bad thumbnails

nicolesharp100

I am experiencing an issue on 1.5.3 where the created thumbnails are partly grayed out. I think it might be due to incomplete or corrupted thumbnail production, possibly due to the server settings on my shared webhost. I have tried reducing thumbnail quality down to 25%, and reducing thumbnail size down to 96 pixels (from the default 100, but I would prefer not to go any smaller). Any suggestions on settings or configuration that might be able to resolve this? I have tried uploading both by PHP and by FTP, but always get the bad thumbnails generated. Not every thumbnail is bad though, just a handful, and usually in larger albums.

acrylian

If processing fails you would get one of these default error images: https://www.zenphoto.org/screenshots/various/default-error-images.jpg.html

Is that what you mean with "greyed out"? You should in any case review both the Zenphoto debug log and your PHP server error log if accessible.

ISsues with image creation most always results from memory issues and too large original images. Reducing the thumb size will not help here. More info here: https://www.zenphoto.org/news/problems-with-albums-and-images/

nicolesharp100

I don't get any error messages, just the thumbnails partly grayed out. Everything else works properly, including individual photo viewing.

Regular photos are up to 4608*3456 pixels (with collages and panoramios even larger than that), and total RAM (not just for Zenphoto, but everything on the server) is limited to less than 512 MB. So it sounds like if the server settings can't be changed, and if the bad thumbnails are caused by not enough RAM, then the only option to reduce the memory usage is to shrink the images before uploading I guess?

I was thinking though that another alternative perhaps would be to simply not use or generate individual thumbnails at all, and instead go directly from album browsing to photo slideshow. Not sure if there is a plugin or theme that could do this that might solve the issue with thumbnail generation, or at least navigate around it.

acrylian

then the only option to reduce the memory usage is to shrink the images before uploading I guess?

Yes, that is the only way since this is a server side issue. 4608*3456 is quite large. Also check that you don't have watermarks on thumbnails enabled as that causes overhead as well by working with two images to merge literally.

Not sure if there is a plugin or theme that could do this that might solve the issue with thumbnail generation, or at least navigate around it.

There is no theme or plugin for this. You would have to customize the theme you are using to do so. Best you start by reading our theming tutorial for the basics and then start off.