PDF images not displaying

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markmarksen

Hello,

after having no problems for a couple of years with Scribus 1.3.3.13 my PDF's are not displaying anymore.

I will first say that I already posted this question on a German forum and somebody was very nice to help me. He asked to zip up a sample, which I did - and he could display it just fine!

To make sure it wasn't related to a virus I recently had on my laptop, I installed Scribus 1.3.3.14 on a different computer and I cannot see the PDF pictures there, either.

Display images is checked and when I go to the Image Manager, it says that the PDFs in question are missing, but the paths displayed are correct. Clicking on search,browse and Preview produces an empty image. JPG's work fine.

Per the person in the forum I checked the PFILE variables and they are fine as well.

He thought it may be an incompatibility with other software, which is possible of course. I cannot think of something  I installed recently though - and it would have to be the same software that is present on the other computer.

Btw, a red X is displayed in the image frame and I can get Properties for it. It just won't display it (It does display a jpg, though).

Does anybody have an idea what the problem could be?

Thanks,
mark

a.l.e

hi mark,

please add a link to the post in the german forum so that we can know the details...
having access to one of the files would probably also help.

finally, you should probably try with 1.4RC ... personally, i won't be able to test your files with a 1.3.3.14...

btw, except if you have good reasons to stay with 1.3.3.x, you should probably slowly start migrating to 1.4 (we can only give very basic support for 1.3.3.14... you can go on using it for ever if you prefer, but if you have issues and want some free support from the community you'd better go for 1.4)

ciao
a.l.e

p.s.: have changed the name of the directories on your computer? are the pdf files still at the same place as they used to be?

markmarksen

Hello a.l.e.,

thanks for your response.

Quote from: a.l.e on August 25, 2011, 12:56:54 PM
please add a link to the post in the german forum so that we can know the details...

http://www.scribus-forum.de/forum/index.php?topic=3700.0

Quotehaving access to one of the files would probably also help.

Here is a zipped test  with three images (two pdf, not displaying, one jpg, displaying):
http://www.borntobike.net/tmp/test.zip

Quotefinally, you should probably try with 1.4RC ... personally, i won't be able to test your files with a 1.3.3.14...

btw, except if you have good reasons to stay with 1.3.3.x, you should probably slowly start migrating to 1.4 (we can only give very basic support for 1.3.3.14... you can go on using it for ever if you prefer, but if you have issues and want some free support from the community you'd better go for 1.4)

Ok, thanks for the hint. I will try to get to that later tonight.

Quote
p.s.: have changed the name of the directories on your computer? are the pdf files still at the same place as they used to be?

Yes, they are all in the same location - plus it happens on a newly created test file as well. The Image manager displays the right locations, but the preview is empty. The preview is also empty when I insert a new pdf in a new file (the jpg are displayed).

Thanks again for your response.

a.l.e

hi mark,

i could normally open your file and one of both pdf just showed up like magic...

for the other one i had to rename it and i could also load t in the image frame...

so: it looks like you have an issue with the encoding of your file names (and for the one i see, the path leading to the image)...

avoiding umlauts is always the safe way to go :-)

hth
a.l.e

markmarksen

Hello a.l.e.,

thanks for trying! Yes, the umlaut problem was noted by the guy on the German forum as well. But since I can't see either one of the pdfs, this doesn't seem to be at the core of my problem.

I did upgrade to 1.4.rc5 and see the same problem. What is very strange is that when I create a new file, insert a new image frame and do get image, I do not see the pdf contents in the preview windows (see screenshot here:

http://www.borntobike.net/tmp/getimage.pdf

I think I will switch to PagePlus...

thanks,
mark


a.l.e

hi mark

you probably have an umlaut in one of the directories where the scribus files are placed. or have some rests of badly encoded umlauts in your files.

normally, scribus should be able to work with files and directories containing umlauts, but it might fail if they are not correctly encoded (for your file, the umlaut was *not* correctly encoded and did not display correctly on my system!)

don't forget that everybody else manages to see and include your PDFs! so, it's very likely that the problem is with your computer (or the way you use it) and not with scribus...

since you won't use scribus any more, i think i will help other users instead...

ach so...
a.l.e

markmarksen

Hi a.l.e.,

thanks for your response. It is definitely not an umlaut problem. It doesn't work with newly created documents where there are no umlauts anywhere (as shown in the screenshot I had sent a link to).

Plus, it worked fine for a couple of years and only stopped working recently (last time I used it for a doc I needed to sent out was in June) I thought it may have changed after a virus but I am puzzled that it doesn't work on my other computer as well. It is really strange.

I will check it on a friend's computer today.

utnik

hello markmarksen

Quote from: markmarksen on August 28, 2011, 08:20:07 AM...It is definitely not an umlaut problem...

it could still be an special character problem outside of the affected document.
i had to learn this with a login name that contained an umlaut. such things can lead to very strange behavour. check the whole paths for special characters, from the root directory to scribus, ghostscript, and the affected files (including your login name).

utnik

Meho R.

To be safe, try this:

1. Create a folder on C:\ and name it Test
2. Create a new document in Scribus and name it Doc (I believe extension will be added automatically, so the result will be Doc.sla). Save it into C:\Test
3. Rename your PDF files to: Fig1.pdf, Fig2.pdf and Fig3.pdf. Place all three files in C:\Test
4. Now create image frames in Doc.sla and place figures in them. Working?

I downloaded your test-files from the link you provided, renamed them to this scheme (Fig1 being actually a .jpg file), opened the .sla file, right click on every image frame, then Get Image (because after renaming images Scribus cannot find them anymore and all that is displayed are red lines). No problem. Scribus 1.4.0.rc5 used.

markmarksen

Thanks utnik. I had checked the entire path for my local test. Definitely no umlauts. Since it was working before I also don't see how it could just stop working.

It does turn out that on the desktop machine it is actually working. I noticed it after I also upgraded to 1.4.rc5, but I think previously it was my fault (I may not have done a local test and just copied over the sla without the respective pdf), so the version shouldn't make a diff.

I think now that the problem on the laptop may be caused by the Ukash virus which I had recently. I cleaned it up with the Kaspersky rescue disk, but it may have done the same thorough job in cleaning up as I am usually with cleaning my room :)

Anyway, thanks to both you and a.l.e. for your suggestions.

mark

markmarksen

Quote from: Meho R. on August 28, 2011, 02:27:14 PM
To be safe, try this:

1. Create a folder on C:\ and name it Test
2. Create a new document in Scribus and name it Doc (I believe extension will be added automatically, so the result will be Doc.sla). Save it into C:\Test
3. Rename your PDF files to: Fig1.pdf, Fig2.pdf and Fig3.pdf. Place all three files in C:\Test
4. Now create image frames in Doc.sla and place figures in them. Working?

No, unfortunately not. Btw, the jpg in the sample was intentionally, because it is working for me as well. It is only a problem with pdf inserts. As mentioned above, this used to work fine (until around June, that is when I last used it).

The "only" thing that happened since is the Ukash virus, which I now blame for it. It may have changed a registry setting or something that prevents the pdf from being displayed.

Fortunately I have a workaround in that I can carry the sla and pdf to the other computer and create the pdf there...

thx,
mark