Cannot view/play heic file

Mitch

Hi
New to tonfotos.
Running Win11
Get error viewing/playing heic files.
Cannot install heic from Microsoft store as this app will not work on this deice
Any ideas please ?
Cheers

Andrey

Mitch Are you running one of those barnd new ARM-powered computers on Windows?

Mike

I like to TAG that is also not working in tonfotos? feature request! Viewin works after installing: https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9NMZLZ57R3T7?ocid=pdpshare

Andrey

Mike feature request!

Yep, tere is another thread about it: https://community.tonfotos.com/d/250-commenting-heic-pics

Commenting, editing tags - this al requres updating EXIF and XMP medata inside HEIC, we have this in roadmap.

Mitch

Seriously confusing !

That did nothing !

Mitch

Hi Andrey
No its a standard i7 CPU with B450 chipset.

Andrey

Mitch Ok, I see. I’m afrraid we are not the right people to help with this. Please try contacting Microsoft support, that’s thier software after all.

Update. Just to give you some background why everything is so messy about HEIC, here’s some background: https://tonfotos.com/articles/heic/#licensing

Good old corporate patent wars at play.

churchmouse99

Hi There….

The Tonfotos website states, “Supports indexing and viewing Apple’s heic files without preliminary conversion to JPEG.”
I’ve already got the HEIF and HEVC extensions on my Win 11 PC.
However, after installing Tonfotos, all HIEC files have a broken image icon for thumbnails.
Double-clicking on them is even more confusing. Some files consistently show up in preview fine while others consistently open up with partial opacity overlaid with a message saying Microsoft HEVC extension is required (which I already have installed and working for other applications). This difference can be adjacent from one image to another, e.g., IMG_3170.HEIC and IMG_3171.HEIC.

Any help in resolving this issue would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!!

Andrey

churchmouse99 Am I right that you first installed Tonfotos and indexed your archive, and only then installed HEVC extension? In that case thumbnails were already generated. To force Tonfotos to re-index those files you need to select them and then chose “re-index” in context menu. That should fix thumbnails.

As to the fact that some images may still show up this message - are you sure those images are not broken? Can you open them normally in default Photos app?

churchmouse99

Andrey

Hi Andrey,

Thanks for replying. The HEIF and HEVC extensions had been installed long before I installed Tonfotos. I had been viewing the HEIC files in native windows apps for a long time already. I also did double check that I’m able to view both photos and videos natively in Windows and that there’s no file corruption.

Any ideas that could help me?
Thanks.

Andrey

churchmouse99 Thank you for explanation. Can you please check, what software do you have installed that supports heic/hevc? Is it native drivers from Microsoft or some third-party? In the past we had similar reports from users with CopyTrans HEIC plugin, that error was resolved just by removing it.

churchmouse99

Andrey

Hi Andrey,

Thanks again for helping me out.
Prior to installing Tonfotos, I had just been using Picasa (which doesn’t recognize .HEIC).
So to view the .HEIC files, I would just double click them in Windows Explorer and it would open in the native Windows Photos app.

I also have DigiKam but that was installed some time after Tonfotos and didn’t change the behaviour of it.
Other than that, I do have the K-Lite Codec Pack installed as well as a free version of DaVinci Resolve.

In Settings -> Installed Apps, I can find the HEVC app from Microsoft but nothing else, not even the anything about HEIF or HEIC.

Anything suspect here?
Thanks!

Andrey

churchmouse99 I guess that most suspicious one is K-Lite Codec Pack. Can you please make an experiment? Can you uninstall this pack, restart your Windows and try HEIC in Tonfotos again? Later you can install this pack back again.

churchmouse99

Andrey

Hi Andrey,
Apologies for taking so long to come back.
I did the uninstall and restarted the PC.
Unfortunately, there’s no luck…. There’s no change in the representation of thumbnails nor the display of the pic when opened up from Tonfotos.

The two png files above show the thumbnail and the message to install the HEVC extension. Curiously, the next pic in the sequence which is also HEIC opens just fine without any warning message. And it’s like that - some HEIC broken thumbnails open with a warning overlaid, and some open normally without any warning.

Andrey

churchmouse99 OK, thank you for checking this. Let me try to summarize what we know up to now. Please correct me if I got something wrong.

HEVC extension is installed and working in other applications.
No other codec is interfering
All HEIC files are displayed with “broken ” instead of thumbnail in Tonfotos
Some of them cannot be viewed in Tonfotos, but are viewed in other apps like Photos or Paint.
Some of files can actually be viewed by Tonfotos when opened, but thumbnail is still displayed as “broken” even if you do “re-index” for this file.

Is that correct?

I yes, I guess next step would be to try some of your files on my system. This way we will further narrow down the search area. Can you please send few samples of “completely broken” and “partially broken” files to support@tonfotos.com?

churchmouse99

Hang on….
I must have missed the part about “re-index”.
Went to google it and did the re-index on all the HEIC files and got all the thumbnails showing.
I haven’t gone through all the photos but seems there’s no issue opening those that I have.
At this point, I would say my issue is solved.

I don’t think there’s a need for me to be installing the K-Lite codecs now since none of my applications need it.
Thanks so much for your help Andrey!
Cheers!