I like to make unique thumbnails for files so I can identify the contents of a folder without having to drop it open. Problem is the thumbnails are unstable. The files are RTFD and contain both images and text. I drag one of the images into the thumbnail frame on the Information pane. But next time I open the database, one or more of the thumbnails will have RTFD written across it.
The only way I have found to prevent this from happening is to lock the file, but it’s very inconvenient having to unlock it whenever I want to edit the contents.
I cannot recreate this. I tried: create an RTF in DEVONthink, add an image to make it an RTFD. Opened Show Info and dragged the image to the thumbnail well in Show Info. Close and reopen the database. The thumbnail is still present. Repeated this with a file created external to DEVONthink and imported, and a file created external to DEVONhink and indexed. In all these cases, the thumbnail added in Show Info is persistent across database close/open actions.
Perhaps there’s a step I missed?
Since it is “one or more” but not each one, always, then perhaps there is something different with the size or type of image with these failed cases?
No, you didn’t miss a step – that’s exactly what I have been doing. Problem is it seems totally random – for awhile it will be fine, then I open up again and one or two of them aren’t right anymore.
They are mostly screen grabs, usually jpg but a few tiff, and all very small file size.
I did Verify & Repair, Backup & Optimize etc., but it happened again. Really odd.
Also happened in another db – one Thumbnail out of nearly 500 files changed and now shows RTFD overwritten on top of the image I dragged into the thumbnail frame on the Info page.
Is there any Preference or setting related to Thumbnails that I don’t know about?
Just reproduced this. The commands Data > Thumbnails > Update and Data > Thumbnails > Remove (not surprisingly, for the latter) replace custom thumbnails with default icons. Perhaps there’s a background “thumbnail update” process going on that’s causing the change – though why its random is … ?
You’re onto something here. If I select Data: Thumbnails: Create, it will replace the image I selected with a different one from within the file with RTFD across it. Then I selected Remove and reinserted the image I want, but I don’t know yet if it will remain stable.
I went to Preferences: Media, which is where thumbnails are controlled, and left everything checked to automatically generate thumbnails but I unchecked Other File Types. Maybe that will do the trick, because the only filetypes left are things like .doc and .rtfd, etc.