Tagged People coming is as "Unknown Person"

[MLEjay]

Hello,

I am testing Picasastarter for my small office. I want to be able to
set up 4 to 6 people with picasastarter and linking it to a NAS drive.
Right now I am testing on a ext. HD before I make the commitment to
buy the needed NAS drive and HD.

So with this know I am testing on XP windows computers and I have
followed the steps (at least I think I did). When I start up
picasastarter on the second computer - I get all my photos coming in
and all indexed the same way - but the people are named as "unknown
person". There are 1000s of photos in this database and I tagged over
100 people with many photos associated with each person. Now once the
second computer is done indexing and reading the photos - the images
are grouped by person but with no names. (Note: It seems to have
"lost" photos that are tagged with certain people from the original
Picasa)

Is there a way to get the images of the people I tagged to stay
grouped and named. I can go in and name them all again but this is
time consuming and I want to commit to a very detailed Picasa tagging
before I roll this out to my other co-workers.

Thanks in advance!
MLE

[earlboss]

Hi MLE:

The problem where everyone is Unknown Person is usually because the "Contacts" portion of the database didn't get copied to the new shared database, or Picasa thinks the Pictures are on a different drive letter.  Let me ask a couple of questions and outline a procedure so we can make sure we are both on the same page:

 

#1!  Do you have a backup of the Pictures and the database in a safe place??

The Picasa database on XP is in c:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\   And you must not be hiding system files and folders.  The 2 folders you should make a backup copy of are Picasa2, and Picasa2Albums.  You should copy both folders to someplace safe, like the same place you put the backup of the pictures!

 

You should make the drive letter of the external HD some letter that will be open on all PCs so it can be assigned the same letter on each, and later the NAS can be assigned the same letter. (We usually make it drive P:)

 

Have you put PicasaStarter in a folder on the external drive and run it from there?  The new database you create also needs to have it's base folder on the external drive also. Remember to create a new database as a backup also in another base folder in that drive.

 

For the new databases to work with PicasaStarter on multiple PCs, the Pictures also need to be indexed for that drive, so there are 2 choices and both are kind of painful, because Picasa keeps the drive and directory the pictures are in in it's database, so they can't just be copied in windows explorer to the new location because the database thinks they are still in the old location.

There are a couple of ways to do this:

 

1. Move the pictures to the external drive using Picasa.

This method uses the move folders commands in Picasa to move all the pictures to a Pictures folder on the external drive. The advantage is that all of the face data and captions etc is saved and re-indexing is not required.

 

2. Copy the pictures over to the external drive using windows explorer.

With this method the pictures will have to be re-indexed, but by copying the default database to the new index directory, most if not all the faces will be named.  You will probably need to re-exclude faces that you excluded before.

 

Of course if the Pictures were already on the external drive and were already indexed in the default database all you have to do is copy the database.

 

The users guide guides you through methods 1 and 2.  follow the directions carefully especially about copying the database directories.

 

If you are still having problems tell me the exact steps you went through and the problem you are having.

 

Best Regards,

Earl

 

 

 

[MLEjay]

Hi Earl,

Thanks so much for your help - Sorry I have not replied until now. I
have been playing around with this while I have the time to at work,
and I am still having a bit of trouble.

I was able to get the names to appear, but there was no pictures found
for it. So I tried reading the directions and the next time I got no
names but all the pictures.

So I must be making a mistake somewhere - I am bit confused on steps 5
to 8 on the User Guide on Picasastarter. Here they are:
5.For the Base directory,BROWSE to the location or drive you created
the PicasaStarter folder in and select the database Base folder you
created above. You could also make a new database Base folder in this
browser and select it, just make sure it is on the portable or network
drive. Each Base folder you create will contain one Picasa Database.
6.Select the predefined database that is always present in
PicasaStarter, and click the button "Explore..." at the right-hand
side of the PicasaStarter dialog. A windows explorer window will open
at the place the database is located. Select the folders "Picasa2" and
Picasa2Albums" located there and do "right-click"-"Copy".
7. Select the database you defined above that you want to copy the
original one to, and click "Explore..." for this database as well. Do
"right-click"-"Paste" in this directory to put a copy of the original
database there.
8.Click "Run Picasa" and Picasa should start using the new database.
If this is the first time you have used the new database,
PicasaStarter may ask you for permission to run with elevated
privileges in order to initialize the "Symlink" which is the method
PicasaStarter uses to point Picasa to the new database. Sometimes
there is a problem this first time and Picasa starts extensive
reindexing. If so, exit Picasa and erase the 2 folders Picasa2 and
Picasa2Albums from the new database folder, and recopy them using the
procedure in steps 6 and 7 above. You should now be able to run Picasa
with this new database.

When I click "Explore" in step 7 I do not see any folders. Is this
right? I thought once I did see folders in here, but I am not sure - I
have been trying this a few times now and I could be mixing things up.
I am going to try over fresh - But I was hoping that if you had any
help for this last part - I will take it.

Many Thanks,
MLE

[earlboss]

Hi MLE:

Sometimes things don't look so clear when you go back and look at it again:

 

In step 5, I was referring to the database folder you created in step 2 (P Database in the example). If you hadn't made the database folder in step 2 you could use the new folder button to make it now.

 

In step 6, the predefined database I was referring to is "Personal Database of (your Name)..."  This is the original database directory that Picasa uses when you are not using PicasaStarter. The original Picasa2 and Picasa2Albums folders containing the original database are there (it should be the Google subdirectory, and you should select then both and copy them. Then close that explorer window.

 

In step 7 You again select the new database name in the box. After it is selected, hit explore again.  The explorer window should open to your new database window. (example: P:\P database\...a few more directories...\Google). This window will be empty if you have not used Picasa with this database, so just right-click in the empty window and select Paste.

If this window is not empty and already contains the Picasa2 folders you have to decide if they are something you want to keep. If not, erase the 2 old folders and then right-click paste the new ones in.

 

Step 8 is just a warning that once in a while if the folders were not found by the symlink logic, you may have to do steps 6 and 7 above again, including erasing the old Picasa2 folders.

 

By the way, the reason they are called Picasa2 is because the database basics were defined in the earlier version of Picasa and never changed.

 

Remember that in step 6 above I was referring to the Personal database, but If you wanted to copy another existing database you could copy that instead.

 

Best Regards,

Earl