We have released Picard 2.9.1, which provides updates to critical issues. Most issues affect Windows users only, but if you are using Windows it is highly recommended you upgrade to this new version. The release contains a fix for a critical bug that could lead to file deletion on Windows when dragging files while holding the Shift key.
For details see the blog post:
Quick feedback. Can confirm the CPU usage back to zero on idle. And not deleting files - a “move” is changed to a “copy” command. Nice work on the quick fix 
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Quick Question about the now default “Single instance mode”. When I attempted to start a second instance it just spun the wait symbol then beeped. It didn’t bring the already running instance front as expected. Apps normally shout “Here I am” and pop up when limited to single instance.
Any chance that a setting can be added to Advanced Settings to allow multiple instances from the GUI. Yeah, I realise there is a command line option. Sometimes there are cases when it can be real useful to spin up a second instance without reverting to command line. I have two screens and often do 30 things all at the same time. Example: currently have a large boxset being tagged but may want to quickly tweak a different album.
Is it just me, or does this version take much longer to start than v2.8.5? We are talking 6 seconds versus the 1 second of the old one. Maybe this is just due to testing with the Portable version?
Meanwhile, testing, I am working on a 10 disc box set with 27JPG images… CAA is being slow downloading today but v2.9.1 is clearly faster. It started 4mins after v2.8.5 and has just overtaken it in a race to grab the art… Something not happy with CAA… ignore this. Slightly odd as six images failed to load on v2.9.1 and they were not retried, but v2.8.5 stumbles onwards and seems to be more stubborn in its mission to get them all. (Will look at this closer another time, or at least when CAA isn’t taking over a minute per 1.6MB image to download)
We consider changing this, see https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/PICARD-2717
Probably not really. The decision whether to launch a new instance should be made really early, and currently this happens before the Qt options are available.
Actually I think the current implementation does some things too late already and more of the handling should be moved earlier in the startup. Adding this option would be counterproductive.
But I just recommend that on Windows you create a new shortcut with the parameter. Then you can use that shortcut to launch new instances.
The portable version generally needs longer to start.
Swap to front - nice to see you’re ahead of me
GUI switches - okay. Understood. I used to like the “old skool” way the app worked. Will just shove a shortcut into my start menu somewhere. (Just have to make my head deal with the clutter 
) Is there any logical reason why I could not just set a default flag on my shortcut? I assume if I always started with the --s I am not going to break my settings files?
Maybe it is just a Windows thing, but most apps you can Right Click the icon that is running on the task bar and launch a new instance. A trick I do a lot with apps like Picard.
Portable startup slower - I can see how that would make sense.
My speed comments about app in general are misleading when CAA is being so slow today. But if I drop the art download that boxset seems to load twice as fast on v2.9, but not doing an exact like for like on the plugins. Will tweak that test a bit.
Always starting with “-s” should be fine I think. Just be aware that all the interprocess communication like loading files in existing instance or passing commands won’t work for instances launched that way.
Another way to have multiple instances is to launch with separate config file locations (with the “-c” parameter). Then each config file will have one instance, but launching again with that config file reuses the instance. That’s useful especially if you maybe run separate setups with different configuration for different types of music or such (e.g. you have a special “classical” setup).
That’s probably something we could do. The task actions are extensible, and I think Qt provides an interface for this. Only thing I need to check is that it might be that Qt6 dropped that interface. If that’s the case I would not bother implementing it for Qt5 as we will switch soon.
UPDATE: Yep, got removed in Qt6: Changes to Qt Extras Modules | Qt 6.6 . So that’s a no for now
I’ll give it a go and see how it behaves.
I’ve used that before but don’t really change my configs that often. More case of just toggling artwork on\off and togging a few tagging scripts on\off which is quick to do via Options page.
On this PC I can run a new instance from right clicking most of my current apps - Browsers, Word, etc. Some noticeably don’t like to (paint.net, PDF editor) and just kick their app On Top. It is not important, but would be nice. Ah - just seen the update appear re:QT 6.5. I guess it is trying to handle more phones\tablets and run a common lowest denominator. Crosses fingers someone kicks up a fuss and brings it back for QT 6.9 
Thanks for looking. Still such a pleasure using such a powerful and well thought out Tool as Picard.
Yes. Essentially they declared that this functionality (together with the function to show a progress in the taskbar) exists in a similar way on other platforms and hence there should be a platform independent API for it. That’s of course correct. So they created some tickets saying it would be nice to have platform independent APIs, removed the platform specific ones and that’s where Qt6 is stuck since 6.0 was released 3 years ago 
Kinda sad that they want to aim for lowest end dumb instead of aiming to innovate and copy all the best features. I won’t go OT into a modern GUI conversation here… just glad to see you still allow us to be geeky and complicated in Picard.
I still have problems reading “Qt6” as anything other than QuickTime 6…
Hello! I believe I have a fatal problem with 2.9.1. After updating the whole system (I’m on ArchLinux for if that matters) it simply stopped working. It launches, but after adding file or two it simply stucks, no progress whatsoever is made. How can I troubleshoot this? How to factory reset the program? How to get logs? Thank you for any help.
I think it is important to also note that this is probably not my system’s fault since I just freshly reinstalled it believing that the cause of the problem could be the packages or something else; that didn’t fix it at all.
Logs: Help menu \ View Error/Debug logs
Config: ~/.config/MusicBrainz/ (delete or rename the ini to “factory reset”)
Try the “daily” version - Picard daily builds (just had some updates)
You can start it with a --debug option to get more logs.
I am not a dev, just a fellow user\tester like you…
This suspiciously looks like the issue that was supposed to be fixed in 2.9.1, see Folders are not added and related ticket.
Are you sure you are running 2.9.1 and not still 2.9? If that’s indeed 2.9.1, how many CPU cores does your system have and do you have any plugins installed?
Weird. I just downloaded the latest daily build AppImage and it works fine. Apparently the package in main repo is outdated. Thanks.
@ignatyb Yes, it is currently: Arch Linux - picard 2.9.1-1 (x86_64)
But usually David, who maintains the Arch package, is pretty quick with updating. Likely it’s because of Holiday or something. For sure will be updated soon.
UPDATE: The Arch package now got updated to 2.9.1: Arch Linux - picard 2.9.1-1 (x86_64)
2.9.2 is out, a bunch of annoying issues were fixed over 2.9.1.
Not sure if there’s a lag, but portable 2.9.1 doesn’t know there are any updates:
There is no update currently available for your subscribed update level: Stable, Beta and Dev releases
Your version: 2.9.1
Yes, twenty characters.
