Question about compacting

[Kris Harris]

I have recently started using PicasaStarter so that I can have two User Profiles (Win7) access the same set of pictures in Picasa using the same database. In this case, everything is local to my machine, and the pictures and databases are in a shared location. I have used PicasaStarter to create a shortcut that automatically starts Picasa with the correct database, I don't even see PicasaStarter (unless I want to). 

After spending a significant amount of time, going through the "ignore" faces, I was close to being finished. I closed down Picasa for the night, and saw the "Picasa is compacting your databases" message. After it was finished, I opened back up Picasa, and it starting re-building my database from scratch. I lost everything. Luckily I have saved the faces I do want into the pictures themselves, so those will come back. But, the 10,000+ faces I just ignored are now back, and I will have to go through and ignore again. Not sure what happened.

Obviously, it has something to do with compacting, but I don't know what. Anyone else had a similar experience?

Thanks, Kris

[Pieter Roggemans]

Hello Kris,

There have been mentions of issues related to "compacting" in the Picasa support forum, but they are quite rare and there has never been a clear way of reproducing the issue.

PicasaStarter also doesn't have any influence on it... neither positive nor negative... so I'm afraid I can't really help you :-(.

I, personally, add faces I want to ignore to a person named _Ignored, but this has downsides as well: they are embedded that way (as a "real" person) in the jpg, it can influence the person recognition/grouping in a bad way because very different faces are attributed to that person, and this might confuse the algorythms.

But the advantage is that rebuilding the database doesn't let you loose the ignored faces...

Regards,

Pieter

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[earlboss]

Hi Kris:

Do you have PicasaStarter on the shared drive also? (Not just the database)

The reason I ask is sometimes if the photos are on an external drive and it isn't ready when Picasa starts watching for photos, Picasa will reset the database. I don't think that is what is happening in your case though because of the compacting message.

Is your Shared drive an NTFS file system drive?  Some Picasa users have had trouble with shared or NAS drives using FAT or Linux Ext2 & 3 file systems.

Have you tried rebuilding the database? sometimes corrupted databases keep compacting or won't save correctly.

You can rebuild the DB using Method B here (Except make sure you are rebuilding the shared DB):

https://sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/Home/Picasa-FAQ/picasa/troubleshooting/how-to-rebuild-database 

Are you sure all the shared folders have full permissions?

The way I usually configure my PS installation is:

• I create a PicasaStarter folder in the root of the external drive and put PS and it's DLLs there.
• I run this PicasaStarter.exe from the Primary account and use it to configure my installation, copy or create the database, put the photos on the shared drive, etc.
• If the drive is a network drive I may have been getting a message every time I start PS asking if I want to run a untrusted exe file, so I:
• Make a PicasaStarter folder in My Documents or somewhere on my C: drive and copy the PicasaStarter folder from the shared drive there.
• Start the local copy of PicasaStarter and go to the Options button.
• In the General settings dialog that comes up, I set the Path to picasa starter database settings (xml) to point at the shared PicasaStarter folder.
• The above makes sure both PS copies use the same settings, database, etc.
• I could erase the local picasastartersettings.xml file since it is no longer used, but I usually just keep it as a backup.
• I create any Shortcuts using this local PS so PS will always be started from there.
• I repeat the above on any other users so all users will have their own local copy of PS, but always have up to date settings.

Earl

[David Leavenworth]

The problem I have with compacting is, when it started I was told it may take several minutes. It has been going for over three months evey time I open Picasa. I have used Picasa for years to manage my pictures, especially the screen captur feature. I have found that when I do a screen capture while the compacting is in process the resulting image does not contain enough data for my HP printer to print the entire picture, but sections along the bottom and on the right hand side are missing. The images look good on my laptop, but I can 't print them without using GIMP to increase the data fist. My hard drive is only half full, in spite off the fact that I have over 14,000 pictures. Is there some way to cancel the compacting feature? I am about ready to delete Picasa.

 

[the_roggy]

Hello,
If picasa keeps compacting the database... Most likely the database is corrupt in some way.

Read here what to do:
https://sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/Home/Picasa-FAQ/picasa/troubleshooting/how-to-rebuild-database

Regards,
Pieter