Can youz test a new uploader?

[Baldy]

Need a speed fix?

We decided to roll our own Simple uploader 'cus we thought we could make it smaller and faster.

The current one is an industry standard, used by Facebook et al, but being built by a third party we can't get quick fixes when browser upgrades make it woof.

Can you give the new hotness a whirl and see what you think?

To try it, go to the simple uploader (here's how). Your browser address bar should look something like this:






Just make sure it says &applet=10 at the end of the URL and press "return" or "enter", depending on your machine.

The new version of the Simple uploader should ask if you wanna trust it (you do), then load and look like:



Then add some photos & videos. Fast? Reliable? Intuitive?

Okay, so it's not pretty yet...

Thanks!
Baldy

[jfriend]

I just gave it a try and it did not work for me. I picked 6 images to upload. I hit the Upload button. The first three started animating their progress indicators with little green rectangles going back and forth and they immediately showed 100%, but nothing else was happening and the progress indicator never showed any typical thermometer moving. It says "Current Speed: idle" and "Time Remaining: idle".

After a couple minutes of no visual change, I hit the Stop Uploading button. It didn't appear to do anything except enable the Remove All button. The green rectangles were still going back and forth on the first three images, nothing else happening. Based on the responsiveness of my network connection, I think it was still uploading the three images. It appears to have so saturated my connection that I can barely do anything else (I have 6Mbps down, 1Mbps up).

Here's what it looks like after I hit the Stop Uploading button:


It did eventually finish uploading the three images that started. The thermometers never showed anything other than the green rectangles and 100%. After the uploaded, they disappeared. The time remaining and current speed never showed anything other than "idle".

When I check the gallery, the first three images did upload. Summary of what I saw:

• Initial progress is very bizarre. It jumped to 100% immediately and then just showed the animating green rectangles. The progress thermometers seem busted. I much, much prefer what the previous simple uploader showed because it feels like it's doing something all the time.
• Speed indicator never showed anything
• Time remaining never showed anything.
• Cancel doesn't seem to cancel the existing uploads.
• It so saturates my connection that I can't really do much on the internet while it's uploading (I realize this is probably a side effect of going for max speed, but it is still unpleasant).
• The progress showing how many have successfully uploaded "3/6" is very tiny and not very satisfying. The individual files appear to just "disappear" and you wonder what happened to them or if they worked.
• The progress indicator showed 6/6 when it only uploaded 3.

I am normally a Star Explorer uploader so I can't really offer any comparison to the previous simple uploader.

[BradfordBenn]

Howdy-

So I ran the same 27 images through four different uploaders for testing. Here is what I came up with:

45.2 MB - 27 Images
Running under Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032608 Firefox/3.0.8
Applet = 10 Upload 2:25
Applet = 9 Upload 3:25

Mac Daddy v3.03 2:24

Star *Explorer with Boost 2:25 (running under Fusion with 2GB on XP)

I did these all back to back to back to back to keep it as fair as possible.

Does that help?

[Andy]

Originally Posted by jfriend

I just gave it a try

Can you try again, John? We didn't experience this at all in testing.

UI Stuff and comments are great, thanks - we'll address that soon

[jfriend]

Originally Posted by Andy

Can you try again, John? We didn't experience this at all in testing.

UI Stuff and comments are great, thanks - we'll address that soon

Working more normally now, though there was clearly a major bug when I first tried it several times in a row.

The "Stop Uploading" button still behaves very weirdly. The item that is currently uploading just disappears from view and is not uploaded. It seems like it should stay in view just like the other items that are not uploaded yet.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by jfriend

Working more normally now, though there was clearly a major bug when I first tried it several times in a row.

The "Stop Uploading" button still behaves very weirdly. The item that is currently uploading just disappears from view and is not uploaded. It seems like it should stay in view just like the other items that are not uploaded yet.

Awesome, thanks. Try it more over the next few days if you would please, throw in a few hundred or even a thousand files - love to get some real strong usage.

[RogersDA]

5 images - first three averaged 2.99 MB/s. The last two throttled down to about 1.3 - 1.2 MB/s. At the end of the last one it seemed really slow to finish the upload. Sorry - no definite times recorded.

Maybe the first three speeds were the result of Comcast's speedboost kicking in at the beginning?

[Baldy]

Originally Posted by BradfordBenn

Howdy-

So I ran the same 27 images through four different uploaders for testing. Here is what I came up with:

45.2 MB - 27 Images
Running under Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032608 Firefox/3.0.8
Applet = 10 Upload 2:25
Applet = 9 Upload 3:25

Mac Daddy v3.03 2:24

Star *Explorer with Boost 2:25 (running under Fusion with 2GB on XP)

I did these all back to back to back to back to keep it as fair as possible.

Does that help?

Yeah, nice test. Thanks!

[Sparky]

Hope these tests help you out:

Running Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8

Cable internet with Time Warner Roadrunner

About 9AM Eastern

Uploaded two batches (all files in both tests were 0.6-0.7MB in size)

Upload #1 - 167 photos in approx. 10 mins. Speed started at 1.1Mb/s and went to 1.3Mb/s and stayed there

Upload #2 - 173 photos in 11:36 mins. (got my stopwatch out for this one) Speed steady at 1.3Mb/s entire time.

[BradfordBenn]

If you need more testing, let me know. I got more photos to upload. i also can test under Win XP if you need that also.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by BradfordBenn

If you need more testing, let me know. I got more photos to upload. i also can test under Win XP if you need that also.

Please keep using it. We love this uploader for the simplicity, and speed.

Thanks!

[Shizam]

Originally Posted by BradfordBenn

Howdy-

So I ran the same 27 images through four different uploaders for testing. Here is what I came up with:

45.2 MB - 27 Images
Running under Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032608 Firefox/3.0.8
Applet = 10 Upload 2:25
Applet = 9 Upload 3:25

Mac Daddy v3.03 2:24

Star *Explorer with Boost 2:25 (running under Fusion with 2GB on XP)

I did these all back to back to back to back to keep it as fair as possible.

Does that help?

This is great info having the various uploaders compared with the same amount of data, thanks for laying it out like that.

@jfriend: Once an item reaches 100% that means that its now being verified on the server. So if you click 'stop uploading' it should only terminate any in progress uploads, items that are verifying can't be stopped as they're already on smugmug and the uploader is just waiting for verification that all the bits made it. I am curious as to the other bit you posted that if you hit stop uploading and a file is verifying then that file isn't uploaded, am I understanding that correctly?

Sam

[jfriend]

Originally Posted by Shizam

@jfriend: Once an item reaches 100% that means that its now being verified on the server. So if you click 'stop uploading' it should only terminate any in progress uploads, items that are verifying can't be stopped as they're already on smugmug and the uploader is just waiting for verification that all the bits made it. I am curious as to the other bit you posted that if you hit stop uploading and a file is verifying then that file isn't uploaded, am I understanding that correctly?

Sam

The first time I uploaded, three images immediately went to 100% (instantly in less than a second) and then had the green dots going back and forth (which I think signifies verifying). The images were not actually verifying - they were still uploading - I could tell by my network traffic. I pressed Stop Uploading at that point and nothing happened. The images were still actually uploading. They did eventually finish uploading, though I had no control over it at all.

The second time I uploaded, the images started uploading one at a time. I saw a normal thermometer. When I pressed Stop Uploading with the progress thermometer at 33%, the image did indeed stop uploading and then it disappeared frrom the upload list. It should have stayed in the list since it was not yet uploaded.

Neither behavior was proper for the Stop Uploading button. In the first case, it didn't stop when the images had not yet finished uploading. It just kept uploading. In the second case, it did stop uploading and then it removed the image from the queue (when it should have left it in the queue).

[Shizam]

Originally Posted by jfriend

Neither behavior was proper for the Stop Uploading button. In the first case, it didn't stop when the images had not yet finished uploading. It just kept uploading.

Right, it shouldn't have just went right to 100% even though it was still uploading, in this case there must have been some problem with uploading, like the progressbar was representing reading into memory instead of reading to the httpstream. However the stop button functioned correctly as far as the UI/logic was concerned since it thought it was at 100% it didn't cancel it.

Originally Posted by jfriend

In the second case, it did stop uploading and then it removed the image from the queue (when it should have left it in the queue).

This isn't a bug/problem, just a difference in opinion on how the UI should work. I/we think after its done uploading it should be removed from the queue, its no longer relevant. Where you expect it to stick around and this seems cumbersome to the UI.

[Donkey_Kong]

Originally Posted by jfriend

• Initial progress is very bizarre. It jumped to 100% immediately and then just showed the animating green rectangles. The progress thermometers seem busted. I much, much prefer what the previous simple uploader showed because it feels like it's doing something all the time.
• Speed indicator never showed anything
• Time remaining never showed anything.

I am normally a Star Explorer uploader so I can't really offer any comparison to the previous simple uploader.

I believe this is the same behavior I'm having trouble with and it's caused by delay of the verification coming back to the uploader. See my other post on this at http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=127048

The calculation of the verification code is just too slow.

[jfriend]

Originally Posted by Shizam

This isn't a bug/problem, just a difference in opinion on how the UI should work. I/we think after its done uploading it should be removed from the queue, its no longer relevant. Where you expect it to stick around and this seems cumbersome to the UI.

There were four images in the queue. One was uploading. I hit the Stop Uploading button. It stopped uploading the one that was uploading, then removed it from the queue. There were then three images left in the queue.

I would think that when you stop, it should leave all images in the queue that have not uploaded. One can always use the Remove button at that point if they want to get rid of one of the images in the queue.

I thought it was less than desirable behavior to remove an image from the queue that did not upload.

I'm fine with removing it from the queue when it successfully uploads, but not when it doesn't.

[jfriend]

Originally Posted by Donkey_Kong

I believe this is the same behavior I'm having trouble with and it's caused by delay of the verification coming back to the uploader. See my other post on this at http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=127048

The calculation of the verification code is just too slow.

No, this is different. This was a UI problem where it immediately zipped to 100% progress even though it was still uploading the bits (I could tell by looking at my network traffic). The long time it spent in this state was merely the time it took to upload, not the verification time.

[Shizam]

Originally Posted by jfriend

No, this is different. This was a UI problem where it immediately zipped to 100% progress even though it was still uploading the bits (I could tell by looking at my network traffic). The long time it spent in this state was merely the time it took to upload, not the verification time.

Right I agree, we're both saying the same thing just different ways :) It shouldn't have done that, dunno why it happened to you early on but went away. I was just throwing out a guess as to why it happened which is some buffer (or maybe proxy) read in the data super fast (which tricked the progressbar) and then the data was doled out to the httpconnection from the buffer/proxy.

[Shizam]

Originally Posted by Donkey_Kong

I believe this is the same behavior I'm having trouble with and it's caused by delay of the verification coming back to the uploader. See my other post on this at http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=127048

The calculation of the verification code is just too slow.

Kong,
Do you have any packet monitoring software installed on your machine? Are you by any chance using a Mac, I'd suggest HTTPScoop. If you're using a Windows machine then Wireshark is all I know of and its kinda complicated to explain how to use. I suspect what is happening is if you watched your bandwidth you'd see that even after your file gets to 100% that data is still being sent (kind of like what jFriend saw). Or there is some local proxy that you're uploading your data too (really fast) which then sends the data to smugmug (slower) so it seems to you that all the data is sent (100%) but really our server hasn't gotten all the bits yet. That would be harder to diagnose.

Originally Posted by Donky_Kong

I'd hazard to guess it's got something to do with the smugmugs servers. While I don't know the details of how the hash length is calculated I'd think it requires more time to calculate the hash for the larger files. As the numbers of Canon 5d2's increases I'm sure this problem is going to become worse unless something is done.

This isn't the case, I've uploaded 23-24MB sized files from a 1DsIII and the verification time is marginal, like seconds.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Donkey_Kong

I believe this is the same behavior I'm having trouble with and it's caused by delay of the verification coming back to the uploader. See my other post on this at http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=127048

The calculation of the verification code is just too slow.

Not sure that's the problem, but we'll help you in your other thread, thanks!