Is there a JS function I can call to refresh the file list?

Walt9z

I'm adding a Delete option that will move a file to a .trash folder which later gets purged. I'd like the file list to reflect that the file is no longer there.

Karl

Walt9z You mean you are adding your own entirely new "delete" button from custom context menu? Why not just edit the existing delete function in index.php and add your own functionality to store deleted files in a .trach folder? That would be the easiest solution ...

With the native delete function, it also deletes the file in Files Gallery without refreshing page. Unfortunately, there is no public API to "refresh" or reload the page.

Walt9z

Karl

If I go messing around with index.php, will that cause me problems when it's time to update FG?

If FG can find an ffmpeg executable, will it automatically generate thumbnails for videos?

I can't install ffmpeg or the php libraries to use it, but they have a statically linked version that contains everything in one executable. So I can just upload that and tell FG where it is.

Karl

Walt9z If I go messing around with index.php, will that cause me problems when it's time to update FG?

Yes, but pick your best solution:

Edit the index.php to modify the delete so it saves the deleted files in trash. You will inherit native delete functionality, which simply deletes the files in the interface, without even reloading. With some care, you can just port the delete section in the code after updates.
Create your own delete function from context menu, which will require both custom javascript and your own custom PHP script. Will it support deleting multiple files? Deleting dirs recursively? There will be no "deleting" or "deleted" status in the interface. When the process is complete, the interface will not update itself ... You will need to refresh the entire page in browser. This is a clumsy, halfass solution.

Walt9z If FG can find an ffmpeg executable, will it automatically generate thumbnails for videos?

Yes.

Walt9z I can't install ffmpeg or the php libraries to use it

For your info, you don't need any libraries, you just need FFmpeg and PHP exec() enabled.
https://www.files.gallery/docs/ffmpeg-video-previews/

Walt9z but they have a statically linked version that contains everything in one executable. So I can just upload that and tell FG where it is.

You mean your server has FFmpeg installed and accessible from a fixed location? If the app location is indeed accessible, then yes you can point to it from video_ffmpeg_path.

Walt9z

Karl

In config.php, it looks like if I enable file deletes, then I also enable folder deletes. Is this correct? If so, and I modify the delete code to not allow folder deletes, will I mess up other code that might use this function?

Looking at index.php, it looks like deleting a file doesn't also delete any cached thumbnail that goes with it. It looks like there's another process that handles that. If so, that's nice.

Besides allowing web site users to delete videos, I'm also purging videos and their external thumbnail files after 7 days. Is this something FG can do for me?

Karl

Walt9z In config.php, it looks like if I enable file deletes, then I also enable folder deletes. Is this correct? If so, and I modify the delete code to not allow folder deletes, will I mess up other code that might use this function?

Yes, enabling delete, means allowing to delete anything, including folders. You can probably disable deletion of of folders from the code without messing up anything.

Walt9z Looking at index.php, it looks like deleting a file doesn't also delete any cached thumbnail that goes with it. It looks like there's another process that handles that. If so, that's nice.

That's correct.

Walt9z Besides allowing web site users to delete videos, I'm also purging videos and their external thumbnail files after 7 days. Is this something FG can do for me?

I'm not really sure what you want Files Gallery to do for you. You could create a background "task" process that runs every X days and cleans up videos in your .trash that are more than X days old, but this code is independent from Files Gallery, and you should probably place it in an external file, or even included from your config.php at least.

Walt9z and their external thumbnail file

You mean custom thumbnail? Default thumbnail files will eventually get deleted when the original file is deleted.

Walt9z

Karl

Thanks for all the support Karl!

I've got FG working pretty well, but it doesn't look like it's reliably generating thumbnails.

On my web site, most of the videos have FG-generated thumbnails but a few videos don't, and I can't figure out why.

If I download one of the videos that has no thumbnail and run ffmpeg on it, I can get a thumbnail.
Here's my command line:
ffmpeg -ss 5 -i "$filename" -vf scale=1024:-1 -frames:v 1 -q:v 4 -update true "${dir}files${file}.jpg"

$filename is the .mp4 file
$dir is its dirname with a slash appended
$file is its basename

I would upload an example mp4 file, but this web site doesn't let me.

Is there any way to make FG log errors?

Karl

On my web site, most of the videos have FG-generated thumbnails but a few videos don't, and I can't figure out why.

As in it shows a video icon? Or a broken thumbnail? Or a black thumbnail? This is crucial for me to understand why it's not creating a video thumbnail.

Walt9z ffmpeg -ss 5 -i "$filename" -vf scale=1024:-1 -frames:v 1 -q:v 4 -update true "${dir}files${file}.jpg"

That creates a thumbnail specifically after 5 seconds, which will not work on short videos. But before I can answer why it's not creating video thumbnails, you need to answer my first question.

Walt9z Is there any way to make FG log errors?

Not really, especially not if the error is when running an exec() function on a command-line application (FFMpeg). Besides, I don't really know what the "error" is or if it is an error.

You could upload a sample mp4 somewhere for me to download and test ...

Walt9z

Karl

I've uploaded two videos to Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZB2W2FXLcupkfEbsYq6x1PEgMsc-kw7L?usp=sharing

Not knowing exactly what I'm doing, I've tried deleting all files in the cache folders hoping things would get recreated. Doing that didn't really help.

Here's what they're showing...

Karl

Walt9z I tested from here, and thumbnails are created without problems:

Are you saying that other video thumbnails get created without problems, but only these two cause errors?

You don't have a direct link for me? You can open browser developer tools > network inspector (images tab) > refresh page, then look for the attempts to load the mp4 preview images ... Right-click and "open in new tab" and there might be some more info.

If some videos work and some don't, I can only imagine it's related to one of the following:

Old FFMpeg version vs incompatible video codec.
Massive video dimensions exceeds some memory limit for resizing.

Walt9z

In trying to track this down, I've downloaded some of my videos. On my computer, some videos show thumbnails and some don't, but there doesn't seem to be any connection between which videos show thumbnails on FG and which show thumbnails on my computer. A given video might have a thumbnail on one but not the other.

Karl

I was looking a bit more into the files you sent me and comparing with your website that I checked earlier. It seems your server was also able to create thumbnails for those specific videos.

Walt9z I've uploaded two videos to Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZB2W2FXLcupkfEbsYq6x1PEgMsc-kw7L?usp=sharing

These two videos work on my server and your server, so it seems I have been diagnosing videos without issues. Surely I should be diagnosing videos where you got errors?

I downloaded another video on your website, and I managed to reproduce the error.

Error
Error generating video preview image ($result_code 234).

So this is definitely related to the -ss 3 option in the code on line 1492 (in current version):

private static $preview_cmd_video = '%APP_PATH% -ss 3 -t 1 -hide_banner -i "%PATH%" -frames:v 1 -an -vf "thumbnail,scale=min\'(%RESIZE%,iw)\':min\'(%RESIZE%,ih)\':force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease" -r 1 -y -f mjpeg "%CACHE%" 2>&1';

The problem is, we can't set it too low, because useful thumbnails often don't occur until after 3 seconds. Also, it's very unusual that videos are shorter than three seconds, although in your case they are. It's very complicated to first figure out the duration of the video before we attempt to make the thumbnail.

It would have been much easier to diagnose this issue earlier if you had sent me videos that actually caused the errors!

Walt9z

Karl Are you saying that other video thumbnails get created without problems, but only these two cause errors?

Most videos have thumbnails. It's just a random smattering that don't.

Karl You don't have a direct link for me?
I'd rather not post the url of my web site...I'm allowing anyone to delete videos and that requires a certain amount of trust...

I downloaded ffmpeg from their web site a few days ago.

All videos come from one camera.

I looked at some of the network requests. In the cache/images folder on my server, all of the broken thumbnails have zero byte files.

Karl

Virtually impossible for me to diagnose from here. The videos worked fine in my tests. There is no such thing as "random" failure ... It will only be random if the same file sometimes fails and sometimes succeeds. As I think you will find, it will be the same video files that fail on your system, and the same ones that succeed. For the ones that fail, there is a reason, and it will almost certainly be related to one of the reasons I noted earlier:

Karl

Old FFMpeg version vs incompatible video codec.

Massive video dimensions exceeds some memory limit for resizing.

If I could reproduce your error here, it would be easy to diagnose, but I can't. So if your FFmpeg is acting different from mine, it must either be related to video, codec or ffmpeg version itself.

You could try renaming one of them?

Below is the code for creating video thumbnail from PHP. You could adjust and try it manually in terminal:

private static $preview_cmd_video = '%APP_PATH% -ss 3 -t 1 -hide_banner -i "%PATH%" -frames:v 1 -an -vf "thumbnail,scale=min\'(%RESIZE%,iw)\':min\'(%RESIZE%,ih)\':force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease" -r 1 -y -f mjpeg "%CACHE%" 2>&1';

That code works here, but not on your server. Can you run it in terminal? I assume not, and then you should get an error response. If you can run it in terminal but not from Files Gallery, which I doubt very much, you would have a problem that your PHP is somehow under limitations when running exec commands (doubtful!).

Karl

Walt9z It's a bit unclear what you mean "on my computer". Is Files Gallery also hosted on your computer? Does Files Gallery create any video thumbnails at all? It doesn't seem beneficial to compare with "your computer" if that's not even the same device as the server ...

Walt9z

Karl It's a bit unclear what you mean "on my computer".

I'm not running FG locally. I meant that I downloaded some videos and when I open the downloads folder in Nautilus (I use Linux), some show thumbnails and some don't. So it's not just FG that's having difficulties with these videos. In FG, none of these videos have thumbnails. But as you can see, my computer managed to make a thumbnail for one of them.

Walt9z

I did some more testing. I downloaded all 398 mp4 files from my Critter cam and ran the following script on them. It generated 398 jpg files and none of them were 0 bytes.

I then ran the same script on my server. By then there were 402 videos, and the script produced 402 jpgs, again none zero bytes.

#!/bin/bash

function doIt() {
local filename="$1"
if [ "$filename" == "" ]
then
echo usage: $0 Filename
exit 1
fi

if [ ! -f "$filename" ]
then
	echo "$filename" does not exist
	exit 2
fi

dir="$(dirname "${filename}")"
file="$(basename "${filename}")"

if [ "$dir" != "" ]
then
	dir="$dir/"
fi

LENGTH_IN_SECONDS=$(ffprobe -i "$filename" -show_entries format=duration -v quiet -of csv="p=0")
PERCENT=10
PERCENT_TO_SECONDS=$(awk "BEGIN {print ($LENGTH_IN_SECONDS*$PERCENT)/100}")

rm --force "${dir}${file}.jpg"
ffmpeg -ss $PERCENT_TO_SECONDS -i "$filename" -vf scale=1024:-1 -frames:v 1 -q:v 4  -update true "${dir}${file}.jpg"

}

for f in *.mp4
do
doIt "$f"
done
echo "Done."

Karl

I hope you don't mind, but I did find seem to find one of your galleries, where I saw multiple simultaneous requests to thumbnails from extremely large videos. I also see that you have Nginx proxy cache, which is basically caching 0-byte responses. Files Gallery will even output an empty 1px image if the preview that ffmpeg is 0 byte, but your server seems to be overriding this. Files Gallery will always output either an error response or a 1px image, but never a 0 byte image.

Walt9z

I've turned off Nginx caching and also purged all caches.

Karl Files Gallery will always output either an error response or a 1px image, but never a 0 byte image.

There are a bunch of zero byte files in my _files/cache/images folder...

I took your command line and tried to make it work in my script:
// '%APP_PATH% -ss 3 -t 1 -hide_banner -i "%PATH%" -frames:v 1 -an -vf "thumbnail,scale=min\'(%RESIZE%,iw)\':min\'(%RESIZE%,ih)\':force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease" -r 1 -y -f mjpeg "%CACHE%" 2>&1';
ffmpeg -ss 3 -t 1 -hide_banner -i "$filename" -frames:v 1 -an -vf "thumbnail,scale=min\'(480,iw)\':min\'(480,ih)\':force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease" -r 1 -y -f mjpeg "${dir}${file}_FG.jpg"

But I got an error message:

So I simplified the scaling parameter to "scale=480:-1" to get past that and I still got zero-byte files.

My Critter cam has been acting up in the heat of the day. It's supposed to record until there's 15 seconds of no activity meaning every video would be at least 15 seconds, but it's been creating some 2-second videos. I'm thinking the "-ss 3" part is what's causing the zero-byte files.

So I ran the script again, using the "PERCENT_TO_SECONDS" code I found above and this time it only created one zero-byte file. One of my videos was 1.8MB but zero seconds long.

Karl

Walt9z There are a bunch of zero byte files in my _files/cache/images folder...

It may SAVE as empty 0 byte images, if the FFMPEG fails. However, my point was, it will never output that 0 byte image, see line 1571 in index.php:

// fix for empty preview images (f.ex extremely short videos or other unknown errors), create 1px placeholder
if(!filesize($cachepath)) imagejpeg(imagecreate(1, 1), $cachepath);

In your case, your Nginx was outputting 0 byte images.

Walt9z But I got an error message:

So if it works here, but not for you, I am guessing you have an older FFmpeg version. There really isn't any other explanation. Can you please type ffmpeg -version in terminal?

Walt9z My Critter cam has been acting up in the heat of the day. It's supposed to record until there's 15 seconds of no activity meaning every video would be at least 15 seconds, but it's been creating some 2-second videos. I'm thinking the "-ss 3" part is what's causing the zero-byte files.

You sent me two videos the other day. Weren't those videos supposed to be ones you couldn't get working? As posted in my screenshot earlier, they are working fine. Also, they are 29 seconds and 59 seconds long, so if you are getting error on these specific videos, surely that's unrelated?

Walt9z So I ran the script again, using the "PERCENT_TO_SECONDS" code I found above and this time it only created one zero-byte file. One of my videos was 1.8MB but zero seconds long.

For me to be able to diagnose an error that is not related specifically to your server or ffmpeg, I need to receive a video file where I can reproduce the error.

Walt9z

One thing that's interesting is that the code that generates the _ME thumbnail doesn't create a jpg, but the code that generates the _MG jpg does....

ffmpeg -ss $PERCENT_TO_SECONDS -i "$filename" -vf scale=1024:-1 -frames:v 1 -q:v 4 -update true "${dir}${file}_ME.jpg"

ffmpeg -ss $PERCENT_TO_SECONDS -t 1 -hide_banner -i "$filename" -frames:v 1 -an -vf "thumbnail,scale=480:-1" -r 1 -y -f mjpeg "${dir}${file}_FG.jpg"

Walt9z

Karl ffmpeg -version

[wzjzus5@ecngx303 Critter]$ ffmpeg --version
ffmpeg version N-119929-g8aa6df663e-20250621 Copyright (c) 2000-2025 the FFmpeg developers
...

I've been working on this all morning and the conclusion I've come to is that my camera is messed up.
Even though you can watch the videos, they contain errors.

I edited index.php to add $output to the error message returned when generating thumbnails and I saw the message returned from ffmpeg.

I'm not sure if there are ffmpeg parameters that are causing it to be more picky about the content of a video file, but sometimes it fails and sometimes it generates a bad looking jpg.

For now, I'm replacing the camera but I'll look into this more.