Zero-Byte (empty) JPG files cause WD Photos and/or transcoding to hang.

[sbeattie2]

I discovered after copying over 400 photos into /Public/Share Photos - from an SD card - that there were several jpg files on the SD card that were zero byte (empty) files.  Not sure of why they were empty - but it seems that the presence of a zero-byte JPG (and possibly true of an empty JPEG) will cause the transcoding process to hang - forever.

At first I thought the transcoding process was very slow - not realizing that there were 3 or 4 empty jpg's in the folder - but WD Photos would show the spinning "busy" wheel on that particular folder - constantly - and the File not found. (404 17.26) would pop up constantly (once per zero-byte file) as well as the impacted photos showing no thumbnail.

I finally noticed the zero-byte files and removed them from the folder - and within minutes everything was working.  I did a few more tests - actually putting various other zero-byte (non JPG) file in the folder - without any problems occurring - but shortly after changing the extension on an intentionally empty file - to .jpg - the spinning circle returned to the WD App.

I think the transcoding process needs to specifically ignore zero-byte jpg files - in the likely event that a zero-byte jpg is inadvertently introduced into the folder. 

[sbeattie2]

I would like to know where on the MyBookLive drive is the database of transcoded photos kept for use by the WD Photos App - and how would somebody go about clearing that database completely and allowing it to rebuild - in the event that it becomes corrupt.

In experimenting with WD Photos - I initially thought that WD Photos was using the Twonky Server - but apparently not.  I can disable the Twonky Server and WD Photos continues to work fine - and still detects new pictures added to my /Public/Shared Photos folder.

Can somebody anwser the following questions:

1)  Where does the MyBookLive keep the database of transcoded images for use by WD Photos?

2)  Is there a way to reset and/or rebuild the WD Photos database - without performing a factory reset of the drive.

3)  Is there any relationship between the Twonky Server and WD Photos?

4)  Does disabling remote access disable the transcoding service - this is a bit difficult to test?  If not - how would one turn off this process if not wishing to use WD Photos?

[Trancer]

sbeattie2, maybe you should try contacting WD's Technical Support about this. You can do so either by phone or email.

To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

Regards,

[ThePizzaMatrix]

Hi there, do you have an outcome for this? It's been a while....

[sbeattie2]

It appears there is now an option to rebuild the WD2GO database - which is used by WDPhotos - without doing a factory restore.  I just noticed this option today - and I can only assume that it appeared as of the 02.10.09-124 firmware upgrade.  The option is located under Settings/RemoteAccess/Advanced/WD 2go Server - Click on Rebuild.

[sbeattie2]

---

ThePizzaMatrix wrote:

Hi there, do you have an outcome for this? It's been a while....

---

I am not sure if this has been resolved or not.  I have not had any occurences of zero-byte files in the Shared Pictures folder and/or subfolders.  I can attempt to create a zero-byte file in there with a .jpg extension and see if the problem surfaces again.  The zero-byte files were on the SD card that came out of a friend's camera and they were not noticed intially due to the sheer number of pictures that I offloaded from the SD card.  The camera created these zero-byte files and I am not sure what caused the camera to do that.  I will post back when I have results - but this is not high on the priority list at the moment .

[wuyougo]

Feel sympathy for your situation, but I do not encounter such things, I hope you can find a way to solve, let us know in the end what kind of situation, I know what causes, and how to solve.

[sbeattie2]

I'm not having a specific problem - I just happened to notice a while back that WD Photos doesn't handle zero-byte files well.  The presence of a zero-byte (empty) file in any of the directories that WD Photos scans - causes erratic behavior in the mobile app.  Typically there are not going to zero-byte files present - however - a zero-byte file can occur for any number of reasons - and the WD Photo app and/or the MyBook Live task that scans the files - should ignore them.  I have not had a chance to re-test recently.