Manage Tab Viewing Window Empty

[carolynr61]

I don't think that my PSP X5 (or X4) is presenting the images the way the tab had intended. I've done several complete re-installs and the remainder of the program seems to be working, except for the Manage tab. I can see the images displayed in the tray portion of the window and the highlighted image name shows above the large preview window, however there is no image in the preview window. The area becomes populated with images if I switch to the Thumbnail view, but the small preview window palette is blank. If, while in the Preview mode if I click on one of the effects, the effect is created in the tray. Another thing that I've noticed is if I use the Magnifier tool in the empty area (where the preview should be) I can actually see the magnified image in the tool.

Is there anyone who has experienced this problem and found a solution? Thanks.

[teknisyan]

Can you post a screen shot, so that we can see what you see? Also have you updated the directX? If not you can download them using the link below.

Direct X: http://on-msn.com/aLrk0j (WinXP)
Direct X: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/window ... tx-11.aspx

[carolynr61]

I've updated Direct X (version 11), Flash, and anything else I could think of.

[photodrawken]

Re-installing PSP probably does not affect the Preferences settings, which may be corrupted. Hold down your Shift key when launching PSP, and answer "Yes" to the prompt to restore the default settings. Re-setting the Preferences cured other strange display behaviour here with PSPX5.

[carolynr61]

I already reset preferences in one of the attempts to correct the problem. This happens in both X4 and X5. Why would the preferences become corrupt in both versions? My feeling is that a windows update did something which caused the problem (probably a registry entry) since I don't recall that my PSP X4 always had this problem. The remainder of the program appears to be working fine and I'm not having any crashes or error messages.

[photodrawken]

Why would the preferences become corrupt in both versions?

Hard to say, but re-setting the preferences is easy enough to try, "just in case".

My feeling is that a windows update did something which caused the problem (probably a registry entry) since I don't recall that my PSP X4 always had this problem.

I'm thinking that it's not a Windows update, since I'm fully patched and don't see that behaviour in X5.
The next thing to try is to disable all 3rd party plug-ins. If the preview works, then re-enable the plug-ins one at a time to find the culprit.

[teknisyan]

Thank you for the screen shot, can you check what is the settings that you have for your screen resolution and if you have the updated graphics card driver.

[carolynr61]

Since I'm on a laptop, I don't have the option of updating my graphics card since my Toshiba laptop uses an Intel Graphics Chip - I can't even select the graphics acceleration option. I have my resolution set to 1440 x 900, 32 bit color, refresh rate of 60 hz.

It's especially puzzling since the magnify tool recognizes the image that should be there and the pixels can be seen when hovering the tool over the empty image preview.

[carolynr61]

The next thing to try is to disable all 3rd party plug-ins. If the preview works, then re-enable the plug-ins one at a time to find the culprit.

By third-party plugins, are you referring to filters? I can't see how that would affect the Manage tab since no filter is being used at the time and when I reset the preferences, it removes my link to the plugins folder which is on an external drive.

Also, your Windows updates may not be the same as mine since other Microsoft products that I have installed, like Office, are also being updated on my machine and unless your computer is identical to mine, the updates could be different.

[carolynr61]

This reminds me of a problem that some people had with the Adobe Acrobat updates, where, when you ran the update, it changed a setting in the registry. After their update, when you'd be viewing a list of pdfs in a folder on your computer, you wouldn't see the pdf image in the preview window. For awhile I had to apply a patch to the registry in order to get my previews back whenever Acrobat had an update, until Adobe fixed the issue.

[photodrawken]

First of all, I freely admit that since I haven't seen the PSP code that shows the preview, all I can suggest are general troubleshooting steps.

I've experienced obscure problems in other graphics programs with 3rd party plugins in the least expected places -- layer panel customization dialog windows, for example. That's why one of the first things to do is to uninstall any 3rd party software so as to get your PSP program to the plain-vanilla clean default state.

Before going to all that trouble, the first question to answer is: Is this happening with all image folders, or just that one? Specifically, if you browse to a folder containing no images from your camera, do those JPGs show?

The reason I don't suspect a Windows update is that the core Windows updates are the same for the operating system and updates to other MS software such as Office, or Visual Studio or SQL Server are unlikely causing a conflict. Not saying it's impossible, just unlikely.

[carolynr61]

Yes all the image folders, regardless of location or format, are viewed the same. I went to the trouble of uninstalling Stardocks Windowblinds - although I had excluded PSP from being skinned - it's the only program that I felt could affect graphic settings. I'm not about to uninstall all my programs and reinstall my operating system just to get this program to work.

The programs X4 and X5 did work correctly when they were installed, but within the last month, I had a crashing issue where the program (X5) just refused to reopen until it was totally uninstalled and reinstalled through the instructions of Corel techs. Once it was reinstalled, it no longer crashed, but this problem appeared. I hadn't installed any other program over that time. Temp files have been cleared and java, flash, etc, have been updated. Whatever it is, affected both versions of PSP although they both install in different directories -so what do they share- DLLS? I've been trying to think of anything that I did, but I can't come up with anything that has worked.

Another poster mentioned the odd incorrect appearance of the icons in the program and, surprisingly I noticed this as well yesterday - I thought it was just my imagination. I don't want there to be yet another problem.

[photodrawken]

Well, I'm out of ideas. Without knowing how those previews are being generated (in the code) any other suggestions would just be shots in the dark....

I also got the bad icons in the Layers palette, but re-setting the Preferences cured that.

[carolynr61]

Well, I'm out of ideas. Without knowing how those previews are being generated (in the code) any other suggestions would just be shots in the dark....

I also got the bad icons in the Layers palette, but re-setting the Preferences cured that.

I'll try another preference reset for the icons (although as long as the tool works, the mis-matched icon is a really small problem)

I've used PSP since JASC version 7 and have gotten periodic updated versions through the years and this is the first time that there have been so many problems. There have been occasional program crashes but never anything that required this much effort to restore the program to its correct working condition.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[carolynr61]

Through some trial and error, I have found a way to see the image on the Manage Tab, although I don't really find it acceptable. If I go to the Performance Options of my Computers System Properties and uncheck "Enable desktop composition" OR "Use visual styles on windows and buttons", then the Manage Tab has the preview as it was intended. So I can have pretty windows with transparency and not see the Manage Tab preview or not see the image in the tab and have my desktop look good.