Fred Slota

So, I remembered to point at my picture files this time. Reran my search for Owned without Pictures I.[QtyInStock] > 0 AND I.[PictureFileSize] is NULL and this time the results are correct, listing only the recent issues that I have not yet scanned. Something fishy...

Further thinking suggests that the process might work better if the whole thing was reversed. I'm suggesting that the process find pictures and attempt to match them to database items, as opposed to what appears to be finding database items and attempting to match them to scans. Currently, my official Pictures directory has about 780k pictures and the database has nearly 1.1 M individual entries. Ideally, every picture goes with a matching database entry, meaning that the process is accessing every picture, and is making 320k attempts to access pictures that don't exist, or about 29% that don't exist. For my personal scans, that ratio rises to about 98% that don't exist. If the process ran by walking through the Pictures directory structure instead, you would effectively remove the attempts to access pictures that don't exist. Plus, by walking through the Pictures directory, a report could be generated for orphaned pictures

So, I'm watching the process rebuild Comic Book references for my personal scans, marveling at how quickly and smoothly it is running through 974,129 individual Comic Book issues in the database, and I have a question... Why is it running so smoothly? I have 23,382 scans, from a fraction of the total available titles and a fraction of the total available publishers. If this process were organized by Publisher and Title, a check could be performed on the directory listings to determine if there is a folder for a given Publisher or Title, skipping over large swathes of non-existent pictures and speeding up the process.

So, wanted to retry pointing at my scans, deleting thumbnails and rebuilding the picture references. But, I realized after initiating the process that I had neglected to actually change the picture location. The process, has a stop button. But, when I clicked on it, the button changed to a message "Stopping...", but did not actually stop. Not expecting an unusual response, I wasn't completely paying attention, but I think it stopped processing Comic Books, but continued by doing a full process of Magazines. I suspect the Stop stopped a stage, but not the entire process.

Saw a couple days ago, but forgot to reply. Thank you, and after a little cleanup on my end I'll give it a try.

Okay. I'm looking at Comic Books. I choose "Find | Other..." from the find tools in the top center of the main window. Advanced Find window, Comic Books. Fields drop-down in the upper-right of the window, and there is no "Item Description" in the list of fields. Also no "Item Description" in the "Find | Item Fields" options. Switch to Books while in the Find Window. No "Item Description" in "Find | Item Fields" Switch to Magazines while in the Find Window. No "Item Description" in "Find | Item Fields" So, I don't see it anywhere. v22.0.0.1471, Windows 11 Home, version 21H2 (22000.434), Experience Pack 1000.22000.434.0

Pointed back to official pictures and Rebuilt Pictures only. 1) Thumbnail cache again not cleared, as my personal picture remained the thumbnail for that issue while all the others repopulated from the official scans. 2) Reran my "Owned without pictures" and it found 23, mostly my unofficial specials which wouldn't have official scans, and all truly without pictures. Tomorrow I will try to rebuild back to my scans and try again. Oh, and I just realized that given that there are wa-a-a-a-ay more official pictures, I guess it makes sense that the Rebuild Pictures process takes wa-a-a-a-ay longer.

Just to mention - I think my stand-alone Rebuild Pictures took wa-a-a-a-ay longer then when I rebuilt every list.

I'll check shortly, I'm rebuilding picture lists... To be clear, I'm talking about the tool in the upper right corner of the Advanced Find window. I could get to it by manually typing I.[ItemDescription], but that was after noticing that it wasn't in the tool (so I didn't have to worry about mistyping)

I'm one of those nuts with scans of everything. I yesterday did an upgrade from v21 to v22, with a reload of scans from the four downloaded file. Today, I shifted the Pictures folder to my scans and did a full rebuild of all lists, including all picture references. 1) The thumbnails cache was not cleared. I have a personal scan that's different from one of the official scans. When I went to that issue to upload my scan, the thumbnail image in the grid was the official scan, and not my scan. (Since it was the only cover for that title, it would show up as the large graphic). I went to the thumbnails directory and saw it fully populated. I closed ComicBase, deleted the thumbnails, reopened ComicBase, and the thumbnail for that issue showed up with my scan. 2) With the pictures directory pointed at my pictures, and after the full list rebuild including picture references (and after wiping the thumbnails directory), I executed my saved search for finding issues missing pictures, expecting to see only the most recent couple of weeks of issues. I.[QtyInStock] > 0 AND I.[PictureFileSize] is NULL This returned a list of all my owned issues, with 99.99% of them showing thumbnails of my scans. Apparently, it thinks every owned issue is missing a cover scan, despite almost all of them having a cover scan.

"Item Description" is not listed in the "Field" drop-down of Advanced Find.

Yes, I can, and I do. But, it would be useful for me to be able to access it quicker, and even more useful to those who don't have it saved, or even (*gasp*) those who don't read the forum to find what the proper syntax for that ordering would be.

At that, I'd prefer that to be an option. I prefer having manual control over something like that.

On the Advanced Find dialog, I would like to request a modification of the Order By section. I would suggest a checkbox for "ComicBase sorting" which, if checked, forces "ComicTitles.AlphabetizedTitle, I.[ItemType], I.[IssueNum], I.[Variation], I.[Printing]" in the "Order By" field, and if unchecked, allows you to provide a custom "Order By" as currently takes place.

When ComicBase (not Sidekick, unless that changed) does a content update, it produces a report of Unrecognized Items. The first step on trying to reconcile these items is to see if the Title was moved from Comic Book to Magazine or similar, with the second step verifying if the particular matching item exists in the moved title. It might be helpful if the report could automate and eliminate these two steps. Upon finding an unrecognized item, it could perform a check of the title in the other two mediums, and if found, perform a check on the item in the new title, and indicate these results in the generated report. Ideally, I'm picturing sections for "Unrecognized Comic Book Titles found in Magazines" and "Unrecognized Comic Book issues found in Magazines", etc. Alternatively, it could be parenthetically mentioned in the report line by line after each unidentified item. Minimally, the report could typographically indicate the differences in statuses.

What is the current preferred practice for annotating books with square bindings, like "Wonder Woman: Black & Gold" or "Batman: The Imposter"? Technically, this is independent of whether the issue in question has a cardstock cover, as there are stapled issues that also used cardstock covers. I believe in ye olden days, these would have been entered as "Prestige Edition", but that this is a now-deprecated variation.

Should issues in titles like "Batman: Reptilian" or "Batman: The Imposter" have notes fields indicating they are "DC Black Label"? Should it just say "DC Black Label", or is there a more specific description?

I can deal with it, but others should be aware. I don't know how to push this info to them, so I'll post this here... I add new purchases to my collection scanning with CBMobile. I just added my this week purchases. When I used CB to add new purchases, it reported adding more than it should have. It appears that with the recent server hiccups, my scanned additions from last week were activated again. When I scan and add, I add the current date into the Notes field, allowing me to do an Advanced Find to verify everything went in and help me do cover scans. I delete these dates after I am done processing new additions. I can search for "11/2/21" and find the issues that have been double-entered, in addition to searching for "11/10/21" for this weeks actual new purchases.

In ComicBase, the series has 12 Issues and 1 Annual (and 2 Books). All of the issues have variants, entered as /A, /B, etc., with no regular issues. The Annual is listed with a regular, /A and /B. However, the inside back cover of the Annual that I have, as Dynamite is want to do, shows all the variant covers, and only lists 2, identified as "cover A (main) Alex Ross" and "1 in 4 chase cover Johnny Desjardins" I don't think there should be an entry for a Anl 1 regular issue. Thank you.

Nit picky, I guess, but there's an unnecessary capitalized "Of" in this title.

The List rebuild appears to have cleared those four phantom items up. Thanks.

I'm fairly certain the immediately preceding step was to check the pictures for Books, so I believe my description of the 963,196 for comics was Comic Books only. I had to sleep. so I did not watch to see if it counted the Magazines next.

Voila!

Doing a Full List Rebuild and I noticed now that it is looking at Comic Book Pictures that the dialog is processing for 963,196 comics. Now, I know 10 or so of those are my own, unofficial creations, but I take it that we are at nearly 1 million issues and variants. Any estimate on when we hit that level, and any celebratory plans? Did we already pass that if we include Books and Magazines?

Forgot about list rebuildings... Thanks for the reply. Mid-process dialog tells me 4 problems were found and fixed. I'll let you know what I see when all is finished.