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[HPBEME]

Starting about a month ago, 2 at the most, every time I try to edit an album art cover, MC's image editor gives me the error dialog below:



Also same message for Movie Art - which is not something I have ever edited before, but wanted to check for completeness.  The editor works fine with photos, both my own and the thousands of Bing images I have collected over the last decade.  Just album art (well, movie art apparently too).

I did install an update for paint.net around that time frame.  I assumed that was the culprit, so I removed the file association for any and all picture types, and for good measure, I made MC the default app for .jpg and .jpeg... nevertheless, the error persists.  In an act of desperation, I uninstalled paint.net and rebooted, but still no joy.

And yes,  I realize I could just use paint.net to tweak the album art (though I have not yet re-installed it), but MC's built-in editor is convenient, and I find its simple tool set for exposure (brightness), contrast, and saturation actually work quite well for the intended purpose.

And finally, this error started with MC27, but I downloaded MC28 yesterday, and the error has not magically disappeared.  Hopefully one of the MC image masters can come to my rescue.

[HPBEME]

I should have also mentioned...
I can copy the album art and paste it to wherever I want, and I can copy images from other sources and paste over the existing album art... just cannot edit it (in MC).

[terrym@tassie]

Strange problem!
I'm reaching here but you could try creating a test library and importing something to see if it will work on another library.
Another possibility is to try restoring a library backup from before this problem started happening just too see if it is library related.
Another option may be to create a test portable instance of MC to see if something has gone awry in the registry for your main install.

[HPBEME]

Hey Terry, thanks for taking the time to respond.

I created a test library and imported albums from a couple different artists, but I got the exact same image editor error message.  Same is true for restoring earlier libraries... I restored from the beginning of October, September, and then even July, but no luck.  FYI.. I restored the settings each time as well to be sure is was not some setting I may have changed recently.

So... it does not appear to be a library corruption issue.  Great diagnostic idea on the portable install - going to try that now.

[HPBEME]

The portable version works, so it seems registry corruption is the likely cause.  Going to try a full uninstall using Revo Uninstaller to clear the registry completely to see if that fixes things.  Any other suggestions in the meantime are certainly welcome.

[HPBEME]

Uninstalling via Revo Uninstaller did the trick. 

In the JR uninstall dialog, I checked "remove all registry entries", but Revo found hundreds of additional entries, and deleted a bunch of files that would have otherwise been orphaned, which is why I use that program to do uninstalls. I do wonder if using JR's uninstall/remove registry items by itself would have fixed the problem, but I guess I will never know now... oh well.

I just know that Revo does an outstanding job of clearing out all the kluge that Windows and most every application's built-in uninstaller miss.

[terrym@tassie]

Thanks for updating what the eventual fix was, the MC portable install can be a useful diagnostic tool sometimes.

[HPBEME]

Thanks for the tip about using the portable install.  I will definitely remember that approach should I encounter another confounding MC issue in the future.

I am surprised that the uninstall/re-install worked, as that seldom solves application problems (usually it is compatibility related or a setting got changed inadvertently).  I am just glad it worked this time.  Of course a complete uninstall and deleting the registry items would have been disastrous if not for daily backups.  I had a slew of custom files in the JR install folders representing months and months of work that was of course preserved in the backup file.

[terrym@tassie]

Yes, MC is exceptional regarding backups, it's the one application I can mess with to my heart's content always knowing that I can get back to where I was. Like you I have vast amounts of time invested in MC customisation that would be rather vexing (#understatement) if I lost it.

[HPBEME]

After re-reading my post, I figured my backup statement might get misinterpreted.

While I agree that MC's auto-backup works spectacularly and has saved my butt more than once, I was actually referring to my daily system backup. Uninstalling wiped out all my work custom work in the JR install folder, where it has to be kept for what I am doing.  So it was my daily system backup (I use EaseUS's free Home backup software) that resurrected that work, not the MC auto-backup, which basically backups the MC library in the app data folder, and thus would not have protected the work I am referring to.

In addition to that, using Revo Uninstaller wiped out the MC app data folder too.  Those are the "orphan" files I mentioned in an earlier post that "regular" uninstalls typically leave behind.  I think this is so if a user decides to re-install a program they uninstalled, most of the preferences/settings are reset automatically to what they had before.  The problem with that of course is that if something is corrupt in the app data folder, it just comes back when you re-install, which is why uninstall/re-install most of the time fails to fix problems (along with the software itself not being the problem to begin with in many instances).

All that said, I actually point MC's library backup folder (in the app data folder by default) to a completely separate drive from the OS and backup drive to protect it in the event of multiple drive failure.  But again, those backups do not store the custom work I am doing, which was in the JR install folder.