Session Issues
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2025 8:02 am
I like the idea of tab sessions to restore multiple opened images, but there are a couple issues that make it unreliable which, for such a feature, makes it risky to use and therefore not only useless, but worse than nothing, because it can lead to the expectation that the session will be saved/restored when, in fact, it very well might not be.
The first issue is that it saves the session on exit, rather than in real-time (like browsers do). This is problematic because in the event of a crash, either of XnView or the OS, the session will not be saved.
The second issue is that any images in the session not accessible when the program starts (e.g. on a flash drive that's not plugged in or an encrypted drive that's locked) are simply "lost" as there is no tab for them. This would be like a web browser restoring a session and simply discarding tabs for sites not accessible, perhaps due to the site being temporarily down or because the tab was for a logged in page (e.g. email) on a site where the user is no longer logged in. Of course, this doesn't happen, and browsers simply show the tab with an error, allowing the user to refresh it or to log back in to get it back. XnView doesn't provide this opportunity.
The first issue is that it saves the session on exit, rather than in real-time (like browsers do). This is problematic because in the event of a crash, either of XnView or the OS, the session will not be saved.
The second issue is that any images in the session not accessible when the program starts (e.g. on a flash drive that's not plugged in or an encrypted drive that's locked) are simply "lost" as there is no tab for them. This would be like a web browser restoring a session and simply discarding tabs for sites not accessible, perhaps due to the site being temporarily down or because the tab was for a logged in page (e.g. email) on a site where the user is no longer logged in. Of course, this doesn't happen, and browsers simply show the tab with an error, allowing the user to refresh it or to log back in to get it back. XnView doesn't provide this opportunity.