[SOLVED] Attachment trouble

[Opalg]

Like TheBigBadBen, I cannot see the attachment to I like Serena's comment in this thread. Here is a screenshot of what I see:

When I look at the source code for the page, I find that the address for the image is http://www.mathhelpboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=875, and when I enter that address in my browser, I get the vBulletin message "Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator".

 

[Klaas van Aarsen]

I was fiddling with the picture, to get it to show neatly.
This is always a chore and I'm usually not entirely pleased with the result.

In this case, I have apparently deleted the attachment, although it still showed properly for me.
That would be because it was still in my browser cache.
In another browser it did not show up for me either.

In the meantime, I've posted another reply #13 in the thread.
I suspect that one will show properly.
But I'm not pleased that the picture is shown twice: once in a readable form and once in an unreadable thumbnail form.

 

[Sudharaka]

Hi everyone,

Below is a screenshot of what I see. I like Serena's reply #13 looks fine and I do see the attachment there.

​

 

[Bacterius]

So what I do is I don't use the attachment system for pictures but instead upload them somewhere and then use tags in my post (and keep a local copy of the image). Always works, no surprises, and arguably makes more sense overall when you want the picture to simply be viewed and not explicitly downloaded. After all, an attachment system is generally intended for people to download the attachment into a file on their computer, like a PDF.

That said perhaps displaying the attachments as a small condensed list (without thumbnails) would be better?

 

[Opalg]

I'm not pleased that the picture is shown twice: once in a readable form and once in an unreadable thumbnail form.

That is exactly why I have given up on MHB attachments. The only satisfactory way I have found to put images here is to upload them somewhere else and then insert them using the [IMG] .. [/IMG] tags.

Surprise, surprise! Bacterius has just made the same point.

 

[Jameson]

That is exactly why I have given up on MHB attachments.

The only satisfactory way I have found to put images here is to upload them somewhere else and then insert them using the [IMG] .. [/IMG] tags.

Surprise, surprise! Bacterius has just made the same point.

We increased the total attachment space allowed by each user not too long ago to 10 MB, so the storage limit shouldn't be a problem. I am curious about this problem some of you are experiencing now. If possible I will try to fix it. Can someone explain the method that he or she uses to attach a file that causes problems?

 

[Klaas van Aarsen]

We increased the total attachment space allowed by each user not too long ago to 10 MB, so the storage limit shouldn't be a problem. I am curious about this problem some of you are experiencing now. If possible I will try to fix it. Can someone explain the method that he or she uses to attach a file that causes problems?

Method 1: Default picture insertion
When I click Insert Image and upload a picture, it automatically generates:

[PLAIN][ATTACH=CONFIG]878[/ATTACH][/PLAIN]

which works... but always shows up as a scaled down (unreadable) picture.


Method 2: Attach picture and copy+paste URL
As an alternative, I can click Attachments, which pops up the Manage attachments window.
In this window I can upload pictures, and more importantly, I can right-click an image and select Copy Image Location to copy+paste the URL in [IMG]...[/IMG] tags.

By default this is of the form

[PLAIN][IMG]http: //www.mathhelpboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=878&d=1370699914&thumb=1&stc=1[/IMG][/PLAIN]

which is still unreadable.
Changing it to

[PLAIN][IMG]http: //www.mathhelpboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=878&d=1370699914&stc=1[/IMG][/PLAIN]

turns it into a full size picture.
But... using this method shows the picture twice: once as the full sized picture and once as an attachment with an unreadable thumbnail.

I think my mistake was that I had removed it from the attachments sub window.
Since it still showed up in the uploaded picture sub window, I though it would still be there.
This neatly got rid of the attached thumbnail and still showed up correctly... but it apparently also deleted the attachment from MHB.
It likely only still showed because it was still in my browser cache.

EDIT: I just noticed that the Manage Attachments windows shows "Uploads not utilized within one hour will be deleted".


Method 3: Googling vBulletin
I just googled for it and found this link to resize pictures on vBulletin:
Resize Images with BB Code Tags - vBulletin.org Forum
But it doesn't currently work here.


In other words, I cannot find a way to do it neatly.
I would prefer to upload, because then there is no chance that the picture is taken off-line from an external server.

 

[Klaas van Aarsen]

Perhaps it's possible to have [ATTACH]879[/ATTACH] always show full size, instead of scaling down?
(Note that with this method, the attachment does not show a 2nd time.)

I never want my pictures to be scaled down.
And if a picture is too big, I don't think we want it to be uploaded.

 

[Opalg]

Can someone explain the method that he or she uses to attach a file that causes problems?

Here's an experiment. I'll try to add an attachment right here.



What I did was to click on the following buttons:
Manage Attachments > Add Files > Select Files > [choose file ellipse.png] >Basic Uploader > Upload > Insert Inline (1)

The result was what you see here. In preview, the image appears in the right place, but only at thumbnail size (it should be 500x431pixels).

 

[Jameson]

I've disabled thumbnails for images right now and Opalg's picture now displays at full size. I think this could work but we (the admins) need to make sure the max sizes are carefully set so we don't have problems with images being too large and going over the post border. I imagine this might already have happened in many threads.

 

[Opalg]

I've disabled thumbnails for images right now and Opalg's picture now displays at full size. I think this could work but we (the admins) need to make sure the max sizes are carefully set so we don't have problems with images being too large and going over the post border. I imagine this might already have happened in many threads.

Excellent! Of course, there needs to be a max pixel size as well as a limit on file size.

 

[Klaas van Aarsen]

I've disabled thumbnails for images right now and Opalg's picture now displays at full size. I think this could work but we (the admins) need to make sure the max sizes are carefully set so we don't have problems with images being too large and going over the post border. I imagine this might already have happened in many threads.

Thanks!
I'll keep an eye out for people posting images that are too big.

 

[MarkFL]

I've disabled thumbnails for images right now and Opalg's picture now displays at full size. I think this could work but we (the admins) need to make sure the max sizes are carefully set so we don't have problems with images being too large and going over the post border. I imagine this might already have happened in many threads.

I think this is a nice change, and I too will keep an eye out for images that are too large.

 

[MarkFL]

I did a search on those topic with attachments, and found 14 pages of such topics. I just went through the first 5 pages, and only found one image which went over the border, which I re-sized.

I am out of time now, but when I return this evening, I will finish.

One thing I notice in reviewing the attached images is that some folks (no names) could benefit from learning to crop their images before attaching them. Sometimes there is a lot of blank space being uploaded.

edit: I made it through the rest of the topics, and found no further images that needed to be re-sized, at least not for my OS/browser/monitor combination.