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As you navigate through the Batch Thumbs interface, you will no doubt get some annoying popup message indicating a problem or potential problem. Here's a list of the most common errors and how to deal with them.
1. The first thing you're likely to run into is the No Files Selected message:
This just means that you have not hi-lited (selected) any files to process in the First screen (Input File Selection Screen). For a description on how to select files, see Tutorial #1.
2. Another problem that happens early on in the process is the Big Blue warning about Duplicate File Names:
The file names are not identical, but the parts before the period are the same. In the example above, 4pxline is the same for both of the files. One is bmp format and the other is jpg format. The warning box explains this error and why it's a problem, but I'll describe it again here. B.T. processes the files you selected sequentially, in alphabetic order. For the sake of this example, let's assume Thumbnails are being created using Thumb as the qualifier prefix with the file name. It would make a thumbnail of 4pxline.bmp, and name the thumbnail image Thumb4pxline.jpg. Then it would make a thumbnail of 4pxline.jpg, and name the thumbnail image Thumb4pxline.jpg. Oops, we just lost the thumbnail image of the bmp version of the file. Well... no big deal maybe. Or maybe you have two versions of the same image and this is an opportunity to remove one. At any rate, you can go back and do something about the situation or allow B.T. to continue forward, knowing that your thumbs may get goofed up. You could rename one of the files or un-select one of the files to get around this situation. If you are using the Qualifier as Prefix/Suffix with Seq# option, this won't be an issue because the resulting thumbnail images will all have unique names.
3. The other problem that you're likely to see at some point is the Input/Output Directories are the Same:
This normally shouldn't cause problems, but if you have the right combination of settings you could write the thumbnail images over the original version, and lose the originals forever. For example, if you chose the 'Qualifier as Prefix with File Name' option and left the Output File Qualifier box blank, B.T. would create thumbnail images with thesame name as the original, depending on the conversion option you chose. While this is probably not what you would do, B.T. always gives you a heads up that something might go awry.
4. I will mention one other error that you might see. I use a 1 x 1 pixel transparent gif file in my web site for a spacer. B.T. has trouble figuring out what to do with such a small file, and will report it as an error during processing. You may see errors on very small files, and B.T. will just stop processing when it hits that file. You'll get an error message:
and Batch Thumbs will indicate that Processing is Incomplete. It will also report on how many files were processed, but we can see that it was working on the 5th file when it got the error. Click OK, go back to the first screen, and count down to the 5th file you selected. That's the file that caused B.T. to complain. It might be corrupted, too small, etc. Un-select just that file and try the operation again.
Other errors and warning may pop up here and there, but they're the normal types of confirmations and errors.
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