Some custom image sizes busted

jfriend

This custom slideshow http://www.naturallycandidphotography.com/ is not working properly and the issue is that the custom size image URLs returned by the Smugmug API are not working reliably when fetched from the site. Some return really slowly (taking 20-30 seconds) and some never return any image data.

Here are examples of custom image URLs that do not work reliably:

http://www.naturallycandidphotography.com/photos/i-sQZdf99/5/787x633/i-sQZdf99-787x633.jpg
http://www.naturallycandidphotography.com/photos/i-SfWH5CW/5/787x633/i-SfWH5CW-787x633.jpg
http://www.naturallycandidphotography.com/photos/i-JWH2hGj/5/1019x960/i-JWH2hGj-1019x960.jpg

The same images work fine at standard sizes:

http://www.naturallycandidphotography.com/photos/i-sQZdf99/5/XL/i-sQZdf99-XL.jpg
http://www.naturallycandidphotography.com/photos/i-SfWH5CW/5/XL/i-SfWH5CW-XL.jpg
http://www.naturallycandidphotography.com/photos/i-JWH2hGj/5/XL/i-JWH2hGj-XL.jpg

Original customer issue report here: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1693539&postcount=1999.

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One possible clue. If I replace the custom domain with http://photos.smugmug.com/, the custom size images load fine. So, this doesn't work:

http://www.naturallycandidphotography.com/photos/i-sQZdf99/5/787x633/i-sQZdf99-787x633.jpg

But this does:

http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-sQZdf99/5/787x633/i-sQZdf99-787x633.jpg

Andy

John - no power here (going on day 3!) and ability to fup is limited - please email this info to the help desk, thanks. help.smugmug.com

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

John - no power here (going on day 3!) and ability to fup is limited - please email this info to the help desk, thanks. help.smugmug.com

Done.

Andy

This is being looked at (and has been for days) by our QA team, thanks John.

jfriend

It looks like yet another customer's slideshow hitting this bug.

Andy

Proving to be harder than we thought to pinpoint where the problem lies -we are working on it.

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

Proving to be harder than we thought to pinpoint where the problem lies -we are working on it.

The behavior seems pretty consistent. When a custom size is requested that is larger than the largest pre-made size that's available, no image is returned at all (the http request returns success, but has no data) when it should return the largest pre-made size that's available.

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

The behavior seems pretty consistent. When a custom size is requested that is larger than the largest pre-made size that's available, no image is returned at all (the http request returns success, but has no data) when it should return the largest pre-made size that's available.

Not questioning the behavior at all thanks John.

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

Not questioning the behavior at all thanks John.

I was trying to help by clarifying the exact behavior. I'm finding it hard to believe it takes 3 weeks to find a 100% reproducible problem like this that wrecks a bunch of customer's slideshows unless it's not considered a very important problem.

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

I was trying to help by clarifying the exact behavior. I'm finding it hard to believe it takes 3 weeks to find a 100% reproducible problem like this that wrecks a bunch of customer's slideshows unless it's not considered a very important problem.

Let me be clear. We understand the problem. We know it's reproducible. We've been on this daily since it was brought up. The fix is not as easy as you or I would hope it to be. Thanks John.

jfriend

Yet another customer's homepage slideshow that looks like it's busted because of this issue: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1702221&postcount=2137. Going on three weeks now with no resolution.

jfriend

Another customer's slideshow (this time a standard Smugmug slideshow) bitten by this same problem. Their slideshow shows no images. Bug open for six weeks now.

jfriend

Yes another customer's slideshow that's busted because custom image requests return a blank image in a number of conditions. In particular, this now happens if a size larger than the largest pre-made size available is requested.

At 6 weeks and counting, I'm left to the conclusion that Smugmug doesn't not think this issue is very important. 6 weeks sure isn't very responsive for a bug that breaks a widely used URL interface for custom images with many reproducible cases.

Some little while ago, you broke this behavior and now custom size image requests often return no image data at all. It's just busted plain and simple. How can it be that hard to find where the logic was changed and fix it? It's even busted in your own slideshow, but is more prevalent when people try to use larger slideshows.

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

At 6 weeks and counting, I'm left to the conclusion that Smugmug doesn't not think this issue is very important.

Sorry but you're wrong. We've been on it. And it's not easy to track down or fix. But we are continuing to work on it. We've NOT STOPPED since I reported last.

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

Sorry but you're wrong. We've been on it. And it's not easy to track down or fix. But we are continuing to work on it. We've NOT STOPPED since I reported last.

You might consider if you have the appropriate priority/people working on it. Six weeks is a very long time for something to be busted if you think it's very important. Obviously it's your call what priority you want to give it - I'm just calling it like I see it. If your car was in the shop for six weeks and you got as much info as we have gotten, you'd come to the same conclusion I'm coming to - that it's not getting a very high priority. If someone actually has been working on it for six weeks, then you need to give them some help.

As for me being wrong, tell me you have multiple people on this including some of your most experienced and you've had it that way for several weeks and I'll believe it's getting a high priority look. Otherwise, I'm just calling it as I see it - it may be getting worked on, but not with much overall priority within the development team.

Lots of slideshows busted for 6 weeks now, including some slideshows built with your own slideshow engine. Likely many more that customers don't even know are busted are taking long pauses and skipping images.

Can't seem to keep dgrin up today. Been having a hard time getting back in just to respond.

Andy

You're not wrong about the issue John, just wrong about how we're not working on it. We are. This one is troublesome.

MSkaffari

jfriend wrote: »

You might consider if you have the appropriate priority/people working on it. Six weeks is a very long time for something to be busted if you think it's very important. Obviously it's your call what priority you want to give it - I'm just calling it like I see it. If your car was in the shop for six weeks and you got as much info as we have gotten, you'd come to the same conclusion I'm coming to - that it's not getting a very high priority. If someone actually has been working on it for six weeks, then you need to give them some help.

As for me being wrong, tell me you have multiple people on this including some of your most experienced and you've had it that way for several weeks and I'll believe it's getting a high priority look. Otherwise, I'm just calling it as I see it - it may be getting worked on, but not with much overall priority within the development team.

Lots of slideshows busted for 6 weeks now, including some slideshows built with your own slideshow engine. Likely many more that customers don't even know are busted are taking long pauses and skipping images.

Can't seem to keep dgrin up today. Been having a hard time getting back in just to respond.

OK, now this should be fixed. We are very sorry for the delay. Let us know if you still find problems with this.

jfriend

MSkaffari wrote: »

OK, now this should be fixed. We are very sorry for the delay. Let us know if you still find problems with this.

I'm hoping you fixed part of this issue, but the first example I tried from one of the slideshows in this thread doesn't seem to be fixed.

This custom URL gives me an image:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-GdHRBTV/4/700x700/template3-700x700.jpg

while this slightly larger one gives me an http response of 200, but an empty image body where the expectation is that it would render the largest image it could (rather than no image) if it runs up against a permitted size boundary:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-GdHRBTV/4/800x800/template3-800x800.jpg

This customer's slideshow is still not working: http://www.joserojasphoto.com/ because of this and an actual URL used in their slideshow on my screen (which doesn't work either) is this:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-tzW8ffp/4/980x787/Template4-980x787.jpg

MSkaffari

jfriend wrote: »

I'm hoping you fixed part of this issue, but the first example I tried from one of the slideshows in this thread doesn't seem to be fixed.

This custom URL gives me an image:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-GdHRBTV/4/700x700/template3-700x700.jpg

while this slightly larger one gives me an http response of 200, but an empty image body where the expectation is that it would render the largest image it could (rather than no image) if it runs up against a permitted size boundary:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-GdHRBTV/4/800x800/template3-800x800.jpg

This customer's slideshow is still not working: http://www.joserojasphoto.com/ because of this and an actual URL used in their slideshow on my screen (which doesn't work either) is this:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-tzW8ffp/4/980x787/Template4-980x787.jpg

Thank you for pointing these cases out. Seems that there are still avenues we didn't fully check. We'll get someone on this as soon as possible.

Andy

Jfriend can you check those links again?

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

Jfriend can you check those links again?

Yeah, they are working now and this customer's slideshow is now working too: http://www.joserojasphoto.com/.

MSkaffari

jfriend wrote: »

I'm hoping you fixed part of this issue, but the first example I tried from one of the slideshows in this thread doesn't seem to be fixed.

This custom URL gives me an image:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-GdHRBTV/4/700x700/template3-700x700.jpg

while this slightly larger one gives me an http response of 200, but an empty image body where the expectation is that it would render the largest image it could (rather than no image) if it runs up against a permitted size boundary:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-GdHRBTV/4/800x800/template3-800x800.jpg

This customer's slideshow is still not working: http://www.joserojasphoto.com/ because of this and an actual URL used in their slideshow on my screen (which doesn't work either) is this:

http://www.joserojasphoto.com/Home/Slideshow/i-tzW8ffp/4/980x787/Template4-980x787.jpg

We just released more fixes to custom size creation. I checked the links you have here and they do seem to work for me. Let us know if we still missed something.

Thanks!