TromboneChat

In a recent post I tried to attach JPGs of only a few hundred k but the result is always

"Could not upload attachment to ./files/3697_434acf564ea2d00da6e93b21a20d36a2."

This seems to be a recurrent problem recently.

I suspect that we have exceeded our image storage space. I'll bet most of the problem is pictures attached to sale ads that are no longer current. I don't know if deleting these topics will remove the images and free up space -- I couldn't find any mention of this on the PHPBBS Web site.

I suspect we will need Matt K to do some research. If it turns out that removing the old threads will clear some image space I'll be happy to do it. It's time consuming, but I have a fair amount of time on my hands (a multiple delete option would be nice ).

OK...a temporary work-around for someone who needs to put an image in a post is to put the image in an "album" on a site like Facebook.
Set the album visibility to "only me" or some similar private setting.
Then RMB on an image and do "copy image link"

Paste that link between some img tags in your post.

I think your album has to be public or else there will be errors.

The incantation is:
Here is an example. Use the Quote reply to see what I did:

BGuttman wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 2:18 am I think your album has to be public or else there will be errors.

Can you see the images in this post?...

https://www.trombonechat.com/viewtopic. ... 16#p273116

robcat2075 wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 8:04 am

BGuttman wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 2:18 am I think your album has to be public or else there will be errors.

Can you see the images in this post?...

https://www.trombonechat.com/viewtopic. ... 16#p273116

Yes.

Bruce, did you delete old pictures? Uploads were working for a little while, but seem to have stalled again; consistent with a little bit of space being recovered.

Any likelihood that this will get resolved? Is it a money problem, like a higher tier of service must be obtained?

My tactic of posting an image link from some other platform seems not to be 100% effective.

It works except when it doesn't.

IMG_1131 by genevie7, on Flickr

There was a recent thread on another site saying the same thing. I copy the photo on Flickr and paste it here and there you are. It worked there and here.

I removed all Classified Instrument postings from the first half of 2018. See if you can load some new images now. If this helps I'll remove more Classified ads that are very old.

Now that Matt K. is fixing everything in sight, I assume this isn't a problem any more. But maybe there are new guidelines that should be written? Maybe I shouldn't upload as many images as I want, all in full resolution? Do we need to start exercising more image discipline?

AtomicClock wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 12:06 pm ... maybe there are new guidelines that should be written? Maybe I shouldn't upload as many images as I want, all in full resolution? Do we need to start exercising more image discipline?

To save storage (and perhaps postpone future outages), I strongly recommend "resizing" your images (fewer pixels) before you post them on TC. [The typical smart phone camera takes photos at much higher resolution than necessary for on-line viewing. My image resizer takes my original photos from 3,000-4,000kb to ~300-400kb - and the resolution is still excellent for the purpose.]

The reason images disappeared was a goof I made when migrating the underlying storage. I didn't delete anything, but I pointed it to the wrong place (yay fat fingers!). All the images should be back in place. (Except from anything Bruce may have deleted, I think an occasional purge of near decade old stuff is fine).

Fortunately, the size is actually not really much of a problem; currently, we have a separate volume dedicated to the images, and it is not an excessive cost.

There may be something we can do to limit sizes, and I *think* there's even an extension, though I've been reluctant to install many of those other than the bare bones, so that we don't run into a situation where we're reliant on a non-PHP maintainer for anything. It would actually be a pretty trivial endeavor to standardize all the images to a certain compressed size once a minute... maybe I should go ahead an do that.