Video, Make Poster Frame not working

A fair and valid questions. Sadly, yes. I clicked Done. Here'e the thing.

In Photos on my Mac, when I click Edit, I can see the White Dot over the Timeline at the bottom. It recalls the Edit that I did. Photos on my Mac knows I've set a Poster Frame.

However, when I click done (again), I don't see the Poster Frame that I set. It's still a black image, which is the first frame.

More interesting, on Photos on my iPhone, I see the correct Poster Frame. However, when I share this video to one of my Shared Albums, the Poster Frame goes back to black. Also, I did this earlier today and the

Keep in mind I used this feature for the previous 3-4 video that I posted, in the same Shared Folder.

For some reason, it seems to have stopped working. I just imported another video, which also has a dark first frame. I Edit it, Make Poster Frame, Done (save, finish, hey Apple pay attention) and the image is still black.

Very frustrating when something so simple does not work. Even when it appears to take, it doesn't work.

I realize that changing my video is a possible work around. However, I wanted to use the Make Poster Frame feature, rather than changing my video, which starts with a fade-in. (which I'm now doing, since I don't seem to have a choice)

If I'm doing something wrong, I'd like to know what it is.

Though this seems more and more like it's an issue with the feature that I've somehow stumbled across, given whatever unique series of combinations my setup has that is uncovered a bug in the software.

Sadly, these days it seems that if I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, or I can't find a solution, then it is a real issue. The quality of software has slowly degraded over time. The ability to "fix issues later via a downloadable update" has led to software with more issues, some of which never get addressed.

Then again, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Though Apple's instructions seem pretty clear and I'm doing exactly what it says to do ...

To select a Poster Frame for the video, drag the playhead to the location you want, then choose Image > Make Poster Frame.

I just tried this again. Only this time, I did it with a video a video I created on my iPhone. I follow the instructions, set the Post Frame, click Done and ... It's still on the first frame of the video.

I could call Apple, but these days you have to go through a lot of conversations about "setting up a new user account on my Mac with a new Apple ID and some new videos and ... Oh, the feature still doesn't work, well glad we at least spent hours making sure it wasn't related to you and your setup."

You'd think that after Apple got rid of Aperture, they make sure the one App they had for managing photos/videos would work. Flawlessly. The one thing Apple's products do more than anything else, is create photos/videos. Yet the tools they provide to manage our memories is poor at best, meaning when it works.

Imaging being able to sort your photos. And keep them sorted.

How about changing the default name Apple gives to our photos. Like IDK Year-Month-Date instead of IMG_Blahblahblah. Okay, now I'm ranting. Just missing Aperture. (sigh)

Happy Holidays ...

Here's some more interesting stuff ...

I Edited another video. One that already had a Poster Frame set. And, it appears to be one of the few videos where setting the poster frame worked.

When I clicked on Edit, I could see (as I always do) the white dot above the timeline that indicates the location of the Poster Frame. I moved the playhead to a new location and clicked Make Poster Frame.

Now, the timeline has two dots. The original Poster Frame dot is gray(er), while the new Poster Frame dot white. However, after I click Done, it shows the original Poster Frame.

It's like the more I use the feature, the more odd things get.

Since you are on a new version of Photos, maybe this issue was addressed. I'll just check the release notes ... oh wait. There are no release notes.

Richard,

I have in fact repaired my Library. It was one of the things I tried to see if it would fix this issue. It took like 2 days before it appeared to have done whatever it seems to be doing to finish the "repair". I cannot image what one of Apple's fastest every computers, running over a really fast internet connection could possibly be doing for all that time. I know what it didn't do. Fix this issue.

I have not tried creating a new library, or a new user, or wiping the drive and doing a fresh install,or legally changing my name or whatever exceesive thing tech support people are told to tell us to try. My experience, over decades has been that this never fixes anything. At least, none of my issues.

Sometimes coming here I can find a solution, thanks to the many people who take time out of their day to help, such as yourself. And Léonie, who I recall from my Aperture days. Léonie has been around the Apple Discusion Board block more than once.

I guess I will just stop fading into my videos, as that does address Apple's feature not working. I know I could report the issue, but I would not be surprised to know my repeatable issue is really rare, so it probably won't be fixed.

Apple couldn't fix the last issue I reported. Everytime I unlock my new Mac Studio, Apple wants me to accept the iCloud terms and conditions. I do, but it nevers clears out the request. I get this each and every time I unlock my Mac. 100% repeatable. After long minutes/hours on the phone with Apple, I just deal with it. I swipe away the notification, each and every time. (as I just did to unlock my Mac to reply here)

Hence the sad state of the software industry. Ship the software with know issues. Wait and see what poeple complain about. (not here, but directly to Apple) Then decide if it should be fixed. Often times, it doesn't get fixed. I have a list of Apple issues that need to be addressed, one of which is costing me money. But I dread making that ever escualting phone call to find the person at Apple who can fix it. I know. Rant. Rant. Rant. Does it make me feel better? A little, cause someone will read this and be like "Yes! I'm not the only one." No you're not alone. I feel your pain. I know. First world problem and it truly is.

Thanks for your suggestions Richard. I do appreciate it.

I did follow your advice and rebooted in Safe Mode. No change, but it's never really a bad idea to give it a try.

Running Safe Mode is like dialing a 1. Years ago, if you didn't dial 1 before the area code, you'd get a recording telling you that you needed to dial a 1 first. I always thought that if they knew when I needed to dial a one, why didn't they just add it for me. It's their system and their requirments.

Same with Safe Mode. Whatever it does, why doesn't Apple just do it? I'm sure an eningeer would start to list off the reasons why. But I bet, if you asked the team to figure out a way to do it, it would get done.

Either way. I ran it. No change in my silly Poster Frame problems.

Thanks.

Great essay. Thanks.

So ... Some time around the mid to late 90's. Long after touch tone started up. The network pretty much understood the number I was calling, but it wanted to be sure, so it wanted me to dial a 1 first, which made it easier for the network to dial the correct number.

My point was, when they started up this system, they should have made sure their system didn't need us to dial a 1 first. The 10 digit number should have been enough. We shouldn't have to add the 1 just because they didn't either buy the software upgrade or the feature wasn't out yet.

Same goes for Safe Mode. If Safe Mode makes things work better, then Apple should just figure out how to do it for us. Take some engineers off cool new features and have them work on making the exsiting stuff work better.