Troubleshooting Image Upload Issues and Speed

There are many factors that can affect the speed and performance of uploading to Fotomerchant. This guide will take you through the various steps you can take to diagnose issues with uploading as well as improving the overall experience of uploading to Fotomerchant.

 

Why are uploads slow?

This is a great question! But unfortunately the answer is complicated. There are many factors that can affect the speed of your uploads, including but not limited to:

• The quality and speed of your Internet Service Provider and your Internet Connection Speed
• The version of your Web Browser
• The speed on your Computer
• The size of your upload Batch

 

How to upload to Fotomerchant

There are three ways in which you can upload to Fotomerchant. Each method uses slightly different technology in how they work. Additionally, some are faster than others and so we recommend you try out each one of these approaches to see which best suites you.

Drag and Drop Uploader (Recommended Approach)
This method of uploading to Fotomerchant is covered in our Kick Start Guide tutorial video. The Drag and Drop uploader supports up to 5 concurrent images being uploaded to Fotomerchant. Uploading batches of 1-200 images at a time are recommended. This method is great for fast internet connections but suitable for all types of internet connections.

Popup Uploader
This method of uploading to Fotomerchant is covered in our Kick Start Guide tutorial video. The Popup uploader supports 1 file uploading at a time to Fotomerchant and is suitable for all internet connections. This approach also provides an easy to follow audit log of the upload batch job.

Fotomerchant Lightroom Exporter Plugin
If you use Lightroom to manage your image library, then the Fotomerchant Exporter Plugin is the perfect workflow companion. With this plugin, you can create galleries and easily upload to Fotomerchant without leaving your Lightroom workspace. Lightroom generally only uploads one image at a time but there is a simple hack to speed up your Lightroom uploading.

In addition to the way you upload to Fotomerchant, the number of image you upload to Fotomerchant at one time can have a large impact on your results.

Some computers and browsers handle uploads better than others. Trying uploading 10 images using the Drag and Drop method into a gallery. Then, if this goes well, trying 50 images in the next batch of uploads, and then 100 images. Gradually increasing the number of images uploading at one time is a good way to find the "sweet spot" for how many concurrent uploads your environment can handle.

 

Understanding the speed of your Internet Connection

A large portion of our clients are based in Australia where ADSL2 is the most common type of Internet Connection available. With ADSL2, the overall upload speed rarely exceeds 1 Mbit/s (Megabits Per Second). This means, that uploading 100MB of images can take 14 minutes on a good day. If you are performing other tasks on the same internet connection, or if your Internet Service Provider is experiencing a busy period, then upload times of 20-60 minutes for 100MB of images can be a reality.

To understand your internet connection speed, tools such as SpeedTest.net can help you measure the maximum speed your internet connection can reach. With this information, using a simple calculator such as this File Transfer Calculator will tell you the best-case scenario for how long you can expect an upload to Fotomerchant to take.

Additionally to this, Internet Service Providers have busy and quiet periods on their network. The speed you get on an overnight upload batch job may be completely different to the upload speed you get at 7PM in the evening when everyone is watching Netflix at the same time. Choosing a good time of the day to upload maybe give you a completely different experience.

 

Check and update your Web Browser

Web browsers are complex applications that are constantly changing. Some web browsers run better on certain computers than others so it is always worthwhile to see which web browser works best for you.

In addition to keeping your web browser up to date, it is also good to clear their cache once in a while to avoid issues with stagnant files either slowing your overall web experience or causing issues.

 

Make sure your computer is up to date

This is easy to overlook but taking the time to keep your computer up to date with operating system versions and software updates is good practice to ensure the smooth operation of your system.