Help getting video thumbnails to show up from tumbler, Fedora 31

Henrik · 2019-11-17 04:59:14

I just installed Fedora 31 after switching from Ubuntu, and video thumbnails are not showing up on the Desktop or in any folders in Thunar. Image thumbnails are working fine. I've searched around and found a few posts with similar issues, but haven't been able to figure it out. My install is brand new with a default install of the XFCE spin of Fedora 31 which came out recently.

I've installed a few gstreamer plugins that were missing to see if they might be required, but it didn't help. I also installed ffmpegthumbnailer which I don't think was included but that doesn't generate any thumbnails for videos either.

I have show thumbnails: set to always in Thunar.

These are the gstreamer related and tumbler packages I have installed

ffmpeg-devel.x86_64                         4.2.1-2.fc31                           @rpmfusion-free        
ffmpeg-libs.x86_64                          4.2.1-2.fc31                           @rpmfusion-free        
ffmpegthumbnailer.x86_64                    2.2.0-9.fc31                           @rpmfusion-free        
PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin.x86_64          1.1.12-11.fc31                         @anaconda              
gstreamer1.x86_64                           1.16.1-1.fc31                          @anaconda              
gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free.x86_64          1.16.1-2.fc31                          @anaconda              
gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-extras.x86_64   1.16.1-2.fc31                          @fedora                
gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld.x86_64     1.16.1-1.fc31                          @rpmfusion-free        
gstreamer1-plugins-base.x86_64              1.16.1-1.fc31                          @anaconda              
gstreamer1-plugins-good.x86_64              1.16.1-2.fc31                          @anaconda              
gstreamer1-plugins-good-extras.x86_64       1.16.1-2.fc31                          @fedora                
gstreamer1-plugins-good-qt.x86_64           1.16.1-2.fc31                          @fedora                
gstreamer1-plugins-ugly.x86_64              1.16.1-1.fc31                          @rpmfusion-free        
gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free.x86_64         1.16.1-1.fc31                          @fedora                
libnice-gstreamer1.x86_64                   0.1.16-6.fc31                          @anaconda              
tumbler.x86_64                              0.2.7-1.fc31                           @fedora                
tumbler-extras.x86_64                       0.2.7-1.fc31                           @fedora

If I "run" /lib64/tumbler-1/tumblerd in a terminal, it shows:

Registered thumbnailer ffmpegthumbnailer -i %i -o %o -s %s -f
Registered thumbnailer /usr/bin/gdk-pixbuf-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o
Registered thumbnailer /usr/bin/gdk-pixbuf-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o
Registered thumbnailer evince-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o
Registered thumbnailer gsf-office-thumbnailer -i %i -o %o -s %s

If I run the first command shown above manually for a video

ffmpegthumbnailer -i video.mp4 -o video.jpg -s 0 -f

It successfully generates and saves a thumbnail image that looks like what it's supposed to generate, it just isn't doing it automatically

Last edited by Henrik (2019-11-17 05:37:13)

ToZ · 2019-11-17 14:29:31

Hello and welcome.

So there appears to be a number of things at play here.

First of all, tumbler is not built with ffmpegthumbnailer enabled (see: https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org//pac … /build.log - search for ffmpegthumbnailer) most probably because it is not in the default repositories.

Secondly, the gstreamer plugins aren't working. I'm not sure why this is the case. Haven't investigated. Someone should open a bug report with fedora.

As a workaround, you can use the ffmpegthumbnailer through the desktop thumbnailer functionality. To do so:

Copy /etc/xdg/tumbler/tumbler.rc to ~/.config/tumbler (create the directory if it doesn't exist)
Set "Disabled=true" for both the ffmpegthumbnailer and Gstreamer plugins
Make sure the ffmpegthumbnailer is installed from the fusion repositories
With root privileges, copy the /usr/share/thumbnailers/ffmpegthumbnailer.thumbnailer file to /usr/share/thumbnailers/videos.thumbnailer
Close thunar and kill the existing tumblerd process (or log out and back in again)

You should now have video thumbnails.

Edit: filename corrections

Last edited by ToZ (2019-11-17 14:58:14)

Henrik · 2019-11-17 21:24:05

ToZ wrote:

Hello and welcome.
So there appears to be a number of things at play here.
First of all, tumbler is not built with ffmpegthumbnailer enabled (see: https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org//pac … /build.log - search for ffmpegthumbnailer) most probably because it is not in the default repositories.
Secondly, the gstreamer plugins aren't working. I'm not sure why this is the case. Haven't investigated. Someone should open a bug report with fedora.
As a workaround, you can use the ffmpegthumbnailer through the desktop thumbnailer functionality. To do so:
Copy /etc/xdg/tumbler/tumbler.rc to ~/.config/tumbler (create the directory if it doesn't exist)
Set "Disabled=true" for both the ffmpegthumbnailer and Gstreamer plugins
Make sure the ffmpegthumbnailer is installed from the fusion repositories
With root privileges, copy the /usr/share/thumbnailers/ffmpegthumbnailer.thumbnailer file to /usr/share/thumbnailers/videos.thumbnailer
Close thunar and kill the existing tumblerd process (or log out and back in again)
You should now have video thumbnails.
Edit: filename corrections

Thanks, that fixed it and now video thumbnails are being created automatically! I'll see if I can figure out how to make a bug report on Fedora about this since it appears to be an issue with it.

ToZ · 2019-11-17 21:39:47

I've been digging a little deeper. I think the root of this problem is that tumbler is no longer able to great video thumbnails with the gstreamer thumbnailer. Perhaps as a result of the move from gstreamer0.10 to gstreamer1.0. Nope, not that.

I'll continue investigating.

Last edited by ToZ (2019-11-17 21:45:39)

ToZ · 2019-11-17 21:58:06

Got it.

For the gstreamer video thumbnailer to work (no need for ffmpegthumbnailer and the workaround above), you need to install the gstreamer1-libav package (also from the fusion repositories).

On Arch, it is the gst-libav package.

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#1 2019-11-17 04:59:14

Help getting video thumbnails to show up from tumbler, Fedora 31

#2 2019-11-17 14:29:31

Re: Help getting video thumbnails to show up from tumbler, Fedora 31

#3 2019-11-17 21:24:05

Re: Help getting video thumbnails to show up from tumbler, Fedora 31

#4 2019-11-17 21:39:47

Re: Help getting video thumbnails to show up from tumbler, Fedora 31

#5 2019-11-17 21:58:06

Re: Help getting video thumbnails to show up from tumbler, Fedora 31

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