What is meaning of icon (circle with slash) on thumbnail?

[jlovettjr]

I have searched all help sources within Adobe and outside Adobe and cannot find a meaning for the icon that has started appearing on thumbnails in the 2021 version of Organizer. It is a circle with a slash through it. Appears on upper right (from the image perspective) of a thumbnail. Unstacking will make them disappear. But, they are appearing in nearly all stacks that have been created. I have been using the image similarity feature to find and stack possible duplicates. Is that a possible cause? What does symbol mean and what to do about thumbnails with it appearing on them?

[MichelBParis]

It looks like you are seeing a 'non match' icon within the result of a search including version sets or stacks.

A search will find any stack/version set including at least a member 'matching' the search criteria. The other members of the stack/version set will display the icon on the top left of the thumbnail to show they don't completely match the criteria.

To know the meaning of such an icon, keep your cursor a few seconds on the icon to get the contextual help. Better yet, post a screenshot to be sure.

[JELJR]

Thank you for the answer. The part I do not understand is "to show they don't completely match the criteria." What criteria exactly, the similarity search? A second question is what to do with them? Are they "ghost" images? How can one avoid having them appear?

[MichelBParis]

Thank you for the answer. The part I do not understand is "to show they don't completely match the criteria." What criteria exactly, the similarity search? A second question is what to do with them? Are they "ghost" images? How can one avoid having them appear?

By @JELJR

The icon only appears in the result of a search. You have defined yourself the criteria for that search. Any criteria.

What to do with those items? You are informed that only certain members of the stack or version set which has been found do meet ALL the criteria. It's up to you to ignore the 'non match' items.

Unfortunately, the search does not find individual items but only stacks/version sets where at least one member matches all criteria.

See this old faq from John R Ellis:

https://johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_Searches_are_showing

The only way to avoid those icons to appear is to use stacks as intended by Adobe.