Expert advice re image resize/uploads

vaaaska

A couple years ago I wrote a nice script for uploading and resizing images to a server. Since then, I've used this script on probably 10 different hosts without any problems.

Recently, I moved to a new host and the script has become unstable. I can upload the same 4 images over and over and probably 40% of the time they simply won't work (no images and the thumbnails are black).

I'm really stumped.

In lieu of posting the script for now, has anybody ever experienced something like this? Do I need to deal with the amount of memory that the images take up when they are uploading (but they are only about 200k)?

The script itself is nothing special...it could probably be improved...but I'm somewhat confident the issue is the server. ;(

altexis

One explanation is an old GD library (?)

MarkR

What error messages do you get? I assume error_reporting(E_ALL) is enabled and you have error logging to a file. What error messages do you see when it fails?

Is there a pattern in the ones which fail?

Have you looked at phpinfo() to ensure that the version of everything meets your requirements (i.e. is the same version on your dev server) ?

Mark

vaaaska

Sure...where it seems to fail is at copy().

Is there an advantage to using move_uploaded_file over copy?

I put in a few more checks so that if an image isn't happening it will leave it out of the mix (instead of returning blank things to us), but it bothers me that I have to upload multiple times just to get a file to work.

Jason_Batten

Did you ever solve this issue mate, I just started to get it screams

altexis

vaaaska wrote:
Is there an advantage to using move_uploaded_file over copy?

There is a way hackers can use hand made HTTP POST messages to manipulate files. As far as I know move_uploaded_file() checks the filename to see it looks like a valid uploaded file, not another regular file on the server.

As MarkR said.. use phpinfo() to see the status of the server. There may be many things that can go wrong. Perhaps you have an old GD library, or there is a security issue.. perhaps open_basedir in the Apache conf files does not give you access to the temporary folder. Or perhaps the server is extremely busy? Open a terminal and check the load averages from uptime or the memory status from top.

Whatever you do, do follow the MarkR's recommendation to ensure that the error reporting level is E_ALL.