Steven L. Dasinger

Also... Delete or Rename MMPB 1.jpg to MMPB 1-12.jpg and MMPB 2. to MMPB 2-9.jpg From: Pictures\B\Bantam\Star Trek- The New Voyages (These were 12th and 9th printings, respectively and not 1st printings).

Alternately, Published by Celebrity (Comics), was a 'Traci Lords: The Unauthorized Biography' on 9/1/1992 for 5.95 (both matching the information in CB). It is possible someone left off 'The Authorized Biography (in small print on the cover) and got the Publisher wrong. Either way, instead of deleting it ,changing the Publisher/Title would match this existing comic. (information found at MyComicShop)

Also, what edition of CB (Archive, Pro, Express, Free) and what version (CB 2022, CB 2021, earlier?) do you have? And can you give some examples?

While you are at it, do you happen to have 'Iron Manual'? It also moved from Comic Books to Books.

Delete or Move 1.jpg & 3.jpg From: Pictures\R\Reed & Associates\Tippy Toy To: Pictures\F\Fawcett\Tippy Toy For this one, it is probably best to just Delete and Download the covers for: Cross and the Switchblade, The They were changed to various printings but I have no way to tell what cover goes to what printing. Delete 1.jpg From: Pictures\O\Origin\My Uncle Jeff (Duplicate of 1-2.jpg)

I am having a similar problem. (CB 2022 4K Archive b1490) Barcode scanner method is not working either on the find box at the top of the window or in Add By Barcode. To be more specific: Using Add By Barcode, the actual Barcode is displayed after scanning but the computer beeps and nothing is found. Using the Find box, after scanning, NO barcode appears in the box, the computer beeps (same beep as with Add By Barcode) and nothing happens. However, it scans into the grid or issue entry window without a problem. Additionally, if I copy/paste the barcode in the Find box (taking the scanner out of the equation) and press enter, I get the same beep and nothing happens

There is a new Program Update (1490) that appears to have fixed my variation of the problem. Try installing it and see if it fixed you problem, also.

CB allows you to create Sets of comics and they can be sold on AA. Look under menu Items->Sets. If you have Professional or Archive, then, as Fred suggested, you can take advantage of the 4 Custom text and/or 3 Custom check fields. There is also a 'For Sale' column. If this is checked, when you post to AA, these are the issues that will show up there. You mentioned you would like to keep everything in one place. Otherwise, I would suggest creating a second database. One for issues you want to keep and the other for issues you want to sell. This wasy there is less chance of making a mistake. PS If you have a valid subscription, you can upgrade to CB 2022 for free.

I am not sure if I am getting the same exact problem you are but I have come across a similar problem. Basically, if Automatic Download is set, It will download 1/A pre-lim cover. If I drag/drop the larger 1/A, It will replace the thumbnail image BUT it will NOT replace the actual cover scan in the pictures folder (leaving the pre-lim art) BUT it WILL update the Picture Width column with the larger value. (NOTE: Due to you abnormally long Rebuild Picture information, I think you have either another or additional problems). PS I will try to explain this to Pete...

The last update was on 26 Jan 2022. This information can be found on the ComicBase website on the top right corner in the ComicBase Info box. Pete did mention that a few people were out sick. This may cause the Update to be delayed a bit.

You assumption is correct. Since the cover scan was manually deleted (outside of CB) it has no reason to change the value. I would still contact support and see if they can figure out why your original database isn't updating the Picture Information.

Well, #3 is a pre-lim cover even though it is not obviously marked. Look at the UPC and you see it is all 0's.

The fact that #3 (which in my database has a width of 1578) tends to indicate the Rebuild Picture information did NOT update the values. That seems to be the main problem and one I can't help you with. If you have the time or are interested, you can try this: Use File->New Database... and create another database (just for testing). You don't have to copy anything over when asked. Go to a Title without pictures. (Plunderer one Title back from Plunge works in my database). Run Advanced Find: I.[PictureWidth] IS NOT NULL AND I.Title = 'Plunderer' This should return none of the Issues as the Picture information should not exist. Drag/Drop any cover scan into this Title (with the name matching one of the issues without covers. Run the Advance Find again. What should happen is the one issue for the cover you added should be displayed. At least that is what happened with my database. If this works, that means there is something 'wrong' with you original database. PS You delete the temporary database you created. It is located at: C:\Users\<logon-id>\Documents\Human Computing\ComicBase Databases And the Test Cover Scan you added to the 'Plunderer' Title. PPS You can run the same test on your real database and see if it works as it should (the Issue is found after adding) or not.

It was disappearing Item Description data.

Hmm, not what I expected. That means there is 'something' in the picture width column. It could be this information was set sometime in the past but now it isn't changing. If you want to you could change it to: I.[PictureWidth] Between 0 AND 500 AND I.Title = 'Plunge' AND I.[ItemNumber] = '1/A' and altering the 0 and 500 until you get a range that displays the row. For example between 0 and 500 IF not found, change to 500 and 1000. If found, change to 500 and 750, etc. until you get close to the value in the column. for that issue, (it will probably be 505 since it is a pre-lim cover). This is totally optional but it will let get you the value in the column.

Just paste (one at at time), in the Items Where... box.

By the way, in the Live-stream when I mentioned being careful because some Item Description data may be deleted, I will give you an example. For Books, with CB 2021 (prior to Item Description being available), I put information that I called Catalog Number in Notes (I actually stated with Publisher #xxxx (i.e. Ace #F-305)). This was a number printed on the cover of books in the 60's-70's that helps identify various printings. I moved this to Item Description since that is what it is doing (helping to identify the item) and changed it to a more generic 'Catalog Number: F-305) per discussion with Mark. I submitted the corrections and the Editors accepted them. However, since HC always runs a Rebuild List before pushing an Update, the process DELETED all of these corrections from Item Description and the information was lost (well, not completely as I had a backup). To fix this, I change the information to 'Cover Catalog Number: F-305' and this time it did NOT delete it since 'Cover' was in the string.

To take my guess and stretch it to complete speculation... When you ran Rebuild List for Picture information, it might be trying to update the columns but can't (for some unknown reason) and times out. This is repeated for each cover scan in the Pictures folder. While the time-out my not be very long, multiply it by a LOT of cover scans and you get a very big number (days...). Just curious can you run these in Advanced Find? I.[PictureWidth] IS NULL AND I.Title = 'Plunge' I.[PictureWidth] > 0 AND I.Title = 'Plunge' I am most interested in which Find your problem cover (1-A.jpg) is in.

You are going to have to contact support to see if they can figure out why it is doing what it is. Here is what is happening (I think). The way the Automatic download is supposed to work is it check the Picture column information in your database with the size of the cover scan at HC. If the value is smaller, it automatically downloads the cover from HC (the pre-lim). The Rebuild List Picture information is supposed to populate these columns but something is preventing this (hence the 2-3 day processing time). Since that information is NOT getting updated, it always looks like the HC cover scan is 'larger' and it gets downloaded. The question (that support will have to answer) is why the Picture column information is not getting updated.

In Setup->Preferences, do you have 'Automatically download Larger pictures when viewing items' checked?

Uh, that isn't quite what Pete said. In his example of a longer description, he included the Cover Artist name. (Without re-watching it, something like 'Blue foil cover by some-artist').

Can you explain in a sentence what you are looking to find? FYI, you can't do a Where Item Description is Like Cover Artist and get anything unless the only thing in Item Description is just a Cover Artist name. That would be looking for the entire contents of Item Description in Cover Artist which would contain things like 'by'. Actually, LIKE won't really work. You need INSTR (or something similar) that will look for Cover Artist IN Item Description. Another problem is that some Item Descriptions only have the Cover Artist's Last name. I believe the Where clauses I supplied will find what you want. Unfortunately, it is also including other rows that shouldn't be there. If not, I need a better description of what you are looking for.

Yeah, I was thinking 4-6 myself (maybe a little more but not over a day). Not sure why it is taking so long.

The short answer is No. You can't use a column name as part of a text string'. The longer answer is there is a way that should work. Unfortunately it doesn't do exactly what it is supposed to and I can't figure out why without access to the real database with a full set of SQL statements. It is getting 'false positives' where the Item Description doesn't have any (apparent) Cover Artists. But this will get you a list to work with. This will Find where Cover Artist name (exact and non-exact (i.e. Last name only)) is in Item Description: INSTR(I.ItemDescription, (SELECT I.CoverArtist From ComicIssues I)) > 0 AND I.ItemDescription <> '' AND I.CoverArtist <> '' This will Find where Cover Artist name is not an exact match (mostly Last name only) in Item Description (this should be a sub-set of the previous Find (only non-exact matches): INSTR(I.ItemDescription, (SELECT I.CoverArtist From ComicIssues I)) > 0 AND INSTR(I.ItemDescription, I.CoverArtist) = 0 AND I.ItemDescription <> '' AND I.CoverArtist <> '' It works by using a sub-select to get a list of Cover Artists: (SELECT I.CoverArtist From ComicIssues I) It is using the result of the sub-select as part of the INSTR function. The INSTR function syntax is INSTR(X,Y) and will looks for any occurrence of Y in X (which is backwards to me to you work with what is supplied). If it finds it, it will return a number (the starting location). If it does not find it, it returns a 0 (or 1 according to the manual but I get unusual results when I use 1). Theoretically, the sub-select generates a list of all Cover Artists then looks in Item Description to see if it can find any of them. If it does it returns a value greater 0. (But I can't find 'San Diego', 'SDCC', 'Variant' and a whole host of other values in Cover Artist. And, since they aren't in Cover Artist, they shouldn't be in the sub-select for comparison to Item Description to return those rows without any Cover Artist. It doesn't make any sense and I can't query the actual database to see what is happening) The second Find is like the first except for the addition of the INSTR comparison not return where exact Cover Artist matches ( = 0 ). This is a little bit of NOT logic. If it Finds an exact match it will return a value > 0 but with a comparison to = 0 they are not returned.

Understood. I actually hope it can be fixed to do what you are doing as it does sound useful. Just working with temporary results may present difficulties that normal displays don't. We shall see what HC can do.