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Folks:

I’m having issues uploading certain PDFs. I do not know if the PDFs are the problem or EE. The details:

Some PDFs can be uploaded but not others.
Upload directory has been set to 777.
Files are being uploaded with File Manager.
This problem affects regular users and super admins.
The file appears to upload completely and then the message “An Error Was Encountered. You are not authorized to access this page.” appears in the Upload dialog box.
XSS filtering is set to off.
PHP limits have been set to 256 in the htaccess file as outlined here.

Any insight on this would be appreciated.

Hi Stephen,

What is different about the PDFs that do upload fromt those that don’t?

You mentioned that you have changed the file upload limits to 256MB? That is a lot of memory for a PDF file. What size are these PDF files then?

Also is this a brand new install of 2.3.0 or did you have a site running on a lower version which used to upload these files and then didn’t after an upgrade?

Could you run the ExpressionEngine Server Wizard found on this page here just to ensure that your server is fine for usage by 2.3.0 too.

Thanks,

Mark

Mark:

I don’t know what the differences are. The PDFs are supplied by the client. All the PDFs are for the same magazine just different months so I don’t know what would be different.
The files themselves are not that large. I just upped it to a huge size to see if it makes a difference. I tried 128 as well with no luck. The PDFs are between 5 and 15 megabytes.
This is an upgrade from 2.2.2 to 2.3.0. We could never really upload files because of bug 16322.
The EE Server Wizard says that all is well. Every requirement is supported.

Hi Stephen,

The fact that some PDFs can be uploaded yet others can’t is a little weird. I would expect either all PDFs to not upload or for all of them to upload.

Is it always the same PDFs that won’t upload? For instance say 1.pdf uploads but 2.pdf doesn’t, if you try 2.pdf the next day does it still not upload or does it upload on a different day / time?

If so then you may need to look at the connection to the server as maybe it is getting dropped somewhere along the line causing the files to fail maybe?

Does that help at all?

Thanks,

Mark

This may be related to the size of the files. I deleted everything in the directory and uploaded each file through the File Manager. Results:

6 megs - successful
9 megs - failed
6.4 megs - successful
4.8 megs - successful
11.8 megs - failed
8.6 megs - failed
8.9 megs - failed
10 megs - failed
8.9 megs - failed
10.8 megs - failed

So is this something I can fix within EE? In the File Manager Upload Preferences the “Maximum File Size” field is blank which I imagine means any size can be uploaded.

Hi Stephen,

I believe that PHP has a default upload max size of 8MB so if you are leaving the Maximum File Size field blank then I believe that this is what you are experiencing here.

If you fill in the field with a higher value then do those files upload then?

You may also need to change your php.ini file or perhaps override certain variables using a .htaccess file if that doesn’t work though.

Does that help at all?

Thanks,

Mark

Definately sounds like you need to adjust the default upload max size on the server.

Hi Stephen,

Just checking to see if you’ve had a chance to check this out yet?

Thanks,

Mark

No luck. The .htaccess file did change the max size to 256. The local size remains 8, though. I’m working with the hosting company to figure this out.

They are asking if EE uses Flash or Java to upload files. Does it?

Hi Stephen,

As far as I know ExpressionEngine doesn’t use either of those to upload files no. As far as I’m aware it uses a standard upload form which is enhanced by some JavaScript but that is all.

Please let us know what your hosting company says about this. It might be that even though you are changing the numbers via .htaccess there may well still be a restriction in place somewhere if this is a shared hosting environment.

Thanks,

Mark

Several php.ini parameters can cause this misleading error:

file_uploads: set to ‘On’
max_input_time: number of seconds to upload file—set long enough
post_max_size: apparently needs to be big enough, similar to upload_max_filesize
upload_max_filesize: set big enough to accept the file size

Often the defaults are not correct, long enough, big enough for things like video, audio, pdf, and other large files. 

Especially deceptive is the ‘max_input_time’ since that appears to depend on the connection speed of the client too.

Porthos,

I know it’s been a while, but Porthos have you resolved the upload problem?

Sean

Sean:

This hasn’t been resolved yet. I am still working (slowly) with my host. I’ll be back with more information if I get any.

Thanks.

Thanks for the update Stephen

OK, this really seems to be on the EE side. Max uploads are set to 256 megs. Timeout is set to 10 minutes. Still getting the error with files over 8 megs. Tried zips and PDFs with the same issue.

I really need to get his sorted out for the client. Does anyone have any ideas?