Magento: How to programatically set the base image to the first image in the list

Question

The problem

Current Situation

I\'m having a problem with a third-party ioncube loader encoded feedloader plugin which is no longer supported by the original

Answer 1

This is the solution I eventually used in 'shell/fix_images.php':

addAttributeToFilter('is_imported', 1); // attribute added by importer
        $c=0;
        foreach($products as $p) {
            $pid = $p->getId();
            $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($pid);
            $mediaGallery = $product->getMediaGallery();
            if (isset($mediaGallery['images'])){
                foreach ($mediaGallery['images'] as $image){
                    Mage::getSingleton('catalog/product_action')
                    ->updateAttributes(array($pid), array('image'=>$image['file']), 0);
                    $c++;
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
        echo($c . " product(s) updated.");
    }

}

$shell = new Mage_Shell_Updater();
$shell->run();

If anyone should use this, be sure to remove the 'addAttributeToFilter' from your own Mage method chain.. If you are going to run this as a standalone script (without disabling the realtime indexing first), add this code at the beginning of run():

    $pCollection = Mage::getSingleton('index/indexer')->getProcessesCollection(); 
    foreach ($pCollection as $process) {
        $process->setMode(Mage_Index_Model_Process::MODE_MANUAL)->save();
    }

at the end of run():

    foreach ($pCollection as $process) {
        $process->setMode(Mage_Index_Model_Process::MODE_REAL_TIME)->save();
    }

Also, the abstract.php is from Mage_Shell, usually located in the /shell/ directory in the root of your Magento installation.