Photo viewer problem

[redstar79]

Hey guys,


Sorry if I sound a complete idiot, but I'm not exactly a whizz on all things windows.

Has anyone come across any problems with the photo viewer? I find that if i rotate any photos, Photo viewer saves them, but then they disappear from the file that they were in, and I'm unable to find them again. It seems that the photos are still there in the file, but I'm unable to access them to view.

Hoping that theres a real easy solution to this as I've lost some valuable photos!

Thanks for any advice anyone could give.

 

[TrainableMan]

I don't generally use Windows Photo Viewer for editing (though I do sometimes use it to preview folders) but I went ahead and tried rotating a JPG and I was unable to duplicate your situation.

Where are your photos stored ... The My Pictures Library? If the pictures are in an email then you should save them to My Pictures first because attachments are opened in a temporary storage area and eventually deleted.

Have you looked for the file within Windows Explorer? or tried a search for the file name to see if maybe it was placed in a different folder?

Are you absolutely sure it is Photo Viewer; is it only these pictures that you edited that have disappeared? There are some viruses that change all your files to hidden system files which then disappear because windows default is to hide system files. I'm not saying this is what has happened but if other things like menu items, desktop icons, your documents, etc have also disappeared then it is a possibility. I just removed one of these annoying pieces of malware from the neighbors computer this past weekend.

 

[redstar79]

thanks for your reply. I'm starting to think its a virus also as its only started to happen recently

All my photos were saved in the pictures library and viewed using windows photos viewer. I ran some test shots last night and only the photos that i rotated disappeared from the file. Very strange and frustrating!

Do you know of any way you can get windows to show all hidden files again?

 

[redstar79]

oh and i have tried searching for these missing files but cannot find them

 

[Ace]

You're going to want to be careful mentioning hidden files, as that's a folder option setting. There are super hidden files, and even system files that are hidden for a reason.

I personally don't use the windows photo viewer for editing either, but I do know that while I was using it, it will replace the original file with any edits on closing, whether you save those changes or not. Doesn't even ask for confirmation.

"only the photos that i rotated disappeared from the file."

what do you mean by that? or do you mean the directory?

If everything is working the way it should, all of the edits should appear in the same directory that you opened the original file in, but it WILL replace the old one with any recent edits you've made on the original image.

I'm a photoshop guru lol, so I have no use for a silly program like that, when I have the experience with an advanced editor like photoshop.

 

[redstar79]

hi Ace,

Yeah, the files go missing from the directory. I would rotate the photo, either clockwise or counter clockwise, then forward to the next photo - at which point the program would save any changes made to the previous photo. Thats when the file would disappear.

 

[TrainableMan]

Type command on the start search line.
Run the command prompt.
Type CD \users\redstar79\pictures
Type ATTRIB -h *.jpg /s

That should unhide all JPG files under My Pictures and it's sub-folders.

Post back the results/any errors.

 

[redstar79]

omg Trainableman its just worked and all my photos are back!!


Thank you dude, you are awesome

 

[TrainableMan]

You may also want to do that for ...
ATTRIB -h *.jpeg /s
and
ATTRIB -h *.BMP /s

JPG is the most common spelling but JPEG is also allowed these days so you may not have any of them but it doesn't hurt to check and BMP is relatively old but you may have a few.

I am still a bit concerned as to why they would go hidden because I'm not familiar with any reason that would happen through normal use. I would recommend you install malwarebytes (the free version), allow it to update to the latest and then run a complete scan. A link to Malwarebytes can be found in our Freeware DB.

I would also run a complete scan with whatever anti-virus software you have installed; if you don't have any then pick up Microsoft Essentials from the freeware DB as well (it's not perfect but it is far better than none at all).

If Malwarebytes or your AV refuse to install or run that is often a sign that some nasty malware is actually hiding out there blocking them so please let us know if that is the case. If so you will also need RKILL to terminate them first.

 

[Ace]

I'm not sure why it's hiding your files. You can do the same by going to the right click menu for a file. Properties > Hidden (checkbox). And you can even set those files to always be visible through your folder options. You just don't want to set the one to view important system files. But i'm glad you got it figured out.

 

[TrainableMan]

You can do the same by going to the right click menu for a file. Properties > Hidden (checkbox). And you can even set those files to always be visible through your folder options.

I'm sure Ace understands this but for others reading his post, just a small fine point here ...
The OP would actually have to set the folder option "show hidden files" to visible, FIRST, before he could ever do the right-click and change it's hidden property setting because otherwise there would be nothing to right-click on..

Quite honestly I was looking for more than just to unhide when I suggested using the ATTRIB command. The virus I most recently dealt with had actually also set all the files to system, not just hidden. The ATTRIB command would give a fail message saying it couldn't unhide the system file so I wanted to see if that showed up for this user; luckily it did not. Plus I didn't want to have the user show hidden and system files in Windows Explorer because as Ace has noted it is safer for the general user to NOT see these, especially system files.

 

[Ace]

Yeah, lol i've seen a few people unhide that, but then they see something they don't want on their desktop or something and end up deleting it without reason. The ATTRIB command is great though, I believe your method is a lot safer for him to use anyway since you've set the filetypes for him as well.

 

[TrainableMan]

i've seen a few people unhide that, but then they see something they don't want on their desktop or something and end up deleting it without reason.

Yeah, I leave mine showing hidden files all the time but sometimes I get the desktop.ini file. I just delete it because I know it's just folder customizations.

 

[Ace]

You can get quite a lot of those on your desktop. I remember having around 10 of them at once on my desktop alone lol. I guess the thread is solved though, it's a good reminder of the ATTRIB command too for me.

 

[redstar79]

ok, I shall look into malwarebytes as soon as I have a moment.

Thank you both for your advice!

 

[souterfell]

trainable man, im having the same problem, tried working through the command prompts but maybe i have it wrong. can you walk me through it?

 

[TrainableMan]

Note this is for people who store their pictures in their My Pictures Library, if you store them in a different folder then you will need to go to that directory instead. Also notice that the specific user folder is based on your logon id, so assuming you set your computer up as souterfell then you would use ...

Type command on the start search line.
Run the command prompt.

Type CD \users\souterfell\pictures
Type ATTRIB -h *.jpg /s

If it works, then also do ...
ATTRIB -h *.jpeg /s
and
ATTRIB -h *.BMP /s

 

[momrose]

I just noticed this problem recently too. I downloaded photos from my Droid, my husband's Droid, and the pictures my sister took of my granddaughter's first birthday August 7th to my Windows7 Pictures directory. I was going through, rotating photos, and then paging through them again, and noticed that I had lost most of the photos. I actually borrowed my sister's iPhone three times to re-download hers before I figured out that I was losing only the photos I rotated. While re-downloading them from her phone, I also noted that the system seemed to think the missing ones were still there, because it was asking me if I wanted to replace them.

I just used the command that TrainableMan suggested above, and it worked. Thank you for that. It DOES seem strange that one would have to unhide files that are being rotated by a MSWindows program. I suspect that it's not malware or a virus, but rather a fouled up update that MS sent out recently. Any comments on that idea?

MOM @}-->------- (aka MomRose)

 

[TrainableMan]

I use Windows Photo Viewer and have all the Microsoft updates and I was never able to duplicate this problem myself. I simply realized the file's hidden attribute was worth investigating.

I hadn't seen these before but after you posted I went looking at Microsoft and found information indicating it may be related to McAfee antivirus protection. Out of curiosity do you use McAfee as your AV protection? Microsoft Forum Post.

For McAfee users the solution suggested is a registry edit.

First open McAfee and disable access protection:
Navigation/General settings and Alerts/Access Protection. Uncheck 'Use Access Protection'

1) Open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and browse to this
'folder'
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\McAfee\SystemCore\VSCore\On Access
Scanner\McShield\Configuration\Default]
2) Locate the entry ExcludedItem_16 in the list
3) double-click on ExcludedItem_16
4) change the value 3|3|*.TMP to 3|3|*.LOG
5) Close the Registry Editor, save your work and reboot the
computer.

Remember to go back and Re-enable 'Access Protection'

{Note} If in step 4, the value is already 3|3|*.LOG, then uninstall/reinstall McAfee. The registry value will become 3|3|*.TMP, and then you can follow the above steps.

This is supposed to prevent it from happening going forward but you should still do the attrib command to fix files already hidden.

 

[momrose]

Yes! I do use McAfee, and I was just reading the really long thread on a McAfee Community forum at https://community.mcafee.com/thread/35820?start=0&tstart=0 . Haven't gotten to the end of that thread yet, and I'm not about to edit my registry without understanding a bit more of what's going on. I do agree that it's probably a McAfee update rather than a MS update that caused the problem though! Also VERY glad that the photos aren't actually getting lost, just hidden.

MOM @}-->-------