Thread

Hello,

Image thumbnails are not being generated when we try to upload files via the file manager or via a file field in an entry.

The image gets uploaded successfully. It shows up on the front end correctly, but broken thumbnails litter the file manager and edit entry screen.

I confirmed that my file upload directory and _thumbs directory are 777. I confirmed that the files are not in the _thumbs directory. I also confirmed via Firebug that the paths are correct if the thumb had been generated.

I also confirmed that adding http://domain.com to the file upload directory’s url setting didn’t make a difference either.

We’re on 2.4.0. I don’t recall this problem before the upgrade.

Any thoughts?

Hi siffring,

I’m sorry that thumbnail images are no longer being generated properly. Let’s get this sorted out for you!

You mention that this was an update. What version of ExpressionEngine were you running previously?

If you create image manipulations for your upload destinations, are those created properly?

Can you verify that one of the supported image libraries is available by running the Server Wizard?

Cheers,

We’re also having this issue.

I can confirm that our server has the capability to generate thumbnails from the server wizard:
- Image Thumbnailing using GD, GD2, Imagemagick or NetPBM : yes

We do not have the following optional abilities:
- GIF Image Resizing Using GD (or GD 2) : no
- JPEG Image Resizing Using GD (or GD 2) : no
- PNG Image Resizing Using GD (or GD 2) : no

Other than that we’re having the same issues as original poster.
The directory path is correct, permissions are set to 777.
I can even verify that the _thumnail directory was created, but no files are in it.

We also get the same error message:

Thumbnail could not be created for the image. Please make sure the thumbnail directory is writable.

However, in our case files also do not appear to be uploading at all…

Hi adsmith,

I’m sorry you are having this trouble.

We do not have the following optional abilities:
- GIF Image Resizing Using GD (or GD 2) : no
- JPEG Image Resizing Using GD (or GD 2) : no
- PNG Image Resizing Using GD (or GD 2) : no

Without the ability to resize images, EE will not be able to create thumbnails for you. I would suggest talking to your host about getting image resizing turned on using GD2 if possible.

Let me know if that resolves the situation for you.

Sean

Hi Sean,

We’re hitting the same wall as The Adsmith on an install of EE.

BTW - The wizard reports the resizing to be “Optional” under the “Importance” column. Sounds like you’re saying its now required by the File Manager?

Anyway, we have it, its supported and interestingly enough, we have a version of EE 2.3.1 running in the same hosting account on this server, and it’s not having these issues at all, only our 2.4.0 site.

We can’t upload any images now with the file manager in 2.4.0 and its really going to hold up a pretty time sensitive project that must be completed during spring break.

We can create the _thumbs folder by hand and give it 777, and every folder before it all the way back to the public web root 777 and EE still can’t make a thumb. If we let EE create the folder, then it gets set up with “Apache” owning the file, so the file then becomes useless.

We’re on a pretty up-to-date Linux box, and like I said, EE 2.3.1 is humming along nicely (file uploads with images working great) with the same hosting account.

I think this is yet another bug in EE 2.4.0

I saw a note about a workaround for sites hosted in Windows, but nothing for Linux.

Please point me to a patch for this somewhere, thanks.

Hi Kurt,

I am sorry to hear you are running into this problem.

When you say the same hosting account, is this on the same server? So the 2.3 instance and the 2.4 instance are installed on the same server?

Just to make sure the Server Wizard was run on this server and all is well? You have the GD or GD2 libraries installed?

Assuming the above is true, please describe for what does happen when you try and upload an image? You said that “We can’t upload any images now with the file manager in 2.4.0”, but what does happen? Any error messages? Or does it fail silently?

Can you enable *debugging? That might give us some insight here as well. If that provides nothing it would not hurt to see what is going on according to Apache. Checking Access and Error logs might help.

Sorry about all the homework here, but I am not seeing any of the obvious red flags that we usually see with a failure to upload or create thumbs.

*To turn debugging on please go to your Control Panel and navigate to Admin->System Administration-> Output and Debugging. Please set the last two settings, which are “Display Output Profiler?” and “Display Template Debugging?”, to yes.

Please let me know what you find Kurt.

Thank you,

Hi Shane,

After further testing, neither install’s of EE in this one hosting account totally.

We are getting some thumbs for images that started out with a file size at or below 15k. Basically, icons can be made into thumbs, but nothing else.

The server wizard shows “Yes” all the way down the list. Everything is there.

File permissions can be set to 777 from the public_html all the way to the _thumbs folder and still nothing.

The error we get is “Thumbnail could not be created for the image. Please make sure the thumbnail directory is writable.”

If we’re trying to sync files, then will get one error for each of the files.

What should I be looking for in the debugging?

Apache logs aren’t showing any errors.

We have this same version of EE (2.4.0) doing all these activities just fine on three different hosts, just being buggy on this one host and we’re at a loss as to why.

EE can create the _thumbs folders, and can make thumbs of tiny icons, but nothing else.

Please send clues. Thanks.

If it helps, I was facing the same problem with some of my sites on a VPS. It just working well, and suddenly just refused to allow any uploads, with the same error message of Thumbnails not being able to generate. After a week of investigating with the hosting company,  we ran the server wizard again and found out that they did some php upgrades, but was incomplete. So technically we had GD2, but GD2 resizing of JPG, GIF and PNG was disabled. They ran the php upgrade and all was well again.

Hey Kurt,

Xiao makes a great point. If this is working on other hosts and those are setup the same, the we should be looking at what might have changed on the server. Can ask the hosting provider if they made any changes recently.

You mentioned that the file size matters, it would not hurt to check these settings, although I would think that an issue here would have shown up in the logs.

[b]memory_limit[/b]
This sets the maximum amount of memory in bytes that a script is allowed to allocate.
Default size 5.3 in is "8M"

[b]post_max_size[/b] (must be greater than upload_max_filesize)
Sets max size of post data allowed. This setting also affects file upload.
Default size in 5.3 is "128M"

[b]upload_max_filesize[/b]
The maximum size of an uploaded file.

[b]max_execution_time [/b]
This sets the maximum time in seconds a script is allowed to run before it is terminated by the parser.
Default setting in 5.3 is "30"

Please let me know what you find.

Cheers,

The host for these sites brought in some additional support who found the issue:

The path to the ImageMagick binaries was set to /usr/local/bin instead of /usr/bin. Changing this value solved the issue.

Hope this helps someone else know what to have their host look into.

Hi Kurt,

Doh!!! Go figure!

Thanks for letting us know, I am sure this is going to help someone out.

Cheers,