Solved Snipping tool question...

I rarely screenshot the entire screen, I just use the snipping tool and cut out the part I want. I also delete those images when I'm done with them, so I don't know exactly when this started. As you can see in the image below, it started sometime after Aug. but it's been going on awhile now. When I make a 'clip' it saves to a folder in my Dropbox but the thumbnail hasn't worked in at least a month or two.



Just to test, snipping part of the screen, or taking a full screen screenshot with the PrtSc button have broken thumbnails.
Has anyone else had this happen (and more importantly, has anyone fixed it)?

I'm sorry that you're having such a problem, this very special time of year.

I can only sympathize, but I can offer no solution to the way you do screen captures, except to suggest you take a different approach.

After years of trying out different Screen Capture programs, I was finally shown the error of my ways, by a good friend and Software Guru.

The age old Print Screen key on the keyboard, in Windows, will capture the entire screen, except for the mouse cursor, and copy it to the Windows Clip Board.
Then he introduced me to a really great little FREE graphics program, called simply "Photo Filtre" (yes, it's French).

So when I want to capture a screen, or even one item on a screen, I just hit the PrntScr or PS key, then open Photo Filtre and "Paste as new image". From there I can crop the image to only leave what I want, resize it, edit it, just like with Photo Shop.
I call Photo Filtre the poor man's Photo Shop.

I've been doing this, since long before there even was a Snipping Tool, which obviously I don't use.

Merry Christmas,
TM

Thanks, I'll give it a try... the Snipping tool copies it to clipboard as well, so this is just an extra step but I'll check out the other features while I'm at it.

For ease of reference, the application mentioned above is available at: PhotoFiltre Studio
Go to the Download page on the left, and you'll see "PhotoFiltre 11" and "PhotoFiltre Studio" which are both shareware with a 30-day trail, but below those, you'll see the Freeware versions of 6 & 7.

Mine works, albeit with saving the clipped screenshots in the default folder Pictures > Screenshots. I just checked all 8 views from 'Extra large icons' down to 'Content', all 8 views including 'Preview' show up correctly AFAIK.

Maybe the issue resides in your Dropbox after August?

I'll try to change it back to the default for tests. I'll let you know.

--Edit--
There are 2 different changes you have to make for this to work. First, navigate to the Screenshots folder (in my case inside Dropbox), right-click and go to Properties, click the Location tab and select Move. Navigate to %UserProfile%\Pictures\Screenshots (It has to be the full address, not %UserProfile%)... In my case I had to recreate the Screenshots folder as I must have deleted it when I moved it to Dropbox originally. Anyway, taking partial pictures via Snipping Tool now have Thumbnails again. However, when you press the PrtSc button it'll still default to Dropbox.
This is giving me trouble, click the Dropbox icon in your SysTray, click your profile picture in the upper right, click Preferences, and Uncheck the "Share screenshots using Dropbox" under the Backups tab and it'll stop them from autosaving in Dropbox, but after I turned this off, pressing the PrtSc button appears to save solely to the clipboard and not autosave the file. I'll have to look more into that.

Go to Start > All apps > Snipping tool then click on the ellipsis (3 dots) and select Settings. You can then adjust some things the way you want them, including the ability to automatically save screenshots.

I just checked that and it was already set to save... I did a reboot after turning off the Dropbox setting and now it works as expected.

Thanks

Kewl

Archigos said:

I just checked that and it was already set to save... I did a reboot after turning off the Dropbox setting and now it works as expected.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Yeah, I suspected that in my previous post. FWIW, I deleted my Dropbox and box.com accounts because of such little glitches.

I ended up moving the folder back into Dropbox and changing the settings... the thumbnails are still broken, but I need them backed up.
The stupid thing, if you open Windows Explorer, navigate to the Screenshots folder (in Dropbox), and see the broken thumbs... right click on them and select "Make online only" It fixes the thumbnail, but obviously you have to re-download the file to actually use it. I'm just going to change my workflow to view them in Total Commander as that will display the thumbnail for them when they are local and I don't have to deal with this crap.

I searched Dropbox's forums and some thumbnail-related threads go back to 2015 or so, but this issue appears to be slightly different and some threads go back almost a year about it. In a few of the threads, Dropbox admits to the problem and claims to have researched it and found it was a third-party app responsible for breaking it. However, they refuse to state what app(s) are causing the issue so the normal user can't judge if that third-party app is worth the hassle and potentially get rid of it to fix the problem.