Thumbnailers don't work properly

yinyangmills · 2025-03-21 14:24:23

New to arch linux, and trying to set up a nice file manager. I am using i3wm, I haven't installed a desktop environment. The issue is that for a number of the file managers I tried, thumbnailers don't work properly. I had various problems with tumbler, so I ended up deleting it and installing the evince thumbnailer, and the Nemo file manager.

Nemo+evince mostly works alright, until it doesn't. It sometimes displays pdfs right, and sometimes it fails complety, with outputs such as this:

CinnamonDesktop-Message: 18:00:36.320: Ignoring thumbnailer with missing binary: '/usr/bin/comicthumb'
CinnamonDesktop-Message: 18:00:36.320: Ignoring thumbnailer with missing binary: '/usr/bin/openscad'
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
WARNING: The convert command is deprecated in IMv7, use "magick" instead of "convert" or "magick convert"

Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
convert: unable to read font `Liberation-Mono' @ warning/annotate.c/RenderType/1024.
convert: unable to read font `Liberation-Mono' @ error/annotate.c/RenderFreetype/1658.
convert: unable to read font `Liberation-Mono' @ warning/annotate.c/RenderType/1024.
convert: unable to read font `Liberation-Mono' @ error/annotate.c/RenderFreetype/1658.
convert: no images defined `/tmp/tumbler-text-NaDxz5' @ error/deprecate.c/ConvertImageCommand/3368.
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed
Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1': startup job failed

What is going on?

Last edited by yinyangmills (2025-03-21 16:05:49)

seth · 2025-03-21 15:45:16

Please use [code][/code] tags. Edit your post in this regard.

I am using i3wm, I haven't installed a desktop environment

… and xinit/startx?
Last link below, 2nd blue note on what to include at least.
Do not use dbus-launch anywhere and in doubt please post your xinitrc.

yinyangmills · 2025-03-21 16:08:29

seth wrote:

Please use [code][/code] tags. Edit your post in this regard.
I am using i3wm, I haven't installed a desktop environment
… and xinit/startx?
Last link below, 2nd blue note on what to include at least.
Do not use dbus-launch anywhere and in doubt please post your xinitrc.

Yes, I do use startx. My .xinitrc is:

#!/bin/sh

prefix="/usr"
exec_prefix="${prefix}"
xrdb="xrdb"
xinitdir="/etc/X11/xinit"
xclock="xclock"
xterm="xterm"
twm="twm"
xmodmap="xmodmap"

userresources="$HOME/.Xresources"
usermodmap="$HOME/.Xmodmap"
sysresources="$xinitdir/.Xresources"
sysmodmap="$xinitdir/.Xmodmap"

# merge in defaults and keymaps

if [ -f "$sysresources" ]; then
    if [ -x /usr/bin/cpp ] ; then
        "$xrdb" -merge "$sysresources"
    else
        "$xrdb" -nocpp -merge "$sysresources"
    fi
fi

if [ -f "$sysmodmap" ]; then
    "$xmodmap" "$sysmodmap"
fi

if [ -f "$userresources" ]; then
    if [ -x /usr/bin/cpp ] ; then
        "$xrdb" -merge "$userresources"
    else
        "$xrdb" -nocpp -merge "$userresources"
    fi
fi

if [ -f "$usermodmap" ]; then
    "$xmodmap" "$usermodmap"
fi

# start some nice programs

if [ -d "$xinitdir"/xinitrc.d ] ; then
	for f in "$xinitdir/xinitrc.d"/?*.sh ; do
		[ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
	done
	unset f
fi

picom &
exec i3

I'm not sure what you mean by "do not use dbus-launch anywhere". What are you suggesting I should do?

seth · 2025-03-21 16:23:41

I'm not sure what you mean by "do not use dbus-launch anywhere".

The assumption was that the activation failure was down to a broken session bus, what happens when not sourcing /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/50-systemd-user.sh or launching the shell w/ dbus-launch - but neither is the case here.

That being said, those errors are probably from tumblerd, did you remove that package?
If not, what's the service status?

yinyangmills · 2025-03-21 16:31:19

Well, I did remove it, and then reinstalled, and then removed again, etc. Right now, I have it installed. I should say that now I no longer see these errors, which doesn't mean everything works. Exactly as before, I get no thumbnails for most pdfs, except for a few of them. But no errors like what I was getting before. Is there a way I can test tumblerd on its own to see if it works as intended?

seth · 2025-03-21 16:40:27

https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/tumbler/star … ng_support
If it'S about pfd's, do you have https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … pler-glib/ and the other optional dependencies installed?

yinyangmills · 2025-03-21 16:47:51

I do have poppler etc... By the way, in the directory

 /usr/share/thumbnailers

I have the following files:

avif.thumbnailer                    gsf-office.thumbnailer
comicthumb.thumbnailer              heif.thumbnailer
dds.thumbnailer                     jxl.thumbnailer
djvu.thumbnailer                    librsvg.thumbnailer
evince.thumbnailer                  stl.thumbnailer
ffmpegthumbnailer.thumbnailer       text.thumbnailer
folder.thumbnailer                  webp.thumbnailer
gdk-pixbuf-thumbnailer.thumbnailer

seth · 2025-03-21 20:02:21

https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/tumbler/-/issues/30 looks interesting, do you have evince installed (optional only dependency of gtk3)

yinyangmills · 2025-03-22 07:56:39

Yeah, I do have evince. I do not have apparmor, whatever that is...

What is odd is that some pdfs work, and some don't. It seems random. Sometimes I get warnings such as:

QThreadStorage: Thread 0x64b5aaa26130 exited after QThreadStorage 10 destroyed
WARNING: The convert command is deprecated in IMv7, use "magick" instead of "convert" or "magick convert"

convert: unable to read font `Liberation-Mono' @ warning/annotate.c/RenderType/1024.
convert: unable to read font `Liberation-Mono' @ error/annotate.c/RenderFreetype/1658.
convert: no images defined `/tmp/tumbler-text-DTwu6M' @ error/deprecate.c/ConvertImageCommand/3368.
error: Could not find thumbnail in zip file

seth · 2025-03-22 08:08:43

Can you upload/share such disfunctional pdf?

Edit: apparmor isn't relevant to this, the interesting part was that tumblerd relies on evince to render (some) PDFs

Last edited by seth (2025-03-22 08:09:29)

yinyangmills · 2025-03-22 08:21:53

It's dozens of pdfs that don't work, and it's not always the same ones. I wipe the cache, change some settings, and suddenly some work that they didn't before, or some that used to work break.

Is there any way I could specifically test the thumbnailers in an "isolated" manner to see if they do what they're supposed to?

yinyangmills · 2025-03-22 08:37:46

For what it's worth, I uninstalled evince, and also used thunar instead of nemo, and now it works. No idea why. By the way, when this whole problem started, I had thunar and not all PDFs worked. Idk what changed now.

Last edited by yinyangmills (2025-03-22 08:38:35)

seth · 2025-03-22 11:51:48

tumblerd acts as dameon, you'd have to run it in debug mode and trigger a thumbnail generation for the files in question.
However
1. your description sounds like some race condition
2. afaict nemo (unlike thunar) doesn't use tumblerd itfp?

yinyangmills · 2025-03-24 09:39:07

I don't know... I guess it's "working" now with thunar so that's good enough for me, it's just a little puzzling...

lambdarch · 2025-03-24 10:51:15

yinyangmills wrote:

Yeah, I do have evince. I do not have apparmor, whatever that is...

What is odd is that some pdfs work, and some don't. It seems random. Sometimes I get warnings such as:

QThreadStorage: Thread 0x64b5aaa26130 exited after QThreadStorage 10 destroyed
WARNING: The convert command is deprecated in IMv7, use "magick" instead of "convert" or "magick convert"

convert: unable to read font `Liberation-Mono' @ warning/annotate.c/RenderType/1024.
convert: unable to read font `Liberation-Mono' @ error/annotate.c/RenderFreetype/1658.
convert: no images defined `/tmp/tumbler-text-DTwu6M' @ error/deprecate.c/ConvertImageCommand/3368.
error: Could not find thumbnail in zip file

Do you have some custom thumbnailers in ~/.local/share/thumbnailers?
Anyway, as said above, you should run tumblerd in debug mode to see what it does exactly:

pkill tumblerd
G_MESSAGES_PREFIXED= G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all $(pkg-config --variable=libdir tumbler-1)/tumbler-1/tumblerd

yinyangmills · 2025-03-24 11:09:17

Do you mean /usr/share/thumbnailers? The directory ~/.local/share/thumbnailers doesn't exist for me.

lambdarch · 2025-03-24 11:19:41

Well, I mean $XDG_DATA_DIRS/thumbnailers and $XDG_DATA_HOME/thumbnailers actually.
The above output looked to me like it could have come from an outdated thumbnailer lying around in a user dir.

seth · 2025-03-24 13:05:01

Afaiu the problem is explicitly *not* w/ tumblerd but whatever nemo uses (and which does not seem to be tumblerd)?

Arch Linux

#1 2025-03-21 14:24:23

Thumbnailers don't work properly

#2 2025-03-21 15:45:16

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#3 2025-03-21 16:08:29

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#4 2025-03-21 16:23:41

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#5 2025-03-21 16:31:19

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#6 2025-03-21 16:40:27

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#7 2025-03-21 16:47:51

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#8 2025-03-21 20:02:21

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#9 2025-03-22 07:56:39

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#10 2025-03-22 08:08:43

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#11 2025-03-22 08:21:53

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#12 2025-03-22 08:37:46

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#13 2025-03-22 11:51:48

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#14 2025-03-24 09:39:07

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#15 2025-03-24 10:51:15

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#16 2025-03-24 11:09:17

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#17 2025-03-24 11:19:41

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

#18 2025-03-24 13:05:01

Re: Thumbnailers don't work properly

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