and moved them to another computer and those thumbnails are still not what they're supposed to be..

 

Hi. Welcome to the board!

It sounds like you might have a corrupt thumbs.db file in the folders where you have this problem. Have a look in a folder where they don't display correctly. Find the file named thumbs.db and delete it. It will be re-built after you close and re-open the folder. Then see if they display correctly.

The thumbs.db file is a hidden file so you need to have windows set to show hidden files in order to see it. To do this, open any folder, click tools>folder options>view tab. Make sure the line that says show hidden files and folders is ticked.

 

If Zander's advice doesn't work the only other thing that comes to mind would be that you're exceeding the default capacity of the thumbs.db file, assuming that there is such.

You can try increasing its capacity by downloading IconCacheZip. Unzip it and the readme file will explain it fully.

IconCacheZip

It will increase the normal icon cache file for XP but I'm not sure about the thumbs cache. Won't hurt to try though.

HTH

 

*happy*

OMG, I think I have a winner. *ecstasy*

It was a simple thumbnail cache problem! All I had to do was click 'Do Not Cache Thumbnails'!!!!! *celebration*



Thank you Pete. *kisses your feet* Good thing that worked, the other suggestions sounded complicated.lol

It was extremely frustrating but I guess as computer problems go it could be worse. It wasn't a hard drive failure or anything.

But it *really* slowed down my progress that's for sure. The problem was not consistent, which only made it worse, I never knew when it would strike again. *horror*

I forever lost a couple pictures, thought I was deleting the "extra" one. Live and learn... lol

Johnny

 

I think the worst part was that the problem was so "simple." No one ever heard of it. Of course when I tried to explain it to people-online, in person, over the phone-they looked at me like I'm an idiot...

ETERNALLY grateful,

Johnny