How to REALLY disable thumbnail generation, for REAL, like seriously

[SaberBlaze]

So, unfortunately I spoke too soon... All these fixes seem to prevent the .@__thumb folder full of thumbnails from being regenerated, but it only applies to current directories that have already being accessed. If a user accesses a picture folder that they haven't accessed before using Qfile, the thumbnails will be regenerated again. Visiting the folder again won't regenerate thumbnails after they've bee deleted. If new pictures are added, it will sometimes regenerate new thumbnails for some of the pictures. Folder visitation seems to be unique to each user, so if a particular user hasn't accessed a folder before it will generate thumbnails when he does, regardless if other users have already visited that folder. Again, this thumbnail issue is only for using Qfile. I wonder if it's time to give up and just run a periodic script that deletes these folders... I did find another ffmpeg directory and did chmod -x on those too. Same with other files such as "photo_gen_thumbnail" and mytranscodesvr etc. No dice.

Can you confirm if this is the issue with you too? Can you try creating a new folder with pictures, accessing it from Qfile, and then check if you have the dreaded .@__thumb folder with new thumbnails in that new folder?

[OneCD]

Well, ffmpeg is used for creating thumbnails of videos.

But the NAS uses ImageMagick's convert for generation of thumbnails for photos.

Here's one in action:

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[/share] # ps | grep convert | grep -v grep
20151 admin      1692 R < /usr/local/sbin/convert -thumbnail x100 -quality 85 -compress JPEG - /share/MD0_DATA/Multimedia/wallpapers/.@__thumb/s100google-image(0170).jpeg 

To forcibly prevent that, you'd need to:

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chmod -x /usr/local/sbin/convert

edit: corrected grammar.

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

so many commandlines.... would it be possible... for qnap to add a GUI button within QTS settings under multimedia management.

Add extra settings with tick boxes for

- ffmpeg
- imagemagick


so if these components are installed and active, to then disable their thumbnail generation function. if the component isn't on the qnap, then the option would be greyed out.

The only downside is that browsing pictures in Qfile only shows a generic image until you open the file. A minor sacrifice I suppose.

also add a "?" to explain what disabling that component in setting would do. fair enuff?

simple?

because disable thumbnails should not be riddled all over the place, with a few of the other hidden stuff going on behind the scenes and expecting the user to notice this later on, then come forum do a search find this thread, read a couple pages in, then go commandline enter some code their unfamiliar with hoping it fixes issue, and later no idea how to revert if they have to....

can't us newbies just have a simple easy setting in QTS that covers all the thumbnail generations in a multimedia management page and be done with :{ ? lel


to us newbies, this is how we may view these kinds of scenarios

Wheres_482066_75679.png

[SaberBlaze]

Well, ffmpeg is used for creating thumbnails of videos.

But the NAS uses ImageMagick's convert for generation of thumbnails for photos.

Here's one in action:

Code: Select all

[/share] # ps | grep convert | grep -v grep
20151 admin      1692 R < /usr/local/sbin/convert -thumbnail x100 -quality 85 -compress JPEG - /share/MD0_DATA/Multimedia/wallpapers/.@__thumb/s100google-image(0170).jpeg 

To forcibly prevent that, you'd need to:

Code: Select all

chmod -x /usr/local/sbin/convert

edit: corrected grammar.

Ok, now I have finally stopped all thumbnail generation once and for all However, I found that doing chmod -x convert actually did not stop thumbnail generation. There are 3 files in the ImageMagick folder (/mnt/ext/opt/ImageMagick/usr/local/sbin): composite, convert, and identify. Doing only

Code: Select all

chmod -x identify

finally stopped all thumbnail creation (empty .@__thumb folders are still created). I would assume that "identify" just identifies the media and "convert" does the dirty work but it seems that only taking out "identify" does the trick. The only downside is that browsing pictures in Qfile only shows a generic image until you open the file. A minor sacrifice I suppose.

[SaberBlaze]

so many commandlines.... would it be possible... for qnap to add a GUI button within QTS settings under multimedia management.

Add extra settings with tick boxes for

- ffmpeg
- imagemagick


so if these components are installed and active, to then disable their thumbnail generation function. if the component isn't on the qnap, then the option would be greyed out. simple?

because disable thumbnails should not be riddled all over the place, with a few of the other hidden stuff going on behind the scenes and expecting the user to notice this later on, then come forum do a search find this thread, read a couple pages in, then go commandline enter some code their unfamiliar with hoping it fixes issue, and later no idea how to revert if they have to....

can't us newbies just have a simple easy setting in QTS that covers all the thumbnail generations in a multimedia management page and be done with :{ ? lel

It is absolutely ridiculous. If I'm not mistaken Synology has similar issues with their firmware. There should be an option that disables all thumbnail creation period, and just have Qfile/File Station generate them "on the fly" similar to Windows, where you can disable all those "thumb.db" files and windows will just generate them "on the fly" without relying on physical thumbnail files somewhere. It would have at least been better if QNAP had used a central database file containing all the thumbnails, at least it all be in one place without adversely affecting filesystem performance etc.

[OneCD]

Doing only

Code: Select all

chmod -x identify

finally stopped all thumbnail creation (empty .@__thumb folders are still created). I would assume that "identify" just identifies the media and "convert" does the dirty work but it seems that only taking out "identify" does the trick. The only downside is that browsing pictures in Qfile only shows a generic image until you open the file.

Nicely done.

Yes, identify is used to determine the actual file type (by it's magic). I use it in one of my scripts to check that a JPG is actually a JPG and not a renamed GIF or PNG (for example).

I'll try it your way. Thanks!

[SaberBlaze]

I'd also like to add for those that use File Station that disabling "identify" makes it unable to show any images when opening them. Apparently opening a picture in File Station does not actually open the file, rather it relies on thumbnails to show the picture to the user Qfile opens them fine.

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

can't us newbies just have a simple easy setting in QTS that covers all the thumbnail generations in a multimedia management page and be done with :{ ? lel

I agree - it bugs the s**t out of me too.

QNAP are evidently following 'Apple' thinking - don't give users a choice - tell them what they want.

My iPhone 5 is still on iOS 9.3.5 but it pushes iOS 10.2 at me at least twice a day - sometimes half-a-dozen times a day. Every day. I don't want it (it will render my phone so slow, it will be unusable). I can't disable the interactive notification. It's ensuring that if I don't upgrade (resulting in a painfully unresponsive phone), then it's going to bug me until I throw it out.

This behaviour on the part of the manufacturer has created the absolute certainty that I will never buy an Apple product again. I should be allowed to use my iPhone without annoying and incessant messages from Apple.

Anyway... I digress.

QNAP: features are fine. Just give people the option to turn them off. If that makes them 'options', then so be it.

i bought an ipod classic and it couldn't play flac.... my china brand meizu could and more more formats.... never bought apple crap since then cough

[rolldog]

Well, after I upgraded my TS-451+ to QTS 4.3, I would get an error everytime it tried generating a thumbnail. I deleted all the folders from the Media Folders, and then deactivated Media Library. Once that was done, I re-enabled Media Library and chose to rebuild the Media Library Indexing. Then, it continued to generate errors every time it tried generating a thumbnail. So, I disabled Media Library altogether, which prevents it from generating thumbnails. I'm no expert on this, but the only way I could prevent my NAS from generating thumbnails was to disable Media Library altogether. I think the thumbnails are generated automatically once you enable Media Library.. Thus way you can navigate around in the applications better.

I would love to hear if there's another way to do this, and in my case, why thumbnail generations are causing errors in QTS 4.3. Is it possible that I can manually delete all the thumbnails generated previously using the other firmware? Maybe 4.3 can't generate a thumbnail to update, or replace, another thumbnail created by a different version of QTS. QTS 4.3 has so many new features, which half of the applications are incompatible with, I'm not surprised this is happening to me, but I'd like to fix it since I have 350,000 photographs on my NAS.

To answer your question, the only way I got it to stop generating thumbnails was to go into the control panel, applications, multimedia management, media library, and turn it off. However, I'm running 4.3 so I think the media library was listed elsewhere.

[jdgszorro]

Well, after I upgraded my TS-451+ to QTS 4.3, I would get an error everytime it tried generating a thumbnail. I deleted all the folders from the Media Folders, and then deactivated Media Library. Once that was done, I re-enabled Media Library and chose to rebuild the Media Library Indexing. Then, it continued to generate errors every time it tried generating a thumbnail. So, I disabled Media Library altogether, which prevents it from generating thumbnails. I'm no expert on this, but the only way I could prevent my NAS from generating thumbnails was to disable Media Library altogether. I think the thumbnails are generated automatically once you enable Media Library.. Thus way you can navigate around in the applications better.

I would love to hear if there's another way to do this, and in my case, why thumbnail generations are causing errors in QTS 4.3. Is it possible that I can manually delete all the thumbnails generated previously using the other firmware? Maybe 4.3 can't generate a thumbnail to update, or replace, another thumbnail created by a different version of QTS. QTS 4.3 has so many new features, which half of the applications are incompatible with, I'm not surprised this is happening to me, but I'd like to fix it since I have 350,000 photographs on my NAS.

To answer your question, the only way I got it to stop generating thumbnails was to go into the control panel, applications, multimedia management, media library, and turn it off. However, I'm running 4.3 so I think the media library was listed elsewhere.

Hi

Have you found any solution ?

Thanks.

[Ilruz]

My Qnap CPU is always 100% just generating thumbnails - even after months, it is still generating that dumb, useless, cpu wasting, resource crunches ... THUMBNAILS; disk cannot be stopped and I'm thinking to move to a less "smart" device in the future.

[MacQwigg]

My Qnap CPU is always 100% just generating thumbnails - even after months, it is still generating that dumb, useless, cpu wasting, resource crunches ... THUMBNAILS; disk cannot be stopped and I'm thinking to move to a less "smart" device in the future.

I had the same problem with my QNAP TS-119. However, this changed with the guide below! Regarding the move to a another device in the future, I just bought a Tinkerboard and I'm extremely satisfied! I'm currently only using my QNAP as a backup station and my Tinkerboard as a multimedia station running Armbian with rtorrent, openvpn split-tunneling, Plex Media Server with transcoding, Resilio Sync and all the other goodies that I wanted my QNAP to do! So there are definitely other cheaper, better and more futureproof solutions out there...
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The guide
If you have hundreds, if not thousands, of folders, deleting every .@__thumb is extremely time consuming! So what I did was to automate this with findutils!

My process:
1. Open you browser -> go to QTS -> Control Panel -> Applications -> Multimedia Management -> Media library.
2. Switch Scan Settings to Manual and click Deactivate Media Library.
3. Go to File Station and in the right top corner, click Settings", and make sure support multimedia Playback and thumbnails display is unticked.

Now to the more difficult part. Make sure that you have installed optware or entware. Entware is what I'm using and you can get it here: https://github.com/Entware-ng/Entware-n ... n-QNAP-NAS

4. ssh into your nas and run the following commands:

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opkg update
opkg upgrade
opkg install findutils

Now it's time to run the commands that will:
I. Delete all folders named ".@__thumb" and all files/folders inside it.
II. Delete all "Thumbs.db" files.

5. Run the commands below by turn.

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/opt/bin/find / -name ".@__thumb" -exec rm -r '{}' \;
/opt/bin/find / -name "Thumbs.db" -delete

If you are not comfortable with the command searching the whole NAS, simply change the command to:

Code: Select all

/opt/bin/find /FOLDER/YOU/WANT/TO/SEARCH/IN -THE REST OF THE COMMAND
Ex: /opt/bin/find /share/HDA_DATA/Multimedia/Pictures -THE REST OF THE COMMAND

You'll probably get the error: "No such file or directory" which is perfectly fine! Now, check some folders just to see if the folder and files are removed!

Just a heads-up: ".@__thumb" folders and "Thumbs.db" files will probably be created later after QTS Firmware upgrade or simply by using File Station, so run the commands again if you see that the files are back. I recommend to avoid the use of File Station as it might create them too. There are better, faster and way easier alternatives like direct access via shell, Qfile etc.

QTS: 4.3.3.0299 build 20170901

Ps: If you want to use optware instead of entware, simply use ipkg instead of opkg.

[TimRideout]

And.... still no solution.
QNAP is still generating thumbnails in folders that I tell it not to.
Oh, on BOTH of my QNAPS, yeah.

Anyone get this to work? Ever?

[Rhialto]

Open a ticket and make a request, the more they have the more chances it will be implemented...