Issue: file type validation

[Paul Coddington]

AFPhoto appears to validate file type for compatibility after it attempts to load the file, which leads to some inconvenient outcomes.

For example, when working in a folder with mixed media, it is possible to accidentally drag-n-drop a large MKV file instead of its cover image.

AFPhoto will spend a very long time loading the MKV file (very large files, 8-60GB): this cannot be cancelled and AFPhoto cannot be exited until the entire file has been read and rejected.

Would it be possible to evaluate compatibility of files being opened ahead of loading the entire file?

[Ron P.]

I've tried to replicate this. I never have the issue where I have to wait to cancel it. AP always freezes, preparing to crash. I then click on the X to close the app, and get the common notice about reporting it to Microsoft. I click cancel and AP completes the crash.

Just need to be more cautious on what files you drag into AP. 

[Paul Coddington]

2 hours ago, Ron P. said:

I've tried to replicate this. I never have the issue where I have to wait to cancel it. AP always freezes, preparing to crash. I then click on the X to close the app, and get the common notice about reporting it to Microsoft. I click cancel and AP completes the crash.

For me it does not hang or crash, it keeps loading the file in the background (progress is written in the title bar). It is possible to continue using the program while it does so, but it creates a lot of background disk and processor churn and might eat quite a bit of memory as well.

Crashing would be much worse because that can cause a user to lose current work in progress. Perhaps your test ran out of memory and my accident did not?

When I click the X button, a message pops up to say AFPhoto cannot be closed while a file is being loaded and tells me to wait until it has finished loading.

Sure, I can be more careful, but accidents do happen, especially with Explorer sometimes changing the order of the file list when about to select a file. Dragged files can also drop off from the mouse over the wrong app at times, such as a mouse pad glitch or a neurological tic (not everyone is young and in perfect health).

It seems odd and risky behaviour to load any file before basic extension checking to see what it is and whether it can be opened. Maybe fair enough to do it with PNG and JPEG, etc, in case they accidentally have the wrong file extension, but seeing ".MKV" at the end of the filename should be instant rejection.

It is possible that because drag-n-drop is a Windows integration feature, AFPhoto dev team might not have full control over this behavior.

[GarryP]

MKV files can contain JPEG or PNG images, along with other things, for cover art and thumbnails: https://www.matroska.org/technical/attachments.html

It’s possible that the Affinity software is ‘scanning’ the file to see if it contains images which can be opened.

If that is true then completely disallowing the opening of MKV files could limit the usefulness of the software.

I don’t know if that is true, it’s just a possibility which (I think) only a member of staff would be able to confirm or deny.

[Paul Coddington]

On 11/26/2024 at 10:50 PM, GarryP said:

MKV files can contain JPEG or PNG images, along with other things, for cover art and thumbnails: https://www.matroska.org/technical/attachments.html

It’s possible that the Affinity software is ‘scanning’ the file to see if it contains images which can be opened.

This is a good point I had forgotten to consider, but it should be possible to detect and extract embedded image files by reading the header rather than load the entire file? Other apps can read/write the header and extract/embed image files in very large MKV files within a second or so.

[GarryP]

7 hours ago, Paul Coddington said:

it should be possible to detect and extract embedded image files by reading the header rather than load the entire file

I don’t know how the files are organised, beyond a very basic level, or how the software works but I would tend to agree, unless the file is on non-local storage, and/or needs to be ‘accessed’ in full to be able to extract something from it (some kind of strange internal ‘partitioning’), or there’s something else going on that I don’t know about.

I think we need to know if the software is supposed to be able to open the image contents of MKV files and only a staff member will know that.

[HCl]

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