ghost photos on SmugMug!!

DeVerm

I was afraid we would see database consistency problems with the virtual galleries and it's already happening.

The other "missing photo's" thread is the opposite from what I have, I see photo's double in a virtual gallery while the 2nd one is not really there (nor is the gallery it's in according to the database). Deleting the virtual gallery and creating it again doesn't help.

So, I need a hero to sync my stuff together again...

some thoughts from my geek knowledge: the routines that delete photo's or galleries or categories need hooks that also delete the affected photo's from any virtual galleries.

The good news for many members is that I also see a thumbnail for these ghost photo's. This means that there is a second database entry for a virtual photo which would lead to an easy implementation of having different captions etc. for these virtual copies.

Also: at creation of a virtual gallery, it seems like you make a snapshot at that moment in time. If you remove photo's from original galleries or change keywords, those photo's do not disappear from the virtual gallery... you have to delete it and re-create it. This is a bug and already reported by others. So the hooks I wrote about above also need to go into the routines that change keywords etc.

ciao!
Nick.

Andy

Nick, can we have links to the galleries in question please?

DeVerm

Sorry Andy, I deleted them after I found that a couple of hours later, the database got cleaned up. I don't know if that was done automatically or manual...

But many others have posted links to galleries (keyword-virtual ones) that still had photo's with keywords that already had the keyword deleted, even though the keyword change had been indexed already. I think everyone is now just deleting and re-creating these galleries because we must clean it up... no tests ;-)
I am sure it's easy to reproduce because everyone has got the problem.


I will try that /date url you posted elsewhere to see what's really there ;-)

thanks,
Nick.

Jayhem

That's exactly what I was seeing when browsing my archive by date, for the days or months where my photos had been deleted. The ghost photos have disappeared after my lost photos have been recovered. I've even sent screenshots to support, but they don't seem interested in understanding what's corrupting the systems.... last I heard is to 'let them know if it happens again', very reassuring.

Andy

Jayhem wrote:

That's exactly what I was seeing when browsing my archive by date, for the days or months where my photos had been deleted. The ghost photos have disappeared after my lost photos have been recovered. I've even sent screenshots to support, but they don't seem interested in understanding what's corrupting the systems.... last I heard is to 'let them know if it happens again', very reassuring.

Jay, we're extremely interested - if we can't exactly reproduce it's very hard for us... write again, ATTN: Andy - I'll look into this this weekend.

Andy

DeVerm wrote:

I am sure it's easy to reproduce because everyone has got the problem.

No, unfortunately, it is not

Jayhem

Andy wrote:

Jay, we're extremely interested - if we can't exactly reproduce it's very hard for us... write again, ATTN: Andy - I'll look into this this weekend.

Thanks, it's good to know someone is going to look into this.

I really like SmugMug and found support very friendly and responsive so far, but you have to admit this kind of issue is very worrying. What's not acceptable is that the system is silently corrupting user data, and we don't have a way to see an activity log and compare it to a summary of what's currently stored in the system.

Currently, I see on my control panel:

Uploads > Total: 127  upload log  |  Storage used: 253.9 MB

And on http://jayhem.smugmug.com/date/ I see:

All (120) | 1601 (1) | 2002 (4) | 2006 (33) | 2007 (30) | 2008 (20) | 2009 (31) | 2010 (1) |

I'm unsure what "Total: 127" really represents... is it the total number if photos remaining? If I open the upload log, I count 303 "Complete in..." entries, so it could mean that 127 is the number of photos remaining?

What I discovered yesterday was that the count of the /date page also included some ghost photos, so there seem to be numerous inconsistencies here.

What we need to see is:
1) Total photos = total uploads - total deletions
2) Some guarantee that the photo links are valid (no ghost photos)


As for reproducing the issue, it might not be necessary... it should be possible to look at the code itself and tell what would happen if the system went down during a deletion operation. It doesn't look like the system is performing a proper two-phase commit.

Thanks,
JM

DeVerm

Andy wrote:

No, unfortunately, it is not

Look here:

http://sv-jedi.smugmug.com/Albums/Panama/11085255_eCNP9#774163767_LzNvN

check the virtual rules... they say to exclude photo's with keyword "bond" and also with keyword "projects" but the photo's are in there anyway.

hope it helps...
Nick.

gluwater

DeVerm wrote:

Look here:

http://sv-jedi.smugmug.com/Albums/Panama/11085255_eCNP9#774163767_LzNvN

check the virtual rules... they say to exclude photo's with keyword "bond" and also with keyword "projects" but the photo's are in there anyway.

hope it helps...
Nick.

Hey Nick, thanks for the link. I'll pass it on to the developers to take a look at and see what's going on.

gluwater

DeVerm wrote:

Look here:

http://sv-jedi.smugmug.com/Albums/Panama/11085255_eCNP9#774163767_LzNvN

check the virtual rules... they say to exclude photo's with keyword "bond" and also with keyword "projects" but the photo's are in there anyway.

hope it helps...
Nick.

Hey Nick I checked and you actually need to have the Rule set to "Any" instead of "All". When you match all the rules it is looking to exclude images that have both keywords "bond" and "projects". When you use Any it will exclude images that have either of the keywords, not just those that have both. I changed the gallery settings for you. Take a look and let me know if you have any questions.

Nick