Technology glitches... No clue what caused it, no clue what fixed it.

What I do know is the next day without even restarting or doing anything differently, i restored the upload queue , and it just worked. Not only worked for all my saturday uploads, it then took sunday and uploaded that flawlessly.

One thing I will say, and I have zero idea if this helps. Instead of uploading everything at once, I split the upload into 1200 photo uploads (essentially half) for each day. The idea I had was that maybe it was having an issue uploading such a large queue of work. Either way it all worked out and i should say, this is the second time in 4 years or so I've gotten stuck and Nikolai was available within 30 minutes of emailing him. Which was very impressive.

Originally Posted by Motophotog Technology glitches... No clue what caused it, no clue what fixed it. What I do know is the next day without even restarting or doing anything differently, i restored the upload queue , and it just worked. Not only worked for all my saturday uploads, it then took sunday and uploaded that flawlessly. One thing I will say, and I have zero idea if this helps. Instead of uploading everything at once, I split the upload into 1200 photo uploads (essentially half) for each day. The idea I had was that maybe it was having an issue uploading such a large queue of work. Either way it all worked out and i should say, this is the second time in 4 years or so I've gotten stuck and Nikolai was available within 30 minutes of emailing him. Which was very impressive.

Good stuff Darren, glad you're out of the rutt :-)
I'd say, "2d problem in 4 years" is not bad for a workhorse type of the application

Currently the only functionality in this package is Image Duplicates Removal.
I will add more beef to this package in the future, just wanted to get this one out.

Available via both Albums list and Cat/Sub tree context menus.

Improved "Remove Image Duplicates" - now you can pick and choose the fields;
New Images3 Pro Package (to be extended):
* Custom Image List Sorting (long overdue, but it wasn't easy)
* Cut/Copy (collect) images (possibly from different albums) and then paste them into album.
You can copy the same set over and over to multiple albums.

Hi --

I'm a newby to S*E as of yesterday, and have two problems that I hope someone might be able to help with.

First, the small problem. I had an existing gallery with Unicode characters in its name. Specifically, the name "Cesme" with a Turkish cedilla (?) accent on the C and the s. This caused big problems for "Download images". I get a folder full of notional JPGs that contain 50K of XML (presumably because S*E is asking for a file that isn't there). I also note that in various other places in the UI that certain accented characters are not being handled correctly (for example captions are truncated).

I suspect that this problem might cause other aspects of the software not to work correctly for this folder/gallery.

My more important problem is that I have 5 Gigs of photos in SmugMug as well as on my local disk, but I can't get S*E to reconcile the two. To make things more specific and because I was having trouble reconciling the photos I already had locally, I downloaded a pile of these images using the "Download image" command, copied them to where I wanted them, invoked "GetImageInfo" on the corresponding SmugMug galleries, and then tried to "Locate" the images so as to fill in the LocalPath on the Main/Images display. No luck. It silently doesn't find them.

In this case, it feels as if S*E is keeping some cached representation of my local folders, because the "Locate" command finishes very quickly. If so, I've found no obvious way to refresh such a local cache (as opposed to the cache of remote SmugMug state).

I'd appreciate any help you can give. I'd really like not to have to upload all my photos again.

twobbs

Originally Posted by twobbs Hi -- I'm a newby to S*E as of yesterday, and have two problems that I hope someone might be able to help with. First, the small problem. I had an existing gallery with Unicode characters in its name. Specifically, the name "Cesme" with a Turkish cedilla (?) accent on the C and the s. This caused big problems for "Download images". I get a folder full of notional JPGs that contain 50K of XML (presumably because S*E is asking for a file that isn't there). I also note that in various other places in the UI that certain accented characters are not being handled correctly (for example captions are truncated). I suspect that this problem might cause other aspects of the software not to work correctly for this folder/gallery. My more important problem is that I have 5 Gigs of photos in SmugMug as well as on my local disk, but I can't get S*E to reconcile the two. To make things more specific and because I was having trouble reconciling the photos I already had locally, I downloaded a pile of these images using the "Download image" command, copied them to where I wanted them, invoked "GetImageInfo" on the corresponding SmugMug galleries, and then tried to "Locate" the images so as to fill in the LocalPath on the Main/Images display. No luck. It silently doesn't find them. In this case, it feels as if S*E is keeping some cached representation of my local folders, because the "Locate" command finishes very quickly. If so, I've found no obvious way to refresh such a local cache (as opposed to the cache of remote SmugMug state). I'd appreciate any help you can give. I'd really like not to have to upload all my photos again. twobbs

1) Unicode - unfortunately, the engine S*E uses underneath has no Unicode support. For now you have to stay with English for it to operate.

2) To reconcile - you have to (I suggest trying it on a very small album first):
* download image info for that album (don't get images! just image info!)
* switch to images tab below, make sure the images have width, height and size values
* then use "locate lost images" command and point S*E to the local folder where you think those files should be - the more accurate you can be, the faster it would go.

I must admit, during these actions you may hit varios trial related obstacles. If you want to perform a fulll functionality testing, please contact me at support@starexplorer.com and I will send you a full (just time-limited) license.

Nikolai

Originally Posted by Nikolai 1) Unicode - unfortunately, the engine S*E uses underneath has no Unicode support. For now you have to stay with English for it to operate. 2) To reconcile - you have to (I suggest trying it on a very small album first): * download image info for that album (don't get images! just image info!) * switch to images tab below, make sure the images have width, height and size values * then use "locate lost images" command and point S*E to the local folder where you think those files should be - the more accurate you can be, the faster it would go. I must admit, during these actions you may hit varios trial related obstacles. If you want to perform a fulll functionality testing, please contact me at support@starexplorer.com and I will send you a full (just time-limited) license. Nikolai

Thanks, Nikolai -

1) What do you mean by "English"? ASCII or ISO-Latin-1 (8-bit charset) or something else? (I suspect that it's ISO-Latin-1 because the C-cedilla seems to work. I think the s-cedilla was causing the problem ... it's not in ISO-Latin-1.

2) I thought I tried reconciling my originals and was having problems, but I will try again. I think I have the right licenses to do these tests, but will let you know.

However, I'm surprised that a recently downloaded image (at full resolution) can't be reconciled with the same image on the server. What causes these to be seen as different?

twobbs

Originally Posted by twobbs Thanks, Nikolai - 1) What do you mean by "English"? ASCII or ISO-Latin-1 (8-bit charset) or something else? (I suspect that it's ISO-Latin-1 because the C-cedilla seems to work. I think the s-cedilla was causing the problem ... it's not in ISO-Latin-1. 2) I thought I tried reconciling my originals and was having problems, but I will try again. I think I have the right licenses to do these tests, but will let you know. However, I'm surprised that a recently downloaded image (at full resolution) can't be reconciled with the same image on the server. What causes these to be seen as different? twobbs

1) Probably ISO-Latin-1... But I never pushed for any of the accented characters, as I knew it wouldn't work for everybody anyway...
2) I'm afraid there is a confusion with the "reconcilliation" term. S*E doesn't care for what you download, really. It doesn't keep track of those.
What it does keep the track of is what you upload. Those do get into its local cache db. When you get image info back it also updates that db. Same with the results of the "find lost images" - that is, if it can find them.
However that's about it. There is no live link between SM website and S*E cache. If you start moving stuff around outside S*E that synced state is quickly severed and you have to put some efforts to restore it.

Basically, if you do all your important SM work through S*E, you should be always good. It is when you upload outside S*E or change something on SM site directly online, then the S*E cache becomes outddated and you need to restore it. How exactly work is needed - depends on the circumstances. The trivial cases are easy to resolve inan almost-automated way (you just need to press a button or two), the marginal ones may and will take time.

Originally Posted by Nikolai 1) Probably ISO-Latin-1... But I never pushed for any of the accented characters, as I knew it wouldn't work for everybody anyway... 2) I'm afraid there is a confusion with the "reconcilliation" term. S*E doesn't care for what you download, really. It doesn't keep track of those. What it does keep the track of is what you upload. Those do get into its local cache db. When you get image info back it also updates that db. Same with the results of the "find lost images" - that is, if it can find them. However that's about it. There is no live link between SM website and S*E cache. If you start moving stuff around outside S*E that synced state is quickly severed and you have to put some efforts to restore it. Basically, if you do all your important SM work through S*E, you should be always good. It is when you upload outside S*E or change something on SM site directly online, then the S*E cache becomes outddated and you need to restore it. How exactly work is needed - depends on the circumstances. The trivial cases are easy to resolve inan almost-automated way (you just need to press a button or two), the marginal ones may and will take time.

Thanks again, Nickolai --

I think I now understand the download/upload/cache model of S*E. I suspect I was doing something wrong, or with the wrong license, when I abandoned the recipe you cite above. I'll try again tonight.

For me, S*E might fulfill 3 important functions:

1) Simple upload of new stuff with automatic category/subcategory/gallery management.
2) Reorganization of an existing hierarchy while tracking those changes locally.
3) Small edits to individual photos that can subsequently be reflected in both the local and remote state.

With respect to (1) and (2), it seems like S*E does exactly what I want.

I'm not sure about (3). The most common case is caption editing after the initial upload. If I edit captions on SM, it's tricky to get the changes to be reflected locally. If I edit captions locally, I don't see how to make the S*E UI aware of the changes so that I can re-upload everything that's changed. Alternatively, I could re-upload at some granularity greater than a photo so as to capture, say, all the changes in a gallery or subcategory. However, it's not clear to me what overheads are associated with re-upload of unchanged material.

Am I missing something about how the S*E user is supposed to handle updates of type (3)?

Best,

twobbs

Originally Posted by twobbs Thanks again, Nickolai -- I think I now understand the download/upload/cache model of S*E. I suspect I was doing something wrong, or with the wrong license, when I abandoned the recipe you cite above. I'll try again tonight. For me, S*E might fulfill 3 important functions: 1) Simple upload of new stuff with automatic category/subcategory/gallery management. 2) Reorganization of an existing hierarchy while tracking those changes locally. 3) Small edits to individual photos that can subsequently be reflected in both the local and remote state. With respect to (1) and (2), it seems like S*E does exactly what I want. I'm not sure about (3). The most common case is caption editing after the initial upload. If I edit captions on SM, it's tricky to get the changes to be reflected locally. If I edit captions locally, I don't see how to make the S*E UI aware of the changes so that I can re-upload everything that's changed. Alternatively, I could re-upload at some granularity greater than a photo so as to capture, say, all the changes in a gallery or subcategory. However, it's not clear to me what overheads are associated with re-upload of unchanged material. Am I missing something about how the S*E user is supposed to handle updates of type (3)? Best, twobbs

You can rename existing albums via S*E, thus keeping stuff in sync.
Images (or categories/subcategories) you can't - for now :-(.
It will be part of an upcoming functionality.
For now if you want, say, to change the caption of an image, you'd have to do it online and then tell S*E to get the image info for the affected images (or containing albums).

Hello everyone, I didn't see an Introductions or Off Topic/Meeting Place forum, but wanted to say "Hi" and thank you for having me on this forum. Much appreciated in advance!

I could use a hand with Star*Explorer and was hoping to get some guidance. I saw the Star*Explorer Thread but as it's over 8 years old and 50+ pages long, I didn't think it would be the wisest thing to attempt to find my answer within. ;)

Here's what I'd like to do and thank you in advance for any assistance (even if it can't be done).

I have Categories & albums within each. Each shoot/album is by date with a subject after the date. That's also how things are arranged on my hard drive. I only have a fraction of what's on my hard drive on Smugmug. My goal is to get it all there. ;)

My ideal situation would be to click on a Category, then drag/drop all the folders for that category from my hard drive onto in in S*E. The intended result would be each of the folders becoming albums.

I'd rather not have to create a bunch of albums manually, but if I have to, then I guess I'll just have to deal with it. But in that case I'd still want to drag/drop all of the folders for that Category in one fell swoop.

Any insight on how to accomplish this?

Originally Posted by richardlpalmer ... I saw the Star*Explorer Thread but as it's over 8 years old and 50+ pages long, I didn't think it would be the wisest thing to attempt to find my answer within. ;) ...

I merged this into the Star*Explorer thread because I think that Nik has auto-notification.

Sorry, I'm no help at all for the question.

Originally Posted by ziggy53 I merged this into the Star*Explorer thread because I think that Nik has auto-notification. Sorry, I'm no help at all for the question.

Thank you Ziggy! And yes, I do have notifications on this one:-)

Originally Posted by richardlpalmer Hello everyone, I didn't see an Introductions or Off Topic/Meeting Place forum, but wanted to say "Hi" and thank you for having me on this forum. Much appreciated in advance! I could use a hand with Star*Explorer and was hoping to get some guidance. I saw the Star*Explorer Thread but as it's over 8 years old and 50+ pages long, I didn't think it would be the wisest thing to attempt to find my answer within. ;) Here's what I'd like to do and thank you in advance for any assistance (even if it can't be done). I have Categories & albums within each. Each shoot/album is by date with a subject after the date. That's also how things are arranged on my hard drive. I only have a fraction of what's on my hard drive on Smugmug. My goal is to get it all there. ;) My ideal situation would be to click on a Category, then drag/drop all the folders for that category from my hard drive onto in in S*E. The intended result would be each of the folders becoming albums. I'd rather not have to create a bunch of albums manually, but if I have to, then I guess I'll just have to deal with it. But in that case I'd still want to drag/drop all of the folders for that Category in one fell swoop. Any insight on how to accomplish this?

Hi Richard,
welcome to Dgrin!
Yes, this thread is old (i.e. it has been started a long time ago), but it it *current*, as I respond to it as soon as I get a notification :-) I also respond to email (support@starexplorer.com)

What you want to achieve was built into S*E almost from the very start. If you have categories in place (and if you dont's - S*E can create them in swarms), you can select a category in S*E and the drop a whole bunch of folders into it - they will become albums. You can even control how you want to do it - merge the folders into their heighest level one (so A\1, A\1\2 and A\2 all become A) or keep it to the lowest level (in the prior example you'll end up with 3 albums: A::1, A::1::2 and A::2).
Play with this on a small scale. Once you get the feeling how it works it's fairly easy.
S*E is also smart enough to deal with subcategories and existing albums, but that requires some extra playing...
My only advise - don't try to upload 100Gb in one set (especially over the weekend). Pace yourself, you'll get less issues.
HTH
Nikolai

In this new "Labor Day" version:-)
* Support for video/vault files up to 4Gb (before it was up to 2Gb)
* Bugfix: album names with backslashes were truncated
* Bugfix: images from private albums could not be moved/copied
* for Pro with Images3 (or better): you can now paste copied image(s) to multiple albums at once
HTH

The latest release has fixed all the little problems I was having and it's FAST!!! In fact, it's so fast, I was sure nothing had uploaded. But there it all was.

Thanks and GREAT JOB!

Joan

Originally Posted by JoanR The latest release has fixed all the little problems I was having and it's FAST!!! In fact, it's so fast, I was sure nothing had uploaded. But there it all was. Thanks and GREAT JOB! Joan

I need to try this again sometime. Continuous development may have fixed the issues I was having.

Is there anyway in Star*Explorer I can get a gauge of how fast my uploads are going? I recently got a 35/35 FIOS connection at work, and my 20/5 connection at home seems faster. I've done the Speedtest.net thing, which tells me that I don't have 35/35, but I'm looking for something more definitive to call Frontier with, as I just recently had it installed.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Mike.

Originally Posted by mike.strock Is there anyway in Star*Explorer I can get a gauge of how fast my uploads are going? I recently got a 35/35 FIOS connection at work, and my 20/5 connection at home seems faster. I've done the Speedtest.net thing, which tells me that I don't have 35/35, but I'm looking for something more definitive to call Frontier with, as I just recently had it installed. Thoughts? Thanks! Mike.

I'd check speedtest.net, speedtest.charter.com and speedtest.tampabay.rr.com to verify your bandwidth. Then I'd say if your upload bandwidth is under 5, you're right--the 20/5 is faster.