Ubuntu Cosmic: Nautilus can't generate thumbnails for any file

[manmath]

Nautilus can't create thumbnails for images, pdfs, videos, etc. I installed Cosmic with minimal cd image and then installed necessary applications with "--no-install-recommends" option. So, I guess it's missing some packages. Also, I checked nautilus preferences. It's set to always show thumbnail for files below 4GB. Please have a look at all my installed packages (Here is the list of packages: Attachment 281389 and suggest if it's missing a package related to thumbnail generation.

Update:

Out of curiosity I ran nautilus as the root user, surprising nautilus showed thumbnails of all the files. But with normal user privileges nautilus can't display thumbnails.

[dino99]

check that libgdk-pixbuf2.0-bin is installed

[manmath]

Yes, it's been installed. Please have a look at the list of packages: Attachment 281389, and suggest me if I'm missing any other packages.

Update:

Out of curiosity I ran nautilus as the root user, surprising nautilus showed thumbnails of all the files. But with normal user privileges nautilus can't display thumbnails.

[Claus7]

Hello,

I'm checking nautilus under lubuntu. The packages compared are those named: nautilus, Files. The number of your packages exceeds mine. Could you please check the permissions you have in your home folder?

Regards!

[manmath]

Hello,

Could you please check the permissions you have in your home folder?

Regards!

Thank you, but how do I do that? Please suggest.

Update:
Out of curiosity I ran nautilus as the root user, surprising nautilus showed thumbnails of all the files. But with normal user privileges nautilus can't display thumbnails.

[Claus7]

Hello,

open a terminal (https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-open-...er-18-04-linux) and then type:
cd ../

and then post the output of:
ls -l

Regards!

[manmath]

Here's the list of permissions in my home folder:

manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:/home$ ls -al
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Oct 14 04:49 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Oct 14 08:03 ..
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Sep 11 15:28 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 18 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 14:43 manmath
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:/home$ cd manmath/
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~$ ls -al
total 120
drwxr-xr-x 18 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 14:43 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Oct 14 04:49 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 manmath manmath 220 Oct 14 03:01 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 manmath manmath 3771 Oct 14 03:01 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 16 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 11:22 .cache
drwx------ 27 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 14:34 .config
drwxr-xr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 05:24 Desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 manmath manmath 43 Oct 18 12:15 .dmrc
drwxr-xr-x 5 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 18 12:18 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 5 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 14:58 Downloads
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 03:07 .gnupg
-rw------- 1 manmath manmath 16674 Oct 19 13:23 .ICEauthority
drwxrwxr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 05:35 .icons
drwxr-xr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 07:18 ielt
drwxrwxr-x 4 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 04:51 .kingsoft
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 03:07 .local
drwx------ 5 manmath manmath 4096 Sep 11 11:41 .mozilla
drwxr-xr-x 22 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 05:58 Music
drwxr-xr-x 5 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 18 15:43 Pictures
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 07:13 .pki
-rw-r--r-- 1 manmath manmath 807 Oct 14 03:01 .profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 manmath manmath 0 Oct 14 03:13 .sudo_as_admin_successful
drwxrwxr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 05:35 .themes
drwxr-xr-x 5 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 08:49 Videos
-rw------- 1 manmath manmath 61 Oct 19 13:23 .Xauthority
-rw-rw-r-- 1 manmath manmath 131 Oct 14 06:44 .xinputrc

The username is manmath

Update:
Out of curiosity I ran nautilus as the root user, surprising nautilus showed thumbnails of all the files. But with normal user privileges nautilus can't display thumbnails.

[Claus7]

Hello,

your permissions seem fine. Could you try also this:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/2118...ls-in-nautilus

Regards!

[manmath]

Tried, did not work in my case.

Here's some more info that may help you figure out what might have gone wrong:

Installed packages related to thumbnail generation:

gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-bin
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common
chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
ffmpeg
ffmpegthumbnailer
libffmpegthumbnailer4v5
gir1.2-nautilus-3.0
libnautilus-extension1a
nautilus
nautilus-data
gir1.2-gstreamer-1.0
gstreamer1.0-alsa
gstreamer1.0-clutter-3.0
gstreamer1.0-gl
gstreamer1.0-gtk3
gstreamer1.0-libav
gstreamer1.0-plugins-base
gstreamer1.0-plugins-good
gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly
gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio
gstreamer1.0-tools
gstreamer1.0-x
libgstreamer-gl1.0-0
libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0
libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-0
libgstreamer1.0-0
gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0
gnome-calculator
gnome-control-center
gnome-control-center-data
gnome-desktop3-data
gnome-disk-utility
gnome-flashback
gnome-flashback-common
gnome-menus
gnome-mpv
gnome-panel
gnome-panel-data
gnome-screensaver
gnome-screenshot
gnome-session-bin
gnome-session-canberra
gnome-session-common
gnome-session-flashback
gnome-settings-daemon
gnome-settings-daemon-schemas
gnome-sound-recorder
gnome-startup-applications
gnome-terminal
gnome-terminal-data
gnome-video-effects
language-selector-gnome
libgnome-autoar-0-0
libgnome-bluetooth13
libgnome-desktop-3-17
libgnome-menu-3-0
libsoup-gnome2.4-1
network-manager-gnome
pinentry-gnome3
policykit-1-gnome
ubuntu-gnome-default-settings

Thumbnail configuration files:

manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:/usr/share/thumbnailers$ ls
evince.thumbnailer ffmpegthumbnailer.thumbnailer gdk-pixbuf-thumbnailer.thumbnailer librsvg.thumbnailer totem.thumbnailer
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:/usr/share/thumbnailers$ cat *
[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=evince-thumbnailer
Exec=evince-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o
MimeType=application/pdf;application/x-bzpdf;application/x-gzpdf;application/x-xzpdf;application/x-ext-pdf;application/postscript;application/x-bzpostscript;application/x-gzpostscript;image/x-eps;image/x-bzeps;image/x-gzeps;application/x-ext-ps;application/x-ext-eps;application/illustrator;application/x-dvi;application/x-bzdvi;application/x-gzdvi;application/x-ext-dvi;image/vnd.djvu+multipage;application/x-ext-djv;application/x-ext-djvu;image/tiff;application/x-cbr;application/x-cbz;application/x-cb7;application/x-cbt;application/x-ext-cbr;application/x-ext-cbz;application/x-ext-cb7;application/x-ext-cbt;application/vnd.comicbook+zip;application/vnd.comicbook-rar;application/oxps;application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument
[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=ffmpegthumbnailer
Exec=ffmpegthumbnailer -i %i -o %o -s %s -f
MimeType=video/jpeg;video/mp4;video/mpeg;video/quicktime;video/x-ms-asf;video/x-ms-wm;video/x-ms-wmv;video/x-msvideo;video/x-flv;video/x-matroska;video/webm;video/mp2t;
[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=/usr/bin/gdk-pixbuf-thumbnailer
Exec=/usr/bin/gdk-pixbuf-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o
MimeType=image/png;image/bmp;image/x-bmp;image/x-MS-bmp;image/gif;image/x-icon;image/x-ico;image/x-win-bitmap;image/vnd.microsoft.icon;application/ico;image/ico;image/icon;text/ico;application/x-navi-animation;image/jpeg;image/x-portable-anymap;image/x-portable-bitmap;image/x-portable-graymap;image/x-portable-pixmap;image/tiff;image/x-xpixmap;image/x-xbitmap;image/x-tga;image/x-icns;image/x-quicktime;image/qtif;
[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=/usr/bin/gdk-pixbuf-thumbnailer
Exec=/usr/bin/gdk-pixbuf-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o
MimeType=image/svg+xml;image/svg+xml-compressed;
[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=/usr/bin/totem-video-thumbnailer
Exec=/usr/bin/totem-video-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o
MimeType=application/mxf;application/ogg;application/ram;application/sdp;application/vnd.apple.mpegurl;application/vnd.ms-asf;application/vnd.ms-wpl;application/vnd.rn-realmedia;application/vnd.rn-realmedia-vbr;application/x-extension-m4a;application/x-extension-mp4;application/x-flash-video;application/x-matroska;application/x-netshow-channel;application/x-ogg;application/x-quicktimeplayer;application/x-shorten;image/vnd.rn-realpix;image/x-pict;misc/ultravox;text/x-google-video-pointer;video/3gp;video/3gpp;video/3gpp2;video/dv;video/divx;video/fli;video/flv;video/mp2t;video/mp4;video/mp4v-es;video/mpeg;video/mpeg-system;video/msvideo;video/ogg;video/quicktime;video/vivo;video/vnd.divx;video/vnd.mpegurl;video/vnd.rn-realvideo;video/vnd.vivo;video/webm;video/x-anim;video/x-avi;video/x-flc;video/x-fli;video/x-flic;video/x-flv;video/x-m4v;video/x-matroska;video/x-mjpeg;video/x-mpeg;video/x-mpeg2;video/x-ms-asf;video/x-ms-asf-plugin;video/x-ms-asx;video/x-msvideo;video/x-ms-wm;video/x-ms-wmv;video/x-ms-wmx;video/x-ms-wvx;video/x-nsv;video/x-ogm+ogg;video/x-theora;video/x-theora+ogg;video/x-totem-stream;audio/x-pn-realaudio;audio/3gpp;audio/3gpp2;audio/aac;audio/ac3;audio/AMR;audio/AMR-WB;audio/basic;audio/dv;audio/eac3;audio/flac;audio/m4a;audio/midi;audio/mp1;audio/mp2;audio/mp3;audio/mp4;audio/mpeg;audio/mpg;audio/ogg;audio/opus;audio/prs.sid;audio/scpls;audio/vnd.rn-realaudio;audio/wav;audio/webm;audio/x-aac;audio/x-aiff;audio/x-ape;audio/x-flac;audio/x-gsm;audio/x-it;audio/x-m4a;audio/x-m4b;audio/x-matroska;audio/x-mod;audio/x-mp1;audio/x-mp2;audio/x-mp3;audio/x-mpg;audio/x-mpeg;audio/x-ms-asf;audio/x-ms-asx;audio/x-ms-wax;audio/x-ms-wma;audio/x-musepack;audio/x-opus+ogg;audio/x-pn-aiff;audio/x-pn-au;audio/x-pn-wav;audio/x-pn-windows-acm;audio/x-realaudio;audio/x-real-audio;audio/x-s3m;audio/x-sbc;audio/x-shorten;audio/x-speex;audio/x-stm;audio/x-tta;audio/x-wav;audio/x-wavpack;audio/x-vorbis;audio/x-vorbis+ogg;audio/x-xm;application/x-flac;

Startup applications:
- Files
- Gnome settings daemon's media-keys plugin
- Gnome settings daemon's xsettings plugin
- Indicator messages
- Network (Gnome Flashback)
- Pulseaudio sound system
- Screensaver (Gnome Flashback)

Thumbnail cache directory permissions:

manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~$ cd .cache/
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache$ ls -l
total 76
drwx------ 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 17 08:46 babl
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 07:13 chromium
-rw-r--r-- 1 manmath manmath 8192 Oct 18 15:26 event-sound-cache.tdb.5b12201269264fbfb202ebc52060a981.x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
drwx------ 8 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 18 12:15 evolution
drwxr-xr-x 2 manmath manmath 12288 Oct 18 12:18 fontconfig
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 04:51 gegl-0.4
drwxr-xr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 17 22:02 gnome-calculator
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 16 18:02 gnome-control-center
drwx------ 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 16:15 gnome-screenshot
drwxrwxr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 16:14 gstreamer-1.0
drwxr-xr-x 15 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 18 07:07 mesa_shader_cache
drwxrwxr-x 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 04:20 mozilla
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 11:22 thumbnails
drwxrwxr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 03:16 update-manager-core
drwx------ 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 17 08:48 wallpaper
drwxrwxr-x 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 15 21:55 youtube-dl
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache$ cd thumbnails/
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache/thumbnails$ ls -l
total 4
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 11:22 fail
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache/thumbnails$ cd fail/
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache/thumbnails/fail$ ls -l
total 4
drwx------ 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 16:26 gnome-thumbnail-factory

System info and nautilus preview settings:
Screenshot from 2018-10-19 16-15-28.jpg

Update:
Out of curiosity I ran nautilus as the root user, surprising nautilus showed thumbnails of all the files. But with normal user privileges nautilus can't display thumbnails.

[Claus7]

Hello,

just to mention that I'm comparing your output with files under lubuntu 18.04.

So,

Tried, did not work in my case.

Here's some more info that may help you figure out what might have gone wrong:

Installed packages related to thumbnail generation:...

we have differences, yet just a question here: how to you know that these are the only files that are related with thumbnails and how were you able to isolate them?

Thumbnail configuration files:

...

with a quick look things are ok here.

Startup applications:
- Files
- Gnome settings daemon's media-keys plugin
- Gnome settings daemon's xsettings plugin
- Indicator messages
- Network (Gnome Flashback)
- Pulseaudio sound system
- Screensaver (Gnome Flashback)

why do you have under startup applications all these?

Thumbnail cache directory permissions:

manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~$ cd .cache/
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache$ ls -l
total 76
drwx------ 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 17 08:46 babl
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 07:13 chromium
-rw-r--r-- 1 manmath manmath 8192 Oct 18 15:26 event-sound-cache.tdb.5b12201269264fbfb202ebc52060a981.x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
drwx------ 8 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 18 12:15 evolution
drwxr-xr-x 2 manmath manmath 12288 Oct 18 12:18 fontconfig
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 04:51 gegl-0.4
drwxr-xr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 17 22:02 gnome-calculator
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 16 18:02 gnome-control-center
drwx------ 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 16:15 gnome-screenshot
drwxrwxr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 16:14 gstreamer-1.0
drwxr-xr-x 15 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 18 07:07 mesa_shader_cache
drwxrwxr-x 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 04:20 mozilla
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 11:22 thumbnails
drwxrwxr-x 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 14 03:16 update-manager-core
drwx------ 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 17 08:48 wallpaper
drwxrwxr-x 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 15 21:55 youtube-dl
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache$ cd thumbnails/
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache/thumbnails$ ls -l
total 4
drwx------ 3 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 11:22 fail
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache/thumbnails$ cd fail/
manmath@manmath-H61M-DS2:~/.cache/thumbnails/fail$ ls -l
total 4
drwx------ 2 manmath manmath 4096 Oct 19 16:26 gnome-thumbnail-factory

System info and nautilus preview settings:
Screenshot from 2018-10-19 16-15-28.jpg

All the same more or less until the bold line: here my total is 8 and the folders are large and normal: what if backing up those folders with different name, removing the original and rebooting?

Regards!