Missing images - Bug?

[SteveECrane]

Missing Imagaes in Actinic version 8.5.0 HBKA

We are STILL trying to import a previous version 7 web-site and decided on a different approach last week: abandon our old web-site - which we'd spent ages perfecting - and use a template, importing the catalog. However, we've still got problems: NO images!

Despite this, I manually added in our companies logo, just to gain a colour scheme around which I could create some template colours ... but, you've guessed it, even this wouldn't work.

I manually edited the image to make Actinic believe it had changed in some way and ... bingo! However, I am simply NOT prepared to do this with several hundred other images.

C'mon, Actinic, what's going on? Version 8 is already difficult enough for the more technically minded amongst us ... but stuff this simple is beyond the pale. Any ideas on a fix date for this?


PS Thanks to all the forum users for keeping on top of the many problems ... am I alone in feeling Actinic have been somewhat remiss with version 8 support? All I ever hear about is failed v6 and v7 upgrades in-between extended version releases. Given the version numbering scheme includes several positions after the decimal point(!), it would be great if fixes could be issued more frequently ... actually using these decimals! I've had my upgrade licence for many months ... but still no v8 site! Yup, one unhappy bunny!

[cdicken]

Hi Malcolm (et al)

I haven't been able to reproduce this so far. Please let me know if I am doing anything wrong:

1. Imported Malcolm's 'Sanderson' snapshot
2. Upgraded it to 8.5.0 (but didn't upgrade any layouts)
3. Using IE, went to a random site, picked a jpeg and saved it into the Sanderson site folder.
4. Picked a product in the Sanderson site, clicked the 'Browse' button and looked in the site folder for the image I saved from the web.
5. Found that image, selected it, uploaded it.
6. Image appears fine online

What am I missing?

[RuralWeb]

What am I missing

Nothing - thats exactly what I am doing but on my PC the image is missing.

[party_pete]

I also had a similar problem with images.

All my images are in the main site folder.

The problem I had went like this;

Exported a snapshot.

Imported the snapshot onto second installation on home pc.

None of the images are imported into the second install.

All the images in question were either .jpg or .gif

Actinic Business Multi Site V8.5

[RuralWeb]

am I alone in feeling Actinic have been somewhat remiss with version 8 support? All I ever hear about is failed v6 and v7 upgrades in-between extended version releases

i dont think they have - the problem with upgrades are usually due to customisation of the original site, if the original is clean actinic then the upgrader works VERY well.

[cdicken]

OK - I'm afraid no-one at Actinic has been able to reproduce the problem with saving images from Internet Explorer into the SIte1 folder, but we have found a snapshot that has the problem with the images not appearing within Actinic after importing the snapshot (even though they are all present and correct).

I've done a lot of testing, and a workaround to this problem seems to be that if you have the ability to license new sites within your application (i.e. you are using Business Multi-Site or Designer), if you icense a clean site, then restart Actinic, then import the snapshot into the clean site, everything comes in OK.

Or, if you don't have the luxury of being able to create a clean site, just restart Actinic before the import, and if you are asked whether you want to upgrade your site design, upgrade it.

I'd be interested to know if that helps people.

PS Even on the site with the snapshot import problem, I wasn't able to re-create the 'saving files from a browser' I'm afraid.

[SteveECrane]

Sorry for the delay getting back to y'all. The details of our specific issue are as follows:-

On a separate development platform we have installed a clean Actinic v8.5 (given all the bugs and a failed installed routine some months ago, we simply did not trust running this on our live platform).

Anyways, we have always maintained the following file structure (in v6, v7):-

All site code and the Actinic database resides here, as expected:

C:\Program Files\Actinic v8\Sites\Site1\

However, all user-specific product images go in sub-folders as per this example:

C:\Program Files\Actinic v8\Sites\JdE Site\Product Manufacturer #1\Product Images Small Folder\Product_Name_27_S.jpg

or here:

C:\Program Files\Actinic v8\Sites\JdE Site\Product Manufacturer #1\Product Images Medium Folder\Product_Name_27_M.jpg

or here:

C:\Program Files\Actinic v8\Sites\JdE Site\Product Manufacturer #1\Product Images Large Folder\Product_Name_27_L.jpg

depending on their size. That is, the images do NOT reside within the "Site 1" folder (or any sub-folders) but rather they sit in folders (and sub-folders) alongside "Site 1" but ARE explicitly referenced from within Actinic.

(Footnote: We originally did this when we created our v6 site aeons ago to maintain an element of control, structure, development 'tidiness' and to ensure that we could incrementally back up to CD-ROMs. As the image files were logically separated and we commenced this adventure with but one 2-year old laptop, this approach readily facilitated this! Plus, we always aimed to open a second site using an identical layout but with differing images, so we considered this method ideal at the time. Prior to v8 we've never had any issues!).


Each image file is referred to within Actinic v8 by the full MS Windows folder\file path (as well as in v6 and v7 prior to that) regardless, NONE of the images display in the Actinic Preview window, IE v7 or Firefox v2, whether generated by a <Ctrl> + <A> or a <Ctrl> + <W>, until we re-enter an image into the v8 build or manipulate the previous image.

We have created this particular site (based on the Actinic-supplied "Smart" template) under v8 in two ways but to no avail:

1) Firstly, by importing an entire v7 snapshot directly and trusting the import wizard to do its job;

2) Secondly, by creating an outline in the v8 "Smart" template natively within v8 and then importing the Catalog elements only from the v7 implementation.

Neither worked - each had its own foibles but the second approach has given us something we believed we could work with.


Finally, this issue may or may not be related:

Each of the Brochure fragments imported from our Actinic v7 design were created in v8 with no Fragment Detail Content Layout Options ... in other words, all Fragments are "Title Plus Text" in nature ... but do NOT have the third "layout" tab (alongside the "General" and "Links" tabs) available which would normally allow you to display images or remove the Titles, etc., etc.


To be frank, if we'd realised in advance that all of our v6 development effort would have been all-but-entirely marginalised by v8, I can honestly say we'd have gone to Mole End for the add-ons we required and stuck with v7: it worked and was usable. I am so frustrated by this ... as well as the time Actinic Cover support now takes to respond: this Forum is - and usually has been - much more productive! So thanks!

Cheers ...

PS Chris, it does NOT matter where the images come from - whether copied via MS IE or not! Ours were all off another platform, transferred on an MS peer network!

[cdicken]

Hi Steve

I think you will need to ask someone in support to take a look at your v7 snapshot and test the upgrade of it. Make sure you tell them where you want to keep your images, and they should be able recreate your environment accurately and test what is happening.

I would also suggest you consider the workaround of moving the 'JdE Site' folder within 'Site1'. You can then do a find and replace within the Product table in MS Access to re-do all the file paths in one go. The v7 snapshot snapshot should then import and upgrade into Actinic v8 without problems.

Do you also use the '#' character within your actual folder names? Snapshot sometimes trips over special characters like this so it is worth trying a rename of one of your folders and see whether this helps Actinic display the images correctly.

Sorry I have no magic bullet fix to suggest. Every upgrade is different and throws up its own issues. Your upgrade has thrown up more than most, and we really want to help you to a swift and satisfactory resolution.

[LooseDrumSticks]

I also have had this problem using an image for a fragment that was downloaded as an internet image.

If I save the image using Photoshop, in the same format it seems to work. But that is really hard work if you're adding lots of images.

I've had to hard code the image using !!<<img scr

[cdicken]

OK - for everyone with this weird image downloading problem, could you please let me know...

1) What version of Actinic you are using (from 'Help | About')
2) What web browser you are using to download the images
3) What operating system you are using
4) The URL where you are downloading the images from

I just doesn't make any sense why you are getting these regular problems and no-one at Actinic can reproduce. Is there anything ekse that might have an effect (firewalls etc)?

[Duncan Rounding]

Are these just jpgs? If so is it perhaps related to the exif info in some way (Maybe perhaps the added thumbnail info).

Also if you open a jpg with PS and then save it again at 100% you can see that some values are different in the exif info.

[jont]

is it perhaps related to the exif info in some way

When saving "optimised for web" this strips any EXIF info from an image (to save file overhead) and is often the preferable method of saving compared to a regular "save" or "save as" to remove any potentially personal info in there.

[NormanRouxel]

A likely culprit is Alternate Data Streams (ADS). These are an NTFS filesystem feature that allows extra data to be added to a file.

IE will add an ADS entry to any remote file it saves (to indicate that the file came from the internet). It is possible that files containing ADS's are confusing Actinic.

This would certainly fit the scenario whereby a directly saved remote file fails but opening and re-saving it via a photo editor works.

However as it seems to be OK for most of us, it may be some interaction between your particular system's security software / settings and these files.

[Duncan Rounding]

Interesting article on ADS here:
http://governmentsecurity.org/archive/t3607.html

jsware.net and heysoft.de both have ADS viewing software.

Downloaded files appear to have a zone identifier *26 with transfer zone id of 3.

As Norman says this may in some way be related to local security or AV settings set to not run/show files with attached ADS info in certain circumstances. Interesting.

[SteveECrane]

Folks,

Sorry to continue adding to this version 8 "Image" confusion; however, here is what we've done, how we 'appear' to have solved one element of the problem, and what we've noticed along the way. It's thorough because the devil is in the detail, so-to-speak:-

In response to Chris D's suggestions, we've now moved ALL the relevant image files (and there containing sub-folders) into Actinic's "Site 1" folder, so that:

C:\Program Files\Actinic v8\Sites\JdE Site\Product Manufacturer #1\Product Images Small Folder\Product_Name_27_S.jpg

became:

C:\Program Files\Actinic v8\Sites\Site1\JdE Site\Product Manufacturer #1\Product Images Small Folder\Product_Name_27_S.jpg

Subsequently we've manually edited all the ActinicCatalog.mdb entries to reflect the new image path(s).

Upon restarting Actinic v8 (subsequent to this MS Access 'Find & Replace' session!), none of the images magically appeared, either in the Page Preview windows, MS IE v7.0.5730.11 or Firefox v2.0.0.3, despite the paths reflecting the new locations and being 100% correct. (This was true regardless of whether we performed a <Ctrl> + <A> or a <Ctrl> + <W> to generate the page). So, we thought we'd go back to basics and start afresh.


I first created a new (i.e. non-existing, non-Internet copied/saved as) image within Photoshop, a small GIF logo, as it happened:

Next I added this in-house designed image to an existing Fragment by tweaking the name of an existing image already in Actinic's Fragment image. No joy. So then I browsed to it directly. No joy.

I then copied and re-named the image something 'weird' just to be absolutely certain the file wasn't (in some way!) being referenced by Actinic (or something lower-level in NTFS which Actinic had been picking up on) and hence being 'remembered' as dodgy! No joy.

I saved the image from Photoshop and tried the above using a JPEG. No joy.

So then I created a new Fragment within an existing page. Next I added this latest image to that Fragment. No joy. Re-named it again, no joy. Copied AND renamed it. No joy.

Then I forced Actinic to utilise the FULL path to the image file (by cutting and pasting the entire path from an Explorer window which contained the required image file) and not employ the relative path via "Site 1" which was being inserted by Actinic whenever the "Browse" button was employed.

B I N G O ! ! ! We have an image in the Page Preview window.

Initially it seemed a if Actinic was not 'remembering' the full path to the image if the Browse function is employed to locate the image when using imported sites. At least this appears to be one of the problems in our case. The same image employed in a fresh v8 site shows up first time every time! They all do.

So, even though we've manually edited ActinicCatlog.mdb to provide the new image locations IN THEIR ENTIRETY (i.e. not relative to the "Site 1" folder), this implies that we have no choice but to manually revisit each and every fragment and re-select all the image locations ... to cure but ONE of our problem! YIKES!

Or so I thought. I had become too euphoric at the site of an actual image in the Page Preview window! Things then took a really weird turn:

After a <Ctrl> + <W> Firefox (our default browser of choice) displayed neither the image with a relative path nor the one with the explicit path. It rendered the image place-holder for the file with the relative path, but only the HTML Alt Text for the image which was referenced in full within Actinic!!!

When opening this page up in IE7 it displayed a correctly-sized place-holder for the image file with the relative path-name and the actual image itself for the file with the full path-name.

Hmmm.

Now, here's the REALLY peculiar thing: if I positioned the cursor over the Alt Text (where the image or place-holder should've resided) and right-clicked to "View Image", Firefox opens the image file up correctly, on its own, in the active Tab!!! So, just like IE v7, Firefox DOES 'acknowledge' it's there, it is just refusing to display it when it's part of a page!

Aaaarrrgggghhhhh!!!

If I change the image type to one that is 'clickable', from within Actinic, it does nothing but make the Alt Text display with an underline and change colour as you position the cursor over it (oh, and it IS clickable!).


As to the many other issues, I won't bore you with them here - we'll deal with them outside of this Thread.


In response to Chris' specific requirements, here are our answers:

1) What version of Actinic you are using (from 'Help | About') - 8.5.0.0.0.0HBKA
2) What web browser you are using to download the images - n/a
3) What operating system you are using - Windows XP Pro SP2 Build 2600
4) The URL where you are downloading the images from - n/a

Hope this helps ...