Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

https://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u

2023.112      Mar 26, 2023

Priority: High

v2023.112 includes the following fixes:

• Mirrored prints: Fixed a bug where very large images (>1 GB) may spontaneously print mirrored under certain conditions.
• Corner marks: Fixed an issue where corner cut marks were not previewing in the full page editor.
• Template marks: Cut marks now preview in the proper locations when using template/centered print placement.

Mike

Thanks for fixing the mirror issue.

Mirrored prints. Two weeks ago I was afraid it had something to do with the HP Z3200 drivers so did not dare to discuss it here. Saw no other comments in the forum either. But lost two 100x140cm big prints that way.  Trials then showed it really had to do with files being just within 1GB or just above 1GB. Tried a much older QU version and it did the same, HP printer preview showed it again. Having more time today I tried Photoline for the prints and the >1GB file printed correctly. So I thought not the Z3200 drivers to blame and logged in to report my issues and then I see it is solved. Was there a bug reported in the forum?  Could not find it.

What are the specific conditions?

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

It wasn't posted here.  It was an email from a customer using an Epson P20000 64 inch printer.  I couldn't find the problem at first but after getting every possible specification including image size, I was able to repeat it.  The only way it happened was the following specific conditions:

(1) Image itself was >1 GB in size (X * Y resolution * 3)
(2) Image ended up rotated 90 degrees on the page (whether it was a manual or auto rotation by Qimage)

Regards,
Mike

Just upgraded to this version. Now I'm having an issue where Qimage causes my 2nd screen, where I do most of my work to lock up. The Qimage window in it's last state is showing there, but there is no interaction possible. It seems to be caused by selecting a large folder (3.27G). I can no longer access that screen at all. I am able to launch another instance of Qimage where I can select a smaller folder to avoid the problem next time, but then the only way I have been able to free up the screen is with a restart. I can't seem to find the process in the taskmgr that is hanging up. I don't know if this is an issue with previous versions, as I never tried to access this folder with older versions. System is Win 10, Dell XPS15, x64, i7-6700HQ 2.6GHz, 16G Ram, SSD has 190G free space. Second monitor is Dell 2007WFP.

Try just letting it sit in that large folder and walk away for a while when you have time.  Thumbnails are built in the background so it should always be responsive but if not, it could be encountering some corrupted files that may delay user input.  Giving it a while to process may give it a chance to either build what it needs or time out trying (if some files are unreadable).  I did have this problem once in the past and it turned out to be a bad disk drive: the drive holding the images where Qimage was looking for thumbnails was an external USB drive that went bad and the operating system hung when reading files from it.  There is nothing Qimage can do at that point because the operating system freezes when Qimage tries to read even just the file names: so the background thumb builder hasn't even started yet.  Obviously the problem was fixed by replacing the drive but you can always get control back in Qimage by holding the Shift key while starting Qimage so that it doesn't try to load thumbs for the same (potentially damaged) location and it'll start up.

I've never seen it not appear in task manager though.  That's a new one.  It will either show at the top under "Apps" as Qimage or in processes as Qimage.exe.  It makes me think there may be something else going on (other than a Qimage problem) because Qimage isn't responsible for putting itself in Task Manager: the operating system has control of that.

Regards,
Mike

Thanks for the reply. I do have some new info. It does seem as though once it has had a chance to build thumbnails for an entire folder, it does not hang. I was eventually able to work just fine in the folder where I had first noticed a problem, but then I had a similar problem with another new folder. The behavior seems to be that I can move the window around back and forth between screens for a minute or so, but then it freezes. It's as though something has killed the process in mid-flight, as it does not show up in the taskmgr. There is nothing for me to kill, the screen is frozen with an image of the window, which may or may not be fully moved onto the 2nd screen, just wherever it happened to be when it crashed. At that point, I can no longer use the 2nd screen at all for any app. The mouse won't move onto it. I can launch another instance of Qimage, keeping it on the first screen, but I have only been able to recover the use of the 2nd screen by doing a restart. I have a feeling that if I launch Qimage in the main screen, navigate to a new folder, then let it do it's thing for a while, things will be ok after that. Similar to what you suggest.

It almost sounds like your video driver locked up or something happened in Windows that crashed the video driver for that second monitor.  If you can't find Qimage.exe in task manager, it is likely something else caused the problem (like a video driver or some Windows monitor bug).  Only other thing I can suggest is to make sure your video driver is up to date.

Mike