Unable to navigate through photos in OneDrive / Pictures folder

[jmt356]

I am trying to view photos in my Pictures folder, which is located in my OneDrive folder, by using the Photos app. I am unable to navigate between photos while using the arrow keys. When I advance to the next photo, I get a spinning circle.
- Sometimes the spinning circle resolves; sometimes it doesn't.
- When it resolves, sometimes the photo displays correctly; sometimes it displays at a low resolution.
- When it displays at a low resolution, sometimes the full resolution displays after a few seconds of waiting; sometimes it doesn't.

Other bizarre behavior continues in my OneDrive / Pictures folder. For example, if I delete a photo, rather than display the next folder, the Pictures app goes blank.

I do not have these issues if I copy the photos in question from my Pictures folder to any other folder that is located outside of my OneDrive folder. However, the behavior continues with all my pictures in OneDrive / Pictures.

Is a resolution possible?

[HansV]

Have you turned on Files on Demand in Onedrive, i.e. files are only stored in the cloud, not locally?

[jmt356]

My files are stored locally. I suspect this issue occurs when I first copy the photos over. Maybe the issue is that they are synching? But even after I get the green checkmark next to the files, the issue still sometimes persists for me.

[jmt356]

Does anyone else experience this issue with photos that are synced in OneDrive? Is moving them out of OneDrive the only solution?

Is there any app other than Photos that does not have this photo navigation issue? It appears Photos is my only photo displaying software.

[silverback]

I have always used the slideshow feature of IRFANVIEW to view my holiday photos. It's essentially a photo editing app, but it has lots of smart features e.g. renaming reams of photos so they display - in order - on my TV, which otherwise insists on using the file name and so gets very confused when the file name starts with a time (to the second). It's
Silverback

PS: I have no idea if IRFANVIEW can use OneDrive. I never use it myself.

[jmt356]

There is nothing else native to Windows other than Photos, correct?

[HansV]

Photos is the image viewer that cones with Windows. Since you don't like the way it works, you might consider a third-party image viewer. There are many free ones.

[jmt356]

Does anyone place their pictures in their OneDrive folder and if so, do the left and right arrow keys work when navigating among the photos?
For me, the left and right arrow keys generally do not work and when they work, they generally will only navigate through one or two photos and then get stuck. To view later photos in a folder, I have to manually click on them. This becomes very time consuming when there are many photos in a folder and naturally I would like to navigate through them with the arrow keys rather than open and close each photo one by one.
When I delete a photo from the folder, very often, when navigating among photos, the Photos app opens a blurred version of the photo I deleted with an error that states "Cannot find photo IMG_xxxx." It is as though a specter of the photo that I delete remains behind.

It seems there is some kind of data file that tells Photos what pictures I have in a folder and when navigating among pictures, Photos accesses that data file to know what picture to display, but that data file is broken whenever pictures get placed in OneDrive such that Photos does not know how to navigate among them.

I believe that data file attaches to a photo when it is taken and it tells Windows what image is before and after it when navigating, but when a picture is moved to OneDrive pictures folder, the file does not update and so Windows is searching for the images that were before and after it when the photo was taken and so Photos is unable to display the photos next to the picture in the folder where it was moved to. This is my theory of what seems to be happening.

[stuck]

...It seems there is some kind of data file that tells Photos what pictures I have in a folder and when navigating among pictures, Photos accesses that data file to know what picture to display, but that data file is broken whenever pictures get placed in OneDrive such that Photos does not know how to navigate among them.

Or it could all just be lag, i.e you are asking OneDrive to do stuff faster than it is capable of so doing.

[kdock]

When I took a look at OneDrive today, I noticed that MSFT has added the ability to display your photos wherever they are, on whatever device. Don't know if that affects your speed, but it sure seems like it ought to. I don't let OneDrive onto my PC or phone. I only put what I want on it, usually in order to get it from another computer if I'm traveling. If I need something, I log onto OD and get it. I do daily and weekly backups locally, so I don't need OD for that.

Since I don't have much in the way of photos on OD, my quick viewing doesn't address your issue. However, I noticed that with the first photo, it displayed a fairly low res version of my generally high resolution photos (for a Galaxy phone). Once it was focused, it went on and displayed the rest in hi-res. So perhaps OD is preprocessing display in the background while you're clicking through your large collection?

I have a relatively fast internet connection most of the time (curse you Optimum, for your late afternoon lethargy). But there are times when clearly something is happening to slow me down to zero. Is it possible your internet connection causes latency?

Just throwing stuff out there. Best, K