Admin slow while saving

nelson

Hi,
I installed 1.4.1.2 for a client, the gallery works good after pre-caching & static-html plug-in, but the admin is really slow.
The albums tab (10 albums) opens inner albums (after clicking any high level album) in about 10 seconds, but while saving (clicking the Apply button) it takes at least 30 seconds to get a response from the server.
I did search the forum about it, but found posts related to performance issues showing the gallery and none to admin.
The albums folder is composed by 3000 files in 300 directories
Any ideas to improve the performance?
Thanks

acrylian

Since that are really a lot of images it is a matter of your server's power. You should do several things:
- Don't upload huge images dimensionwise (see troubleshooting)
- Set fixed album thumbs and not random (on the backend use the stand-in replacement album thumb)

nelson

Thank you for your prompt answer.
One thing I have no clear is, what impact has the number of images in the whole gallery in the performance for a single album? I know the images inside have impact because of the thumb selection, but shouldn't be a scoped edit/save to the selected album?

Another thing I noticed (correct me if I'm wrong please), the whole albums' structure is processed while opening/selecting an album. Why I say that? because we have a problem with an album (mismatch filename & DB info) and the error message is appearing while selecting any album (high level or subalbums); although, this problem album is inside another main album

acrylian

1. If you have random album thumbs Zenphoto goes through all albums, subalbums and their images. If you then also have big images (dimensions!) then it takes some time as it does that for all albums currently visible in the list. Also Zenphoto ist generally filesystem based so it literally updates itself by the filesystem (removed albums and images).

2. I am not sure I understand. If you open one album not the whole albums structure is processed. Without hte actual error message we really can'T answer to this specific problem. Of course the subalbum name (not title) includes the parent folder name
Example: The name of a subalbum "sublevel" to "toplevel" would be "toplevel/sublevel". So it is related.

Note also that 1.4.1.2 is not the latest version. My collegue who is more familiar with some of these internals liek form processing etc. will surely add some more details later.

sbillard

I will also add that there are all sorts of ways you can be using Zenphoto's back-end that might impact this. For instnace if you have selected to show multiple nesting levels on the main album tab then naturally all these albums will need to be processed in order to obtain their thumbnail images.

In addition, the thumbnail displayed on the album tab may well be a different size from any on the front end, so will need to be created and cached the first time they are viewed.

There are all sorts of other possible reasons why a subalbum will be accessed when you are editing an album (for instance, you will notice there is a subalbum tab if and only if there are subalbums.)

As to the cause for your preformance issues, I do not have any ideas more than have been previously suggested.

michaelsam

hi,

my backend is very slow, it takes about 30 seconds to go into the album to save changes oder anything else whith has to do with the album or images.
i read this
"(on the backend use the stand-in replacement album thumb)"
but can't find it. please tell me where to find this setting.

Michael

sbillard

Try the button at the top of the album list.

michaelsam

if i would have found something i wouldn't have ask for. so please can you help me ? or put here the link about the thread you think which will help me.

acrylian

MY collegue refers to the "thumbnail stand in" button. That disables display of album thumbs which will speed up the site. If you have lots of albums with lots of images and also lots of subalbums and have not set a fixed album thumb, Zenphoto will go through all to pick one. This is probably not cached/generated so it needs to be done then. Doing that for several albums might slow down.

Also it helps to only show one level at the time.

michaelsam

i hadn't have the idea to set my gallery to english to find this button "show Thumbnail stand-in" for all others which might have the same problem, it is the button on top of the albums.

for me it doesn't help it takes very long to open a album.

but it would be better to set this as a gallery setting and not at each album i think. cause i was searching for at the settings and not at the albums. also i wouldn't have now to go to each subalbum and set this in hope that it would speed up the album backend at all.

sbillard

It would really matter only for albums with a large amount of subalbums (or, ofcourse the root list, specially if you have multiple sublevels showing.) That is why it is selectable at each level.

Taking long to open an album probably is because of either using a random thumbnail or having the images shown in the thumbnail selector. You should first be sure the latter is reset.

Regarding the button: was there no button if the gallery was not in English? If so we have a translation issue we need to address.

acrylian

The button is there and translate, at least for me, so naturally no one except in English finds it in that name...

michaelsam

like i said i didn't search at the album tab, i searched for "stand-in replacement album thumb" and not for "show Thumbnail stand-in" it seems that i didn't look everywhere in the backend.

i have no images shown in the thumbnailselector and for sure i want to have random thumbnails at the frontend only. i used the "show Thumbnail stand-in" button (is also shown in german).

my structure is album/sub/sub/images and album/sub/sub/sub/images too.
years ago you told me to insert in each album which has no image but subalbums inside a hidden pic to make it faster, but that didn't help too. i also changed several times the mysql server but this action didn't help too.

acrylian

A fixed albumthumb is also a way but the setting applies to both the backedn and front end. We have that button on the albums as it felt fitting.

Important is also the size of the images and naturally the server speed.

sbillard

If you are using Internet Explorer<9 (and maybe other browsers) the thumbnail image will not show anyway, But that does not mean that the image is not being generated. Be sure the option is turned off.

Othewise, as acrylian has said. Make sure your images are of a size handleable by your server.

We really do not know why your server is slow. If it is just opening an album, then most likely the problem resides with the images in the album. But if that is image processing or SQL searching I really do not know.

acrylian

If you are using Internet Explorer<9 (and maybe other browsers) the thumbnail image will not show anyway,
Safari 4.1.x at least does also not show the thumbs in the selector, Firefox does.

michaelsam

i like the random thumb very much at the frontend so i don't want to disable it.
sbilliard wrote: "But that does not mean that the image is not being generated."
so where is the sense for the option "show Thumbnail stand-in" than ?
my images are 640x480 which i upload and the size is between 50 and 100 kb so it is small enough i think.
i'm using ie and ff and it was in each version the same.

acrylian

The sense is that if you have a toplevel album with say 50 subalbums that have lots of images (and then even big ones) and possible further subalbums Zenphoto goes through all these to find a random image. The more images the more the chance it has not been cache. Multipy that with 50 toplevel albums and you know the sense.

Btw, to avoid this on the front end the html static cache plugin exists.

michaelsam

so the gallery generates than the string out of the database but it doesn't show an image. there for sure was a reason to make this like it is, but i think the button would work better if it will also turn of the random thumb generation. cause than its realy faster and it can't run in a failure. also like i wrote before if there would be a setting "no thumbnail genartion at the backend" than the album tab would also work as fast as the rest of the gallery. cause i don't need at the backend a thumbnail for the album. for me thats only a very nice visual feature for visitors.

acrylian

If the standin image is set, nothing is generated as a standard replacement image is used. Random thumbs are off then naturally as otherwise this would make no sense.

You can disable the random thumbs itself on the option and on each album edit page individually.

michaelsam

didn't i understand sbillard right ?
sbilliard wrote: "...But that does not mean that the image is not being generated. ..."

acrylian

Sbillard referred to the visiual thumb selector dropdown each album has. While Safari is not able to display the thumbs within as Firefox does it still generates the image.

michaelsam

i tried now to set the thumbnail to my default pic in each album without any pics and it works much faster. but when i set it to random-thumb it shows anyway the thumb of the only pic which is in this parent folder and not a pic which is in any child folder. i don't know the program-code but if it does what i think, whatfor it walks through the childs to generate a random thumb at the backend when it doesn't use it ?

acrylian

Well, yes, it might be that we changed the random thumb to only use the image of the album itself and not child. I admit I am not familiar with the code in detail as sbillard coded that. He will be back in a few days and surely respond then.

Anyway, the main slowdown is if these thumb display needs to be generated and that for many albums wat once. The more image the bigger the chance it has not been already created (=cached). If then the images dimension wise are quite big and the server has problems to handle this adds up the more it needs to create.
Thus the standin image to avoid this on the backend.

sbillard

The note that I made earlier was about the use of thumb images in the thumb selector. As said, it is not about if the thumbs show. That is a browser issue. If the option is set Zenphoto will generate them. Certainly if your browser does not show them that is a waste. Be sure that option is not set.

We have no plans to change the thumb substitute behavior. First, it is unlikely it is your problem. Second, it is a one-time action. If you just make the settings rather than complain you will have spent less effort.