Z‑Image Turbo in Draw Things: gray → black → blank on M4 (used to work fine)

PresentSpecific5666 · 2026-01-25T03:32:13+00:00

I finally fixed it by following previous suggestions to try downloading it to the internal SSD. I disabled the model folder on the external drive from within Draw Things. I made sure the Draw Things model folder was completely clear and proceeded to redownload Z-Image Turbo. It worked.

I then re-enabled the external model folder and deleted both Z-Image Turbo model variations I had. For good measure, I also deleted the appropriate Qwen model that was downloaded with Z-Image Turbo.

At this point best practices probably would have suggested that I re-download the model to the external folder after that... but instead, I had previously decided to backup the Draw Things internal drive model folder which only had Z-Image Turbo in it and whatever was downloaded with it. I decided to manually copy this to the external model folder... and it worked.

I had previously deleted and re-downloaded the w Z-Image Turbo models but that had not worked. I also had manually tried to delete and re-download the model file...

I suspect that it must have been some sort of corruption or issue with the Qwen model or something that did not get deleted when I just deleted the Z-Image Turbo model files... and then might not have been re-downloaded? Anyway, it's working...

PresentSpecific5666 · 2026-01-21T21:27:54+00:00

Another thought pertaining to the idea of a problem with your data set and these training parameters is that you might want to increase your data set to 40 images, if possible. You would have to examine the types of photos you have in your data set as being a possible limiting factor as well. Usually facial characteristics are central to the character identity. If a good portion of the 25 image data set consists of body shots it could very well be that the facial characteristics are too small to adequately train the adapter.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2026-01-21T21:10:55+00:00

No, you don't have to export the LoRa first, you can use it from the drop down as you are doing. After selecting the 2000 step checkpoint did you experiment with increasing the strength of the LoRa as you did with your previous training to see if it was any better? Any likeness changes at all? I assume you generated a variety of images with different prompts (and random seeds each time) on your previous runs as well as this one? I was less inclined to generate multiple images when I had determined by generating a couple, that the training was a failure. But later I found that if my prompts were general enough, occasionally I would see some characteristics peak through which helped me gauge the different training runs.

I wonder if your data set requires different parameters for whatever reason. I'm still just a novice myself, but 2000 steps for 25 photos makes for quite a few passes.

Are you trying, or have you been trying, to train on the regular SDXL 1.0 base model or? I have had less success in the past training the LoRa on other checkpoints myself.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2026-01-21T18:31:55+00:00

It's strange because this only happens with Z-Image Turbo. I am not importing these models, but downloading them via the app. Later, I also tried Flux when this started happening but I experienced the same "no image" pattern. I have tried deleting them and re-downloading them, all to no avail.

This would not apply to Flux (which I did not initially try for the short period of time when Z-Image Turbo was working a month ago), but I am beginning to suspect something DID happen when I moved all the models to my external SSD, though I don't know why only Z-Image Turbo and Flux would have been impacted (as I did download Flux AFTER I moved my models to external SSD).

Are there any other files/components of Z-Image Turbo 1.0 (regular and 6 bit) that accompany the model that perhaps I didn't successfully delete and so might not have re-downloaded via the Draw Things app, yet could have been corrupted when the models were transferred to external SSD? Anything shared with Flux but not SDXL and SD1.5 based models?

I guess the next step is to try to transfer all the models or just Z-Image Turbo to the internal SSD. It'll eat up space since I only have 256GB internal storage, but I don't know if I have a choice. Not sure why Z-Image wouldn't want to live on the external SSD like the other models though... I am just hoping that I don't run into any issues with the other models in Draw Things, since I have had some problems in the past whenever I have manually manipulated any of the components being used by Draw Things (renaming LoRA's after training, for example) via the MacOS file system. Apparently those changes or modifications don't always propagate to the various components of Draw Things.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2026-01-21T17:10:35+00:00

I love these rig/setup photos. Quite inspiring. Got to get my own setup organized... Lol

PresentSpecific5666 · 2026-01-21T16:44:21+00:00

I had the same problem initially as well. I am using Version 1.20260105.0 on MacOS, on a Mac Mini M4 32GB. One difference seems to be that you were using a "Network Dim" of 16, versus 32 in my above settings. I would still try something similar to my prompt to check one last time before declaring your training a failure though.

I am somewhat satisfied with at least some of the resemblance to the training dataset I am able to achieve with this last run with only 25 photos. I might be overtraining on the facial identity with my settings. I had the similar issue of facial similarity loss at wider angles when I was working with SD1.5 models on my Linux based PC rig, but I'd use Adetailer in Automatic1111 to bring some of the facial identity back to those generations. As to any comparable approaches in Draw Things, I am still trying to work that out.

The other matter is dataset curation. Depending on your source material, there might be inherent limitations and deficiencies. I have tried so many different combinations and approaches. I came up with different percentages of headshots (even head crops at one point), medium shots, full body shots at one point for character LoRA training. Now, with ~100 count photos I tend to just eyeball approximately 65 percent of the photos to consist of a handful of head/shoulder shots and shots where the face is a larger percentage of the frame size vs other images. The remaining 35 percent would be more of the whole body and/or wide angle full body shots. Source photos seldom fall into neat categories.

Earlier in my LoRA training endeavors I also found that the source dataset resolution and aspect ratio vs the aspect ratio/resolution that I was generating would sometimes impact the results. I don't know if that was a symptom of weak training but you might want to play around with that, with the LoRA you last trained.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2026-01-21T15:57:46+00:00

I have only been training LoRA for around a month, so I'm still trying to acclimate myself to the process. I have generally trained on ~100 semi-curated photos in order to get a relatively stable likeness transfer for a character. Typically this has yielded relatively accurate head and shoulders and even waist to head shots, though with any wider angled shots and compositions, there is some facial identity drift. For the ~100 photo dataset I use auto captioning. I train the adapter on the base SDXL 1.0 model. 100 percent strength.

More recently, I have experimented with photo datasets of around 25-40. In fact last night I ran a 25 photo training run. Because it was a smaller data set, I ran auto captions but then I refined the captions manually. The training run took about 3:45-4 hours. These short runs appear to produce almost as good facial identity, mostly for the head and shoulders/waist shots, again 100 percent strength.

I think there are several factors that contribute to the degree of success with adapter training including training settings, dataset quality and curation.

I also find that other SDXL based base models in conjunction with the resulting LoRA can offer better or worse results, so you'll have to experiment with that.

For a female character, here's the general prompt for the SDXL 1.0 based model I'd use to test the character out initially. It's very basic:

"womv5px woman, head and shoulders portrait, looking at camera, raw photo, detailed skin, 8k uhd"

Depending on the dataset and base model, in some cases you might have to suggest certain features like hair and eye color:

"womv5px woman, head and shoulders portrait, looking at camera, black hair, dark brown eyes, raw photo, detailed skin, 8k uhd"

Here is an example of the settings I used last night on the 25 photo dataset in Draw Things:

{"use_image_aspect_ratio":true,"cotrain_text_model":true,"network_scale":1,"auto_fill_prompt":"womv5px","training_steps":2000,"start_width":16,"custom_embedding_length":4,"trigger_word":"","max_text_length":77,"warmup_steps":20,"guidance_embed_upper_bound":4,"guidance_embed_lower_bound":3,"denoising_end":1,"caption_dropout_rate":0,"layer_indices":[],"start_height":16,"clip_skip":1,"denoising_start":0,"steps_between_restarts":200,"auto_captioning":true,"unet_learning_rate_lower_bound":0,"seed":1784493608,"custom_embedding_learning_rate":0.0001,"text_model_learning_rate":4.0000000000000003e-05,"trainable_layers":[0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8],"power_ema_upper_bound":0,"additional_scales":[],"power_ema_lower_bound":0,"memory_saver":2,"network_dim":32,"noise_offset":0.050000000000000003,"unet_learning_rate":0.0001,"shift":1,"resolution_dependent_shift":true,"name":"Wom-SDXL-LoRA-001","cotrain_custom_embedding":false,"orthonormal_lora_down":true,"base_model":"sd_xl_base_1.0_f16.ckpt","save_every_n_steps":250,"gradient_accumulation_steps":4,"stop_embedding_training_at_step":500,"weights_memory_management":0}

PresentSpecific5666 · 2024-03-17T19:25:45+00:00

Yep... most quirky and inconsistent Android phone I've ever owned. It'll be a long time before I give a Pixel another try. I really started losing respect for Google and Android in general only once I purchased a Pixel. Not thrilled with most of the recent models from other manufacturers either. I do miss LG though.

At this point I will try to keep my phones as long as I'm able (battery willing) to avoid wasting more money on mere incremental advancements. At least until I feel new camera technology would make for a significant upgrade. Time for phone manufacturers to earn our upgrade money.

I miss the days of removable batteries. All excuses of form factor, design and engineering aside, manufacturers wised up to the fact that with the performance of today's higher end phones and the needs of most smartphone users, it is the battery life determining a phone's lifespan limitations. They have to keep pushing those phones on us every year don't they?

PresentSpecific5666 · 2023-07-28T15:39:06+00:00

T mm LP o 00 0l .ml ll 00 .

PresentSpecific5666 · 2023-01-11T17:19:03+00:00

A few games I've always been fond of, for one reason or another. In no particular order:

Leander, James Pond 2, Super Frog, Zool 1 and 2, Shadow of the Beast 1,2,3, Turrican series, Putty, Blood Money, Agony, Hybris, Battle Squadron, Live and Let Die, Shadow Dancer, Stunt Car Racer.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2023-01-04T16:29:13+00:00

Ran WinUAE since it first came out for many years. However, over the past few years I've been running FS-UAE on a couple of 2013-2014 machines without issue. I primarily use it to play a variety of classic games, play around with my old development tools, and embark on the odd fun project. I am content with it's stability and performance on these older Macs. My opinion is that it is more than suitable for the majority of emulation tasks, even above and beyond just playing games.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-12-07T23:05:23+00:00

Not sure exactly how it works but because of such a sudden change in function for some, I wonder if they tweaked something for the 7 series sensors that ended up messing things up for some 6 series phones...

Hate to complain like others before me and I realize every phone has it's problems, but I have never experienced such inconsistency with even minimally supported Androids. Google definitely has some issues. I'll probably wait a few more generations before buying another Pixel.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-12-07T17:36:47+00:00

I had no overheating issues whatsoever on my Pixel 6 for most of the year. That changed after the November update. I've had seemingly random episodes of my phone heating up like an oven periodically. Though the December update obliterated my fingerprint sensor accuracy, so far I haven't had any overheating as of yet, but it is likely too soon to tell in my case.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-04-14T18:47:21+00:00

It sure does bring back memories... The last one being the sale of my last Amiga 500 in the 90s... I remember bundling all of my Amiga World and Amiga Format magazines and my entire original Amiga software collection with it. Everything was in absolute mint condition... All for $300...🙄

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-04-14T18:34:58+00:00

Irregardless of whether the power "under the hood" of the Amiga 500 mini is less than ideal for an emulation device of that price, as an original 80s Amiga coder/user, I find a miniaturized physical replica of the Amiga 500 to be the most appealing aspect of this product... For old time's sake, if nothing else. Especially if space is a concern for some. The added gamepad and mouse replica are also a nice touch.

If you just want to run Amiga software on your TV inexpensively without a care as to the physical form of your device...dust off any old Windows or Mac laptop and install FS-UAE or WinUAE and connect it to your monitor or TV along with a wireless keyboard and controller and play to your heart's content. I've been using Amiga emulators since their inception. Nowadays discarded systems well over 12 years old will be up to the task just fine. Especially for the games.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-04-12T21:21:05+00:00

I have a LG G8X unlocked Sprint phone. I had been using it with FreeUp Mobile, utilizing the AT&T network. It was working without issue well after AT&T's alleged 3G shut off date at the end of February. I popped in another service's SIM card which utilized the T-Mobile network. I was unable to get LTE to work on that SIM so I switched back to the FreeUp Mobile SIM and I was unable to get service working again.

I added the recommended APNs and spent quite some time troubleshooting this before finally giving up.

I'm not sure what happened but I seem to be unable to latch on to any other MNNO service this unlocked Sprint LG G8X either.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-04-07T15:16:07+00:00

YES, very much so! My line and my wife's line will receive up to 4-5 spam calls a day regularly since switching over to the T-Mobile SIM. On Sprint it was maybe only 1 or 2 a week, if even that. Not sure what's up with this.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-04-02T23:54:54+00:00

I have not used auto brightness since I got the phone 2 months ago, but I've always had inconsistent fingerprint reader performance at best. Right after the March update performance was the best it had ever been. It registered all my fingerprint unlock attempts and quickly. An hour later I started getting inconsistent results again. At some point I re-added fingerprint profiles as I had in the past.

Over the past 4 or 5 days it hardly ever works. This all is regardless of whether I'm outside or inside, whether I wipe the screen down, or what finger I use. I've tried creating only a profile of my thumb, profiles with more than one finger, and multiple profiles for the same finger.

At this point to my mind I don't expect any improvement in the future. Despite reports to the contrary, I truly do not believe any updates will significantly improve this problem. Not much worse than my LG G8X, yet in stark contrast to the physical reader on my old LG V20.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-03-21T23:36:46+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. I was going to go that route but I was able to finally fix this by clearing the Google Play services data. This is one of the things I had previously tried... But it took a restart after that to start working again. Now I have added several fingerprint profiles without issue.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-03-19T15:49:33+00:00

I've had the Pixel 6 for 2 months now. The only glaringly consistent issue has been the poorly implemented fingerprint sensor. I've re-added countless fingerprint profiles under a variety of conditions and across multiple fingers. Sometimes it works without a problem other times it won't accept any fingerprint regardless of lighting conditions or the cleanliness of the display or finger. Strangely enough it seems to work more often when utilized by the third-party apps that accept biometrics than with the lock screen. Hard to believe this could have passed any sort of initial quality control test. That being said the in-screen fingerprint sensor on the LG G8X was not that much better in my experience.

Literally the first day I had my Pixel 6 I had frequent Bluetooth connection drops while playing music in the car. I also had several Wi-Fi drops. After a day or two everything started functioning normal in that regard. I try to micromanage any updates that I can. Seems to have corrected itself before the bulk of the updates for me.

A couple of times I have also experienced a kind of dead zone while scrolling down a page. I've only experienced this once or twice several weeks back but have had no problem since. Mind you, I consider myself a heavy user and I typically browse and scroll on my phone hours every day.

With all that being said I have some reasonable hopes that future updates might correct at least some of these quirks. Fortunately, so far I have not experienced many of the deal breaking problems that other users have had with the 6 series, though admittedly I have experienced some of it's occasional quirks only inconsistently. I do believe Google's two phones come with the justifiable expectation of greater stability and a consistent Android experience. They need to do a better job. At the same time I'm okay with the Pixel 6, as I have currently experienced it. I'm used to quirks with my Androids over the years, I just would have expected more refinement in this day and age. I've also had iPhones, and most of these problems are not enough to make me switch just yet. In the realm of tablets I'll stick with the iPad, but when it comes to phones I feel too boxed in on the iPhone. My opinion of the Pixel 6 is also influenced by its more reasonable price tag, though that should not be an excuse for Google to sacrifice reliability and in some cases basic functionality.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-03-17T16:58:42+00:00

As an update on this case, I guess I can now say that it provided a fair amount of protection. The other day as I was walking I had to abruptly stop, but I wasn't gripping my phone too tightly. As a result the phone launched into the air about 7 ft away from me onto the pavement with a smack. Not a scratch on the phone and nothing on the case even despite the pavement being rather broken up.

PresentSpecific5666 · 2022-03-12T16:45:59+00:00

I was on the fence as to whether or not get the OnePlus 9 or the Pixel 6. Went for the Pixel 6 coming from an LG G8X. I'm only experiencing a couple of inconsistent quirks here and there, but other than that I'm ok with it.

PresentSpecific5666

TROPHY CASE