Media attribute not working as expected

Question

I created a new media attribute called 'rollover_image' for some frontend rollover functionality. Reindex was completed and attribute set was also changed - I can see the new 'Rollover Image' radio button when I go to the Images panel under Configure Products. When trying to retrieve this file, I get the following error:

Image file was not found.
#0 /home/www/booboo/app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Helper/Image.php(166): Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Image->setBaseFile(NULL)
#1 /home/www/booboo/app/design/frontend/enterprise/booboo/template/catalog/product/list.phtml(175): Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image->init(Object(Mage_Catalog_Model_Product), 'rollover_image')

Anyone had a similar issue? I am on Magento Enterprise ver. 1.12.0.0.

UPDATE

If there are ANY images with the 'rollover_image' media attribute not set from the category list, Magento seems to crash. Any reliable way to patch this?

Answer 1

You get this error because for some reason Magento does not allow you to select 'Used in product listing'=> 'Yes' when adding a 'Media image' attribute but you can set this manually in the database. Identify the id of your attribute and run this query:

UPDATE catalog_eav_attribute set used_in_product_listing = 1 where attribute_id = 'ID HERE'

Then reindex everything and it should work.

[UPDATE] I forgot something. You also need to create this image skin/frontend/{interface}/{theme}/images/catalog/product/placeholder/rollover_image.jpg to use a the default image for the rollover_image attribute. This way you won't get the error.
I suggest creating it in the base/default theme so it will be available for all the themes you have.

Answer 2

I would like to add to Marius's answer and say that all the options for Media Image are in the attribute edit page but are hidden (with display: none), so you could use Firebug or 'Inspect Element' from your browser to show those hidden <tr> tags and change "Used in Product Listing" to "Yes"

I haven't tried to change any other option than "Used in Product Listing" so I can't say what works and what doesn't.

Good luck :)