Photo size restriction?

Has something been introduced to prevent the uploading of large photos to iSpot?

My photos, as they come off the camera, are typically 4-6Mb. They used to download satisfactorily, if slowly. I’ve been adding a few new observations recently - going through old photos and trying to identify them - and the photos seem to have been sticking part way through the download. The progress bar gets about half-way and stops; the hour glass continues to spin endlessly.

Ian

I don’t think there is an issue with loading BUT if you move (reorder) a picture during upload it all crashes and you will have to start the whole post again.
Is that possible - reordering during upload bug? happens to me.
also, there is serious hang-up if loading too many at one time - been the case for months here.
7.53Mb just now 1m:22ses - Orkney rural speed


ð

Even if there hasn’t, look at it this way:
Q: Why would I go to iSpot and look at someone else’s pictures?
A: IMHO to try and identify what I have found
If I have to wait half a minute for every picture to load I iSpot will no longer be useful for “my” purpose.
So when I upload my pictures I think of the traffic and jam I create and reduce the size of my pictures to 1024 x 768, which normally fills a computer screen. If I want to show a detail I crop the picture to show that detail and upload that second picture.

Admirable and a very good thought. But I often need BIG pictures for the ID work I do here, sometime needing to resort to the ‘extra-enlarge’ feature
Pictures are worth thousands of words though. found this today

1 Like

Might be helpful to keep the first “front-page” picture to max screen size, so if you are zapping through IDs you fall on reasonable sized pictures. Only if you want to go to more detail would you look at the “super-sized” pics. Or - as I mentioned - If I want to show a detail I crop the picture to show that detail and upload that second picture.
If there is not enough detail for the person who identifies, you can always ask for extra cropped sections …

Yes, your point and suggestion is VERY valid.
To be honest, what we really need is for the site to move into the 21st C. iSpot takes longer to load pictures into my PC than most others. Examples? http://ukmoths.org.uk/species/mimas-tiliae/adult/#prettyPhoto and http://www.lichens.lastdragon.org/index_LM.html

Not only iSpot has to move into the 21st century
Remember us who are not connected with glassfiber but have connections which top 2 Mb/s at 03h00 at night. We would like to be part of it as well :slight_smile:

Agreed…Do note my comment here and DO look at the pic full size (if you can load it!)

… and what is wrong with this?

There is nothing wrong with it. But you have reduced the size and quality.
I think we might all agree with your philosophy, of making things easier for the less ‘lucky’ who live in less favoured areas (of internet speeds).
What you are proposing will be an issue for most people; the chore of reducing picture size and saving without overwriting originals - an extra difficulty for most. You will have seen for yourself some Observations that often have just good enough, but hopelessly small, pictures, most often taken via phone cam. They are particularly frustrating when the detail does not allow for species’ ID.
Of interest (I have just done some testing) your Observations may take only about 10% less time to download than most of mine (which are pretty saturated with bytes). For most people it is the LEAD picture that is important and is the one that may, very rarely, take up to a minute to load. The others WILL load even when viewing and responding.
Do not confuse awful Download speeds with slow processing speed or even transfer speed from Router to Processor. But DOWNLOAD speed is the biggest issue.
Has iSpot become more sluggish for you since your early posting? Probably!
I suspect that the iSpot’s server is not the best on the block and, since the 2017 Recode we have noticed some deterioration, but we are promised a Hardware update soonTHOUGH, if it has been upgraded recently, then Admin need to look at ways better uploading service can be achieved @miked .
This https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/southern-africa/view/observation/315703/othonna took 15 secs to fully load and this https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/758415/star-mix the same - give or take a few seconds (I cleared my browser for each test).
Both were at a luxurious 5.2Mbs. My evening-time speeds plummet to 765Kbs - internet and local infrastructure pressure.
I cannot see this being the end of the issue for you but, as you see, I have flagged mikeD. Maybe other people contributing here would give you more satisfaction.
ðerek

“But you have reduced the size and quality.”
I obviously cropped your full size picture to show just the elements you are referring to, I did not reduce the quality of the picture I could download from your obs. which was 1.36 MB (3264x2448) whereas my crop is ~139 kb 1024x768). Maybe the server does some reduction?
“My evening-time speeds plummet to 765Kbs”
this is 4x the top speed i can get at night between 03h00 and 05h00 :slight_smile: normally I am happy to get 100Kbs.
Anyway, little I can do about this. I use a camera and work from a computer which is less fiddly than smartphone uploading … so everybody has a preference.
Yes the new ispot setup has become less responsive :frowning: and has changed the adresses for external links again, which is one helluva job for our redlist which is now linking into some bushes. Enough ranting. Enjoy what we can see and do!

Still happening … but not every time. Photos, of varying sizes, start to upload and then just stop with the hourglass spinning endlessly. I usually give up after a few minutes but have on occasion left it overnight with no progress being made. There’s a bug here somewhere. (Windows 10, Chrome, .jpg images)

Yes…I don’t think it is a bug in the Coding, but a combination of factors. Right now and for a week, I am able to upload large pictures - up to 6Mb. True I have to wait, say for two minutes. But I am able to write the details while that is happening. I can load two at a time but three is a strain on the transfer speed (somewhere).
Notice that when loading in a post with several pictures, it takes an age to be able to view them properly, even as Thumbs. Again I do not suspect a bug but the combination. Admin have admitted to poor hardware and we know the 2017 Code is not perfect (by a very long way) so those two things will add to the combination.
I’d advise, two uploading at a time max, maybe resize your pix by two-thirds (save as:) and write your details while waiting for uploads.
I did this one yesterday https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/760229/egg-nursery and no pic is less that 2.8Mb - two are 6Mb. I have mediocre speeds - the post took me about 40 mins. to complete. During the waiting process, I wrote the ‘script’ but could NOT load the final pic. because of the combination. For me it is a full-time event, making a post!
I have found it easy to replace pictures once the Observation is complete and uploaded.
So it might be worth your while to load only ONE picture and complete the post, then open it again for Edit and add photos - boring but…
Significantly no-one else seems to ‘complain’ here, though KlausW (above) has made his point quite well.

I currently have the hourglass spinning away and nothing going anywhere trying to upload a single 1.38MB crop of a photo. All communication activity seems to have stopped, according to the lights on the router. There’s something wrong somewhere.

How frustrating…As you see, people are loading in Observations…
I am running the same system as yours (Windows 10, Chrome, .jpg images)
A few (more) things then
Reboot your Router - switch it off for a full minute and on again
Run this - a harmless up- and download speed test


It’s the UP-load that matters - mine is now 0.26Mbs just good enough for iSpot - tell me yours
Test - 4.78Mb - exactly 2mins but the progress bar under the picture was progressing
Then clear your browser cache - Shift F5 together
Run a Cookie killer like the safe and FREE cCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ take care you don’t load in the PayFor
Make certain nothing else is on your Network and busy - my PV inverter soaks up internet connection, your phone and iPad are probably on and updating. You neighbour’s kids may be stealing some of your bandwidth.
I suppose you do some of those things but I do them daily, sometimes more often.
My max BB speed is 6.2Mbs but is almost always half that.
Mail me? dejay.project at gmail,com

E-mailed. Thanks. Ian