[Clinton]

I've been wondering if it might work better to have some sort of java applet, flash app, or active x control to handle photo uploading, that way the resizing and scaling could be done client side and save uploading all the data.

Nevertheless, I was feeling lazy today and didn't want to batch process a bunch of photos for upload, I just picked a full list and hit go.

At about 98% I got this message:

Your submission could not be processed because a security token was invalid.

This error likely occurred due to a session timeout. Please log in again and refresh the previous page.

I'm giving up for now. I'll wait until after I get my photos posted on facebook and link to them here.

[JohnBee]

Ah, that's sad to hear.

Nothing beats the simplicity of owning your own webspace and hosting your images from there. It's simple, you maintain total control on your files and you have have to deal with issue like the ones described here.

Might be something to consider

[Parallax]

Are you sure none of your photos were greater than 4MB?

See this thread.

[Adam]

Resizing is done client-side, but the server post limit is 4mb, and there is a timeout of 60s. Try uploading fewer files at once perhaps?

[Clinton]

Sure enough, I'm confident I can work around the problem.

* I can host them elsewhere, but that will remove any social aspects that Pentax Forums provides, beyond simply posting them in threads.
* I can resize them myself. I have the technical knowledge, although not everyone does. It just takes time.
* I can upload fewer at a time. The error message doesn't indicate that I should, but that would be my logical next step.

I was just uploading these into an album I was going to share on the 300mm thread, so they weren't going in the exclusive gallery or anywhere else in particular.

I'm capable of working around the issues, but it's just not seamless, and I guess that's why I say this process needs some love.

Facebook, I can dump 100 unprocessed jpegs into from my K-5 and in 15-20 minutes, they'll all be uploaded, resized, and available.

I tried 8 or 9 photos, and 15 minutes later, I was still waiting for the uploads, finally resulting in an error message.

Now I'm not saying PF needs to be facebook, but I would like it if the photo upload process was zippier and smoother. With the exception of the exclusive gallery, I probably will avoid using the photo uploader unless something changes. It's just too finicky.

It's ok, I'd just like more out of our ability to upload photos here

[Adam]

I can up the post limit to 10 megabytes or so, but the timeout will remain the same. If your connection is fast enough to push that much data in a minute, then you should be able to take advantage of auto-resizing.

[Lurch]

Adam, if it's worth anything to you - I've been battling the same argument on a vBulletin site I run.
If you find a decent java/flash/whatever gallery upload mod, lemme know and vice versa.

- Lurch

[Adam]

Adam, if it's worth anything to you - I've been battling the same argument on a vBulletin site I run.
If you find a decent java/flash/whatever gallery upload mod, lemme know and vice versa.

- Lurch

I'm not sure how an applet would solve the problem, apart from perhaps providing a more attractive interface. Flash and Java are slowly being phased out in favor of ajax interfaces anyway, which are both more powerful and better-supported.

The way the attachment system works is it takes the user's raw input and checks if it meets the filesize and dimension requirements specified in vbulletin. If it does not, but if auto-resizing is allowed, then it is carried out and the photo is displayed. So this is perfectly fine.

The problem comes in when people try to dump their entire hard drives on our server thinking it's OK*. To keep things running smoothly for everyone, our server is configured to drop requests after 60 seconds if they are not completed within that time. There's also a global upload limit (I've increase it to 20M, up from 4) which exists to prevent the temporary file system from locking up. Therefore, if these limits are high enough, people can just upload full-size photos directly.

Attached is a 16Mp photo I attached directly from my K-5. The forum compressed it down to 65kb, but also stripped the EXIF (a side-effect of GD).

*A workaround for this problem would be to attach an event handler to the upload form that could queue the uploads. This is doable using simple JS.

[Lurch]

Gotchya,

I was under the impression that this was what people were refering to, and could do with an update.
Its a bug-bear on CanberraRIDERS, so most people use it for one-off photo's but also have a flickr/photobucket/whatever account on the side for bigger uploads.

[Adam]

Yup, that's a common misconception- any file size can be uploaded along as it's within server limits. If your forum is running on a dedicated server, then everything is in your hands. Shared hosts, however, typically keep limits very low (32Mb memory and 1Mb uploads on my shared host for example).

[Lurch]

Yup - we run CanberraRIDERS on its own VPS, and have it tuned to within an inch of its life
Its not the file size issue that I find but the having to queue up individual files, as opposed to something like an Ajax/Whatever uploader (depending on the web app) where you can kind of go Upload > Browse > "select all" > Ok... if you get my meaning.
Kinda think Wordpress uploader (if you've ever used Wordpress)

[Adam]

Here's a nice ajax uploader script that can very easily be placed on top of the vbulletin uploader:

Queued Photo Uploader » FancyUpload - Swiff meets Ajax Showcase » digitarald:Harald Kirschner

Instead of using their php file as a callback, use newattachment.php, and make sure you set all the other require form elements as parts of the post data. Also, add a new url parameter which will echo out request status using JSON, instead of having it echo the uploader form as it normally would. I might implement this over the weekend or something, as it looks like a pretty elegant uploader!

[Lurch]

If you do, lemme know how you did it and I'll do the same
If we can document the how-to well enough - it would be nice to post back up on vb.org - there's a few people there trying to geting something like this working (I'm not a coder btw, I just have to rely on other people work/tutorials etc )

[Adam]

Yes, I can definitely do that. I have a few nice mods (1 2) posted on vb.org already, although not the latest and greatest versions nor mods like my likes system or the exif for attachments

[Lurch]

The number one mod that gets used on CR is vbGarage (obviously)
I wonder if that would be modified for camera's... Hmmm... *stroked beard thoughtfully*