Performance issues?

[SimonW]

Maybe limit the image size? It is not necessary to have large files for browser viewing, especially mobile devices.

The site already takes your full-res imagines and converts them to a smaller more manageable size before permanently storing them. As with any kind of manipulation of files, it's better to start with as good a quality as possible as you then lose less noticeable quality during the process

 

[k-hawinkler]

The site already takes your full-res imagines and converts them to a smaller more manageable size before permanently storing them. As with any kind of manipulation of files, it's better to start with as good a quality as possible as you then lose less noticeable quality during the process

So if I link high resolution jpg images from Smugmug that’s okay?

 

[SimonW]

Thanks for the explanation Simon and we do appreciate all the effort to keep the site up and running.

One question (just out of interest), I never upload images to the site but link from SmugMug which is my image host for several fora that I am a member of.
I assume the storage problem is not caused by those linked images, or is there still an effect.

I should actually double-check this but by default Xenforo embeds these images although it does still create a thumbnail and it stores some data in the database. It can actually pull the image from these services and store it locally but I didn't specifically set that but as I haven't doubled checked that and because we imported from vBulletin its possible it turned on. In general though now we have moved over to using a separate s3 compatible bucket for storage of images even if it is its not really a problem as we have plenty of space on the bucket and even if we did go over it $0.02 per extra GB a month so the expense is pretty low unlike adding more space to the server itselff

 

[pegelli]

So if I link high resolution jpg images from Smugmug that’s okay?

I think Simon is still talking about images stored on the site and not those linked to the site, so we'll have to wait for a definite answer on the effect of linked images from him.

 

[pegelli]

I should actually double-check this but by default Xenforo embeds these images although it does still create a thumbnail and it stores some data in the database. It can actually pull the image from these services and store it locally but I didn't specifically set that but as I haven't doubled checked that and because we imported from vBulletin its possible it turned on. In general though now we have moved over to using a separate s3 compatible bucket for storage of images even if it is its not really a problem as we have plenty of space on the bucket and even if we did go over it $0.02 per extra GB a month so the expense is pretty low unlike adding more space to the server itselff

I don't completely follow you what's stored on your site but it should be possible to limit that to only the BBcode link to the image file on the site which is used to store the image.
I'm an administrator on another photography site which is low budget/all volunteer which doesn't have the resources (space/money) to host images from members, so all images are linked and nothing other than the internet location of the actual image file is stored.

 

[scho]

I don't completely follow you what's stored on your site but it should be possible to limit that to only the BBcode link to the image file on the site which is used to store the image.
I'm an administrator on another photography site which is low budget/all volunteer which doesn't have the resources (space/money) to host images from members, so all images are linked and nothing other than the internet location of the actual image file is stored.

I do the same and all of my images are linked from Flickr. I have been putting off migrating all of my Flickr library to Smugmug, but I had better get it done soon before Flickr is gone for good.

 

[Godfrey]

Simon,

Thanks for the detail on all the work behind the scenes of that outage. You folks are doing a great job! I'm sure that keeping GetDPI up and running is much more important to you and Olaf, being as it is part of your business offerings, than it is to people like me, who at this point are just retired photographers with a penchant to chat with other photographers and share notes on equipment.

I'm pretty happy with how things are working on GetDPI and can offer you little other than congratulations and thanks for all the hard work it takes to keep it up and going.

best,
G

Shadow Selfie on Fence - Santa Clara 2021
Kodak Retina IIIc, Ferrania P30 film​

 

[SimonW]

I don't completely follow you what's stored on your site but it should be possible to limit that to only the BBcode link to the image file on the site which is used to store the image.
I'm an administrator on another photography site which is low budget/all volunteer which doesn't have the resources (space/money) to host images from members, so all images are linked and nothing other than the internet location of the actual image file is stored.

It's actually not great for sites when users use 3rd party services to host images because if you choose to close your account with the service (or have it closed for breach of terms) or it goes out of business then those images stop showing and it can make evergreen discussions that bring in new visitors to be destroyed. And even worse we have seen image sharing sites block hotlinking. Think it was Imgur who went as far as charging its users to allow their images to be embedded on other sites and when that happened it destroyed a lot of forums as most users choose not to pay

 

[buildbot]

It's actually not great for sites when users use 3rd party services to host images because if you choose to close your account with the service (or have it closed for breach of terms) or it goes out of business then those images stop showing and it can make evergreen discussions that bring in new visitors to be destroyed. And even worse we have seen image sharing sites block hotlinking. Think it was Imgur who went as far as charging its users to allow their images to be embedded on other sites and when that happened it destroyed a lot of forums as most users choose not to pay

Photobucket famously did this, finding info on old car forums is impossible now as everything was hosted there.

 

[pegelli]

@SimonW : Yes, I recognise the problem with hotlinks going belly-up but for me it's a matter of so-be-it. We will delete the posts that are empty and have no meaningful follow-up discussion and be done, We can't expect everybody to share their images indefinitely. But obviously every site will make their own choice in that matter.

@buildbot : I've seen a lot of old Photobucket images that still show, but with a big watermark and lower resolution, haven't seen too many that completely vanished yet.

And hosting images from a paid site isn't too risky in my case think, only if I stop paying the yearly dues the images will disappear after some time, which for me will probably after my death.

 

[Duff photographer]

Pointless post from me deleted.

 

[Tim]

I baby sit about a dozen servers. They need maintenance and sometimes also go down due to unforseen circumstances or failures or even bugs and things that should have worked didn't. As an example just recently there was a date bug with on premises MS exchange 2016 2019 servers that happened in the early morning as 2022 clocked over. They stopped delivering email !!! No one knew it would happen or predicted it. Remember Y2K anyone ?

I can suggest what does help is if the Admins put up a simple HTML page in place of the forum during the outage letting everyone know its being worked on. Or if they have another announcement path like a bulk email or maybe a twitter post. I find with users that if they know somethings being done, they will wait.

My hats off to the admins here. They are working for some of the users here with no recompense from them.