Zero-Byte (empty) JPG files cause WD Photos and/or transcoding to hang

I discovered after copying over 400 photos into /Public/Share Photos - from an SD card - that there were several jpg files on the SD card that were zero byte (empty) files.  Not sure of why they were empty - but it seems that the presence of a zero-byte JPG (and possibly true of an empty JPEG) will cause the transcoding process to hang - forever.

At first I thought the transcoding process was very slow - not realizing that there were 3 or 4 empty jpg’s in the folder - but WD Photos would show the spinning “busy” wheel on that particular folder - constantly - and the File not found. (404 17.26) would pop up constantly (once per zero-byte file) as well as the impacted photos showing no thumbnail.

I finally noticed the zero-byte files and removed them from the folder - and within minutes everything was working.  I did a few more tests - actually putting various other zero-byte (non JPG) file in the folder - without any problems occurring - but shortly after changing the extension on an intentionally empty file - to .jpg - the spinning circle returned to the WD App.

I think the transcoding process needs to specifically ignore zero-byte jpg files - in the likely event that a zero-byte jpg is inadvertently introduced into the folder. 

I would like to know where on the MyBookLive drive is the database of transcoded photos kept for use by the WD Photos App - and how would somebody go about clearing that database completely and allowing it to rebuild - in the event that it becomes corrupt.

In experimenting with WD Photos - I initially thought that WD Photos was using the Twonky Server - but apparently not.  I can disable the Twonky Server and WD Photos continues to work fine - and still detects new pictures added to my /Public/Shared Photos folder.

Can somebody anwser the following questions:

  1.  Where does the MyBookLive keep the database of transcoded images for use by WD Photos?

  2.  Is there a way to reset and/or rebuild the WD Photos database - without performing a factory reset of the drive.

  3.  Is there any relationship between the Twonky Server and WD Photos?

  4.  Does disabling remote access disable the transcoding service - this is a bit difficult to test?  If not - how would one turn off this process if not wishing to use WD Photos?

sbeattie2, maybe you should try contacting WD’s Technical Support about this. You can do so either by phone or email.

To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

Regards,

Hi there, do you have an outcome for this? It’s been a while…

It appears there is now an option to rebuild the WD2GO database - which is used by WDPhotos - without doing a factory restore.  I just noticed this option today - and I can only assume that it appeared as of the 02.10.09-124 firmware upgrade.  The option is located under Settings/RemoteAccess/Advanced/WD 2go Server - Click on Rebuild.

ThePizzaMatrix wrote:

Hi there, do you have an outcome for this? It’s been a while…

I am not sure if this has been resolved or not.  I have not had any occurences of zero-byte files in the Shared Pictures folder and/or subfolders.  I can attempt to create a zero-byte file in there with a .jpg extension and see if the problem surfaces again.  The zero-byte files were on the SD card that came out of a friend’s camera and they were not noticed intially due to the sheer number of pictures that I offloaded from the SD card.  The camera created these zero-byte files and I am not sure what caused the camera to do that.  I will post back when I have results - but this is not high on the priority list at the moment .

Feel sympathy for your situation, but I do not encounter such things, I hope you can find a way to solve, let us know in the end what kind of situation, I know what causes, and how to solve.

I’m not having a specific problem - I just happened to notice a while back that WD Photos doesn’t handle zero-byte files well.  The presence of a zero-byte (empty) file in any of the directories that WD Photos scans - causes erratic behavior in the mobile app.  Typically there are not going to zero-byte files present - however - a zero-byte file can occur for any number of reasons - and the WD Photo app and/or the MyBook Live task that scans the files - should ignore them.  I have not had a chance to re-test recently.