Windows 8.1 Photos app does not show any photos, only videos

Anonymous

The Photos app in Windows 8.1 does not display any of my photos. The subfolders of my Pictures Library are shown but only the thumbnails for videos are shown. The photos not seem to exist at all. The pictures show fine in Explorer and Picasa.

Adding new photos to the library presents the same result, folders and videos show but not photos.

I have already tried all of the solutions given in this community with no success:

I already tried running the Modern App trouble shooter and it did not find any problems.
Indexing is enabled for my Pictures folder and the permissions for System are full access.
The app is up-to-date

Please help!

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Anonymous

Same issue App shows folders no photos. I scrolled through all threads and tired all the suggestions about kind and regedit and reindex. Nothing worked UNTIL I renamed the folder containing the pictures. Viola!! The photo app displayed and opened the photos. All I did to rename was add an "x" to the folder name. A few weeks ago I did post this issue on the Libra community. The only reply I got was a snarky one from someone who seemed offended that I posed a question about compatibility of the app and Libre. Hope this helps. I saw one other person in the thread fixed theirs the same way. It's easy enough to try.

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Anonymous

For those users who see the Kind property marked as "document" instead of "picture", this is what is causing your pictures to not show up in the Photos app. To further investigate this, please answer the following:

When did this start happening for you?
Did this start happening after installing a certain app? What photo/document software have you installed on the computer? During installation, apps can change registry values.
Did this start happening after upgrading to 8.1? After a fresh install of Windows? Did it occur after installing updates from Windows Update? The most likely case is that an app got installed that changes the Kind for these types of files.

To fix this, you could try uninstalling the app that was installed just before this behavior started. You could also try changing the Kind property for each filetype you own. To do that, perform the following:

Launch the Registry Editor by launching search (Windows key + S) and typing in "regedit", and clicking the first result "regedit.exe".
In the left navigation pane, navigate to the folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\KindMap
Find the filetype(s) your images are of in the right pane listing all known filetypes.
Right-click on the filetype and click Modify.
In the Value data field, change the word "document" to "picture" (do not include quotation marks), then click OK. Repeat this process for any additional filetypes that aren't showing up.
Close Registry Editor.
Launch the Photos app and check to see if your photos are now appearing.

You may need to restore default libraries and rebuild the system index if you are still not seeing a change after performing the above steps. To restore default libraries:

Launch File Explorer (Winkey+E).
Click the View tab at the top of the window.
Click the Navigation pane button and make sure the "Show libraries" option is selected.
Below, in the Navigation pane, expand the Libraries tab.
Right-click on the Pictures library and click Properties.
Click the Restore Defaults button.
Click Apply, then OK.

To rebuild the index:

Launch search (Windows key + S) and type "Indexing Options", and choosing the first result.
In the Indexing Options window, click the Advanced button.
Click the Rebuild option.
Let the computer run for a while without touching it while the index is rebuilt (interacting with your computer during this greatly slows it down).
Launch the Photos app and check to see if your photos are now appearing.

Please let us know the answers to the earlier questions I asked so we can prevent other users

from hitting this problem, and let us know if the steps listed fix your problem!

-Adam

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114 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-03-16T03:56:20+00:00
Replying to include the info requested.
1. When did this start happening for you?
I just received this computer three days ago. I immediately installed all updates, including Windows 8.1, before I used it.
1. Did this start happening after installing a certain app? What photo/document software have you installed on the computer? During installation, apps can change registry values.
No, this happened the first time I tried to open the Photos app.
1. Did this start happening after upgrading to 8.1? After a fresh install of Windows? Did it occur after installing updates from Windows Update? The most likely case is that an app got installed that changes the Kind for these types of files.
Possibly, since I installed Windows 8.1 before using it. Impossible to say, since I never used it prior to updating.

Once again, the fix suggested in this thread did not work. I still see nothing when I open the Photos app, just a message saying there are no files or folders. Specifically, there is nothing found either on the camera roll, or in the SkyDrive. No photos show up from within other apps, I tried using YouCam and a photo editor that I forgot the name of to see if they would show up from within those apps. When I try to open an image in another app, I get a list of generic thumbnails with no filenames. If I take a pic in YouCam, the preview on the bottom of the screen is a generic thumbnail. This is the same for photos taken from the camera app.

Edit: I redid all the steps two more times, and it appears to be working now.
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Anonymous

2014-03-16T03:43:38+00:00

I applied the "fix," but it didn't fix anything. I did everything in this thread and my photos still don't show up in the Photos app, and when I try to open a photo from within another app, I get a generic blank thumbnail instead of the actual photo thumbnail. Also there's no name on the file. So if the supposed fix you just gave didn't work, then there's nothing I can do about this? How incredibly frustrating.
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Anonymous

2014-03-14T17:46:56+00:00
To anyone else who is currently experiencing this problem, we are trying to identify which application is causing this registry problem. If your machine has been affected and you haven't applied the fix given in this thread, please perform the following steps:
1. Open Command Prompt as administrator: Start > type ‘cmd’ > press Ctrl+Shift+Enter > consent to the permissions dialog
2. Output the KindMap registrations to a text file with the following command: reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\KindMap > KindMap_Products.txt
3. Output the name / version / install-date info about installed programs with the following command: wmic product get name,packagename,version,installdate >> KindMap_Products.txt
4. Post back to the forum that you've collected this, and I will send you a private message where you can send back the KindMap_Products.txt as an attachment (optionally zipping it first)
5. If you remember the Photos app showing photos after you began using Windows 8.1 (note: not Windows 8), and it stopped showing photos sometime since then, please mention an approximate date range when the problem may have started.
This would be very valuable in preventing other users from experiencing this. This type of issue is not preventable by the Photos app team, so we would need to contact the correct publisher and have them fix this issue.

Thanks,

Adam
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