Oh no! You took away my thumbnails for Facebook!!! :::banging head:::

Nicci

As you can see in the image from my previous thread:
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=173817

When linking to a gallery on facebook, I used to be able to choose a thumbnail from all the photos on my page.

Now, in the same (thumbnail style) gallery if I try to link to the gallery, it gives me a choice of only 5 photos - NONE of which are photos in the gallery.





Additionally, it appears as if in the SmugMug style gallery, you have a choice of more photos than Thumbnail style, but not as many photos as before.

Nicci

Can someone please address this for me? Is it possible to put it back the way it was?

docwalker

Hi Nicole, We are looking into it. Thanks for letting us know it is happening.

scotticus

Tecnicole, can I see the gallery URL you were having problems with? (PM is fine if you don't want to post it here)

Thanks!
Scott.

Tecnicole wrote: »

As you can see in the image from my previous thread:
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=173817

When linking to a gallery on facebook, I used to be able to choose a thumbnail from all the photos on my page.

Now, in the same (thumbnail style) gallery if I try to link to the gallery, it gives me a choice of only 5 photos - NONE of which are photos in the gallery.





Additionally, it appears as if in the SmugMug style gallery, you have a choice of more photos than Thumbnail style, but not as many photos as before.

Nicci

Either one of the thumbnail style galleries at:
http://photos.humansafterall.com/

(The first two galleries)

scotticus

I'll see what we can do about this. The issue is that we have no control over what facebook thinks are important images on the page. Right now the 5 images it's pulling are from your customization and obviously aren't what you want.

Nicci

Hmmm....well it was working before. Something must have changed to cause the photos to stop feeding through properly. Also, it seems to work in other gallery styles so it must be something in the thumbnail style gallery.

This is what someone else wrote to me, maybe this helps:

"This happens probably because the pictures are displaying from a java script.
You can see the Thumbnail's option Facebook gives you are only pictures you have on your html code. "

Nicci

I did some research on my phone earlier, but I was able to find out that the Facebook developer's area does claim that people have control over how Facebook "reads" their page. Evidently, the metadata and thumbnails are elements that can be controlled.

scotticus

Yeah, you can specify one image via meta tags, but it disables being able to cycle between images... When we tried that everyone asked us to un-try it almost instantly.

Nicci

Well the ability to cycle through images in the thumbnail gallery style is non-existent right now.

I would think that if you had it right at one point, it works in other gallery styles, and facebook does allow developer's to code what facebook does and does not see, that there should be a way to resolve this issue, no?

scotticus

Yes, we are actively looking into it. It typically takes facebook several days to respond to support inquiries, but I will update this thread as soon as I'm able to work something out with them.

Nicci

Thank you so much.

I know from reading through other threads on here that control over the Facebook link is something that is important to me and other users as well.

The visual aspect on Facebook plays a huge role in if someone clicks through or not.

scotticus

So the problem seems to be right click protection in the gallery. If you disable it, and then try the link in facebook it should work. Or at least that's what I'm seeing in my galleries.

Allen

scotticus wrote: »

So the problem seems to be right click protection in the gallery. If you disable it, and then try the link in facebook it should work. Or at least that's what I'm seeing in my galleries.

Seeing the same here. On FB I type something in share and clicked link icon.
Pasted gallery link in for two galleries, one with right click on and one off.
Only the one with right click off did the thumbnail selection show, although it
only gave a me choice of 17 out of 37.

I'm thinking "right click protection" on for personal/hobby type sites is a pita
so might toggle it off everywhere. This will allow the dummies to steal my
photos like everyone else.

Nicci

scotticus wrote: »

So the problem seems to be right click protection in the gallery. If you disable it, and then try the link in facebook it should work. Or at least that's what I'm seeing in my galleries.

Damn! You got me all excited that would be a simple fix!

However, still the same problem.

Go to this gallery and/or try to post this link on Facebook and it is still the same five thumbnails that aren't photos in the gallery.

http://photos.humansafterall.com/Nightlife/SitePremiere/11593044_dHaEX#816970811_BkRZh-A-LB

scotticus

Hmmm, that seems to have fixed it everywhere else, so I'm guessing something in your customization is breaking it now. Let me see if I can duplicate....

Nicci

scotticus wrote: »

Hmmm, that seems to have fixed it everywhere else, so I'm guessing something in your customization is breaking it now. Let me see if I can duplicate....

I think you are wrong. Probably something else.

I have a gallery in SmugMug style without the customizations. I just took off the password and made it public to test it. When I tried to post the link on Facebook it had NO thumbnail options at all.

Here is the gallery link (I put the password back and made it unlisted but let me know if you need me to change it for you)
http://photos.humansafterall.com/Nightlife/Crosstown-Rebels-Get-Lost/11822964_nnNoJ#835652986_J2i7A

scotticus

Did you also disable right click protection in it? I just added your customizations into my site, and the thumbnails stopped working... I'm not seeing yet what's breaking it, but something is...

Tecnicole wrote: »

I think you are wrong. Probably something else.

I have a gallery in SmugMug style without the customizations. I just took off the password and made it public to test it. When I tried to post the link on Facebook it had NO thumbnail options at all.

Here is the gallery link (I put the password back and made it unlisted but let me know if you need me to change it for you)
http://photos.humansafterall.com/Nightlife/Crosstown-Rebels-Get-Lost/11822964_nnNoJ#835652986_J2i7A

Nicci

I didn't the first time, but I just did it again.

This time I took off the password, made it public, disabled right click....

still no thumbnail option at all

scotticus wrote: »

Did you also disable right click protection in it? I just added your customizations into my site, and the thumbnails stopped working... I'm not seeing yet what's breaking it, but something is...

pmbpro

Sorry to jump in this thread. I was going to post about this, but this thread appears to address the same problem I'd been having. I'd been posting my website home page link in facebook (in Private messages I send to friends) and getting zero thumbnails ("0 of 0 Thumbnails"). Before, I used to get at least the one photo (of myself) or maybe a few others from other galleries to choose from. I always had right-click protection on when I was getting thumbnails, then it suddenly stopped working.

Anyway, I'll wait and see if there's any resolution in this thread that I can try too.

scotticus

Yeah, right click protection will definitely result in no thumbnails. Does it work when you take it off? If no, would you mind either posting a link or PMing it to me....

pmbpro wrote: »

Sorry to jump in this thread. I was going to post about this, but this thread appears to address the same problem I'd been having. I'd been posting my website home page link in facebook (in Private messages I send to friends) and getting zero thumbnails ("0 of 0 Thumbnails"). Before, I used to get at least the one photo (of myself) or maybe a few others from other galleries to choose from. I always had right-click protection on when I was getting thumbnails, then it suddenly stopped working.

Anyway, I'll wait and see if there's any resolution in this thread that I can try too.

pmbpro

scotticus wrote: »

Yeah, right click protection will definitely result in no thumbnails. Does it work when you take it off? If no, would you mind either posting a link or PMing it to me....

Hi,

No, it still doesn't work. Still no thumbnails.
Here's the link I tested it on --- this gallery currently has Right-click protect "Off".

http://www.pmbimages.com/People/Sports-and-Fitness/IDFA-Toronto-Nov-2009/


Prior to that, I'd also tried enabling "External Links", but that didn't work either, so I disabled that.

I had never changed my gallery settings (always "protected"), and it had worked fine. The thumbnails just disappeared only recently.

scotticus

That one works for me:
http://img.skitch.com/20100827-tp7hhg7kn4cqect5qgubtq7b87.jpg

pmbpro

It's still not working for me at all. I don't understand why...

Does it work for you if I turned right-clicking off too?

jfriend

scotticus wrote: »

That one works for me:
http://img.skitch.com/20100827-tp7hhg7kn4cqect5qgubtq7b87.jpg

That one works for me too, but none of mine seem to work - they don't offer any thumbnails. They all have external links on, no right-click protection, no passwords, public galleries:

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/Monterey-Whale-Watching-2010/12876397_4Yf5R#929643702_ew93G

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/San-Francisco-Marathon-2009/9204694_WV2nY#614458584_DfSLS

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/Yosemite-2009/9298108_DLCZ6#621569996_AwR5d

As an interesting clue, the generic URLs (with no customization) are all giving me thumbnails in Facebook:

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/Monterey-Whale-Watching-2010/12876397_4Yf5R#929643702_ew93G

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/San-Francisco-Marathon-2009/9204694_WV2nY#614458584_DfSLS

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/Yosemite-2009/9298108_DLCZ6#621569996_AwR5d

So what breaks the Facebook thumbnails? I have lots of customization, but in the galleries themselves, it's pretty much just a non-complicated custom header.

scotticus

It is very strange, and sadly they don't give us any clues as to what the crawler likes/doesn't like. I'll keep trying to put the pieces together, but it's more than likely I will end up just doing a special version for the facebook bot.

pmbpro

jfriend wrote: »

That one works for me too, but none of mine seem to work - they don't offer any thumbnails. They all have external links on, no right-click protection, no passwords, public galleries:

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/Monterey-Whale-Watching-2010/12876397_4Yf5R#929643702_ew93G

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/San-Francisco-Marathon-2009/9204694_WV2nY#614458584_DfSLS

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/Yosemite-2009/9298108_DLCZ6#621569996_AwR5d

As an interesting clue, the generic URLs (with no customization) are all giving me thumbnails in Facebook:

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/Monterey-Whale-Watching-2010/12876397_4Yf5R#929643702_ew93G

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/San-Francisco-Marathon-2009/9204694_WV2nY#614458584_DfSLS

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/Yosemite-2009/9298108_DLCZ6#621569996_AwR5d

So what breaks the Facebook thumbnails? I have lots of customization, but in the galleries themselves, it's pretty much just a non-complicated custom header.

Wow... this is really bizarre!! Mine don't work for me, but yet for others it does. I don't know why it would suddenly change like that. I haven't customized or added codes on my site in months and didn't change any gallery settings at all, as I was already happy with what I had.

If I have to choose between having thumbnails in Facebook, vs. leaving my stuff unprotected, I'd just leave things as they are, with my images protected and live without the thumbnails. Hopefully we can find out what's going on though...

ETA: I think it's arbritary though, because one time, a while back... I had a single thumbnail of myself show up (the one in "About Me" page). I was used to just that when I put my root URL up....no gallery. Even that doesn't happen anymore now.

pmbpro

Check this out now, using the very same sample link I posted earlier:




THAT is the image I'm used to seeing when I just post my main URL www.pmbimages.com. That was showing up randomly a while back. Now it showed up using that other gallery link (you can see the URL posted in the window of this shot)! IT was the only choice I got, too.

ETA: Right Click protection was off, still, when I did this shot...

I've put Right Click protection back on now.

jfriend

jfriend wrote: »

That one works for me too, but none of mine seem to work - they don't offer any thumbnails. They all have external links on, no right-click protection, no passwords, public galleries:

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/Monterey-Whale-Watching-2010/12876397_4Yf5R#929643702_ew93G

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/San-Francisco-Marathon-2009/9204694_WV2nY#614458584_DfSLS

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/Yosemite-2009/9298108_DLCZ6#621569996_AwR5d

As an interesting clue, the generic URLs (with no customization) are all giving me thumbnails in Facebook:

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/Monterey-Whale-Watching-2010/12876397_4Yf5R#929643702_ew93G

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/San-Francisco-Marathon-2009/9204694_WV2nY#614458584_DfSLS

http://www.smugmug.com/Family/Yosemite-2009/9298108_DLCZ6#621569996_AwR5d

So what breaks the Facebook thumbnails? I have lots of customization, but in the galleries themselves, it's pretty much just a non-complicated custom header.

Scott, I discovered something about my site which probably doesn't apply to the other sites. Awhile ago, I added some meta data to the Head section that was supposed to help FB. As it turns out one of those lines was ruining my ability to see images when posting a link to FB. When I removed all my meta tags, all my galleries produce thumbnails. When I put them back in, no galleries that I haven't tried before produce thumbnails, but it appears that FB may have some caching so I always ran my experiments with galleries that FB had never seen.

I narrowed it down to one particular meta tag. I can confirm that when I remove the tag:

<meta property="og:image" content=[URL="http://jfriend.smugmug.com/"]"http://jfriend.smugmug.com"[/URL]/>

then, all my galleries produce thumbnails. So for me, the problem appears solved. I don't see this offending meta tag in the other sites having problems so this may be a one off problem for me.

And with further testing, if I put a correct value for that property (it's supposed to point to an image URL, not a page URL) in the page then I get that and only that image for the page. So, this is what was causing my issue and is clearly NOT what I want so I'm removing that meta tag. It appears that this tag is what can be used to specify the one and only image that should represent that page. If it has an error in the image URL, then you get nothing. If it points to a valid image, you get only that image. When I remove it, I get 10 images from each gallery page.

My problem is solved for now. I don't think this is the issue for the other people in this thread as I caused my own problem by not understanding the FB meta tags properly.

RonD200

Up until yesterday I was always able to post links from my Smugmug galleries on Facebook, either by pasting a gallery link or using the "Share on Facebook" button on my toolbar. My galleries have always had right click protection on and the thumbnail would always show up. As I said this has always worked until recently, now the only way to get a thumbnail to show up is to temporarily turn off right click protection. Not sure if something changed on Smugmug's side or Facebook.

Nicci

Do my eyes deceive me, or is this working now?!