Running in Circles

[Jens LambertParticipant]

I tried to install Symbiostock on my WordPress website, that seemed successful other than the imagick engine.  Uploaded a number of file via FTP to the shown folder under “Upload Media via FTP” then I went to settings last night and clicked “Symbiostock Processor (cron job) (Run now)”,so far out about 8 files it has moved 2 to media and neither of those has a preview.  Am seriously frustrated and have spent far too much time on this.

[RobinKeymaster]

http://www.symbiostock.org/docs/setting-up-the-schedulerimage-processor/

The processor does not run indefinitely once you run it manually – you must add it as a scheduled task in your system. This is a limitation of WordPress. The documentation is available and linked to on the bottom of every Symbiostock admin page.

Next, if your previews are not showing up, it is related to your server in some manner or another. If you are not running Imagick, then you are using GD. GD uses about 10x the memory of Imagick and also does not process non-JPEG images as readily.

All that being said, this is a free system that works when you are willing to put the effort towards it. Every server is different and on occasion you are going to run into trouble during install due to these differences. You are welcome to submit a support request if you fail to rectify the issue yourself.

[Jens LambertParticipant]

I am only processing jpg’s.  I have contacted my hosting service to see if it is possible to enable Imagick, so at this time I am using GD, space is not an issue, I have access to 1TB.  I can see the files I uploaded in the “New” folder, those that are in the “SS Media” folder show up when I look at Media in the Symbio menu on wordpress, but none of them show a thumbnail, even when I click on them.  I have not figured out what line to put where, so just have clicked on “Run” manually for now.  I understand this is free, but even after reading the documentation it is frustrating…I  actuallyhave a reasonable understanding of coding, but am more of a photographer.

 

[RobinKeymaster]

If the thumbnails are not being generated, it is very likely that the processor is running out of memory (not drive space). When you run the processor, does it finish and give you a box that says ‘Memory at End’?

If not, then a problem is occurring that is preventing the script from finishing, which is likely memory.

Edit the tools-cron file and change this line:

//$GLOBALS[“ss_runall”] = 1;

to

$GLOBALS[“ss_runall”] = 1;

It is line 22. Then run the processor. It will spit out errors if it can. If you get an error, let me know.

[Jens LambertParticipant]

First box says:Blog:1

Second Box:Memory at start 33M

Third Box says: Indexing Tags

That’s it

[Jens LambertParticipant]

Is file size going to affect whether this works or not?

[RobinKeymaster]

Well, again, that depends on your memory.

The processor first indexes tags, then it parses images. So it is obviously crashing on the image processing part, and the script is not completing. I’ve seen this in a few circumstances, and every time it was insufficient memory on the server because GD uses like 10 times the memory Imagick does.

So, in the end, unless your host is able to install Imagick, you may experience sporadic results.

However image size does play a part.

Try uploading a small JPEG and see if the preview shows up. If it does, it is 100% a memory issue.

[Jens LambertParticipant]

This time when I ran the cron,

Blog:1

Memory at start:33m

indexing tags

3 new/updated images/videos parsed

0 integrity fixes

0 thumbnails generated

memory at end 34M

Memory peak 126M

[Jens LambertParticipant]

and I got three thumnails…go figure

 

[Jens LambertParticipant]

and I got three thumbnails…go figure

 

[RobinKeymaster]

Memory peak 126M

Case in point – likely when you upload a large image, or a more complex one, it passes the memory limit and the script stops running. So the only options are:

1) Get your host to install Imagick

2) Get your host to somehow allow your scripts to run with more memory

3) Switch hosts

And this has nothing to do with Symbiostock, per-say. Any web-based solution that uses PHP to manipulate graphics will encounter the same issue.

[Jens LambertParticipant]

So I contacted my service provider and this is the reponse I got, it includes some code:

<span style=”font-family: myriad-pro, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; background-color: #d8e9f4;”>We have ImageMagick binaries. But it is not complied to PHP so IMAGICK won’t work. So, you will not be able to use IMAGICK as PHP built-in class. </span><br style=”font-family: myriad-pro, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; background-color: #d8e9f4;” /><span style=”font-family: myriad-pro, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; background-color: #d8e9f4;”>You have to use the alternative ‘convert’ utility: </span>

[Jens LambertParticipant]

So I contacted my service provider, and this is the response I got: (it includes some code)

We have ImageMagick binaries. But it is not complied to PHP so IMAGICK won’t work. So, you will not be able to use IMAGICK as PHP built-in class.  You have to use the alternative ‘convert’ utility:

$location=’/usr/local/bin/convert’;

$command=’-thumbnail 150′;

$name=’Sunset.’;

$extfrm=’jpg’;

$extto=’png’;

$output=”{$name}{$extto}”;

$convert=$location . ‘ ‘ .$command . ‘ ‘ . $name . $extfrm . ‘ ‘ . $name . $extto;

exec ($convert);

print “img src=”.$output.”.”;

Sorry about the mess in the last post.

[RobinKeymaster]

Yep, unfortunately Symbiostock does not yet work with Imagick binaries. What this means is they have ImageMagick installed on your server, but do not have PHP Imagick installed. In order to have it work with such binaries all of the Imagick commands would have to be converted into the command line equivalents which is something we don’t have the time or resources to implement at the current time.

[Author]

Posts