ImageCheck slogging...what can I do?

[msoo]

I check the stats page. It points out that ImageCheck is faulty and takes a long time to respond. What is ImageCheck and how do I tell my web hosting company about this problem?

Thanks,
Michael Soo

[msoo]

Pekka, any idea?

- MS

[Pekka]

It may be a server firewall setup problem, or older PHP (this function has bugs in most old PHP versions). It is not essential to EE, it's a way to fetch image size which is needed by some features in EE.

[wkitty42]

It may be a server firewall setup problem, or older PHP (this function has bugs in most old PHP versions). It is not essential to EE, it's a way to fetch image size which is needed by some features in EE.

FWIW: this operation is pretty slow in my stats, too... i have a pretty new PHP version (latest bugfix IIRC) and there's no firewall running between my web server and my mysql server... however, my webserver is a Pentium II 266mhz and my mysql server is a Pentium 200mhz no-MMX... they are connected by a dedicated cable on 10mb cards... it is possible that the speed of the server (which one?) is part of the problem, right?

[msoo]

It may be a server firewall setup problem, or older PHP (this function has bugs in most old PHP versions). It is not essential to EE, it's a way to fetch image size which is needed by some features in EE.

I talked to the tech support people at my web hosting company LunarPages and they have NO IDEA what ImageCheck is. How do I explain this?

- MS

[Pekka]

The problem is Getimagesize() function in PHP.

[msoo]

Hi Pekka,

It doesn't seem like the problem with the getimagesize(). I tested it with the following code:

<code>
<?
function getmicrotime()
{
list($usec, $sec) = explode(" ", microtime());
return ((float)$usec + (float)$sec);
}

$time_start = getmicrotime();

for ($i=0; $i < 3; $i++) {
$test = getimagesize('test.jpg');
}

$time_end = getmicrotime();
$time = $time_end - $time_start;

echo "Did $i tests in $time seconds";

?>
</code>

and it returned the results in 0.000xx seconds. Look at my stats page...it's horrendous.

http://www.soocool.com/pub/slow/

Argh...Help!!!

- MS

[Pekka]

If the image is checked through URL the case might be very different especially if the image is not on home server. Try getting size on any image on my gallery - it should be quite fast.

If you have problems with image size checking the turn it off by all means, in misc settings editor: global settings / When image file is not found to "1".

[rogerattrill]

Well I was having similar problems - pictures were just not being displayed in my ee gallery ( www.eye-shot.co.uk (http://www.eye-shot.co.uk) ) - I did all the suggestions - well it did at least allow to see the images but it was still taking an absolute AGE.

Eventually whilst looking at the Server Info - I noticed that the uncookied data saved to disc was a massive 358 Mb - I don't think I even have 358 Mb available on my server!

Well, I hit the 'Purge uncookied data' option to remove all uncookied data - Lo and behold everything sped up to almost instantaneous speed again.

Not only that, but I was also using the same MySQL server (different database obviously) for a coffee retail business online ( http://www.coffeo.co.uk (http://www.coffeo.co.uk/) ) and this site has also now sped up dramatically - both in terms of customer use and admin. The slowness could well have cost me lost sales and may explain missing information due to timeouts during checkout.

AAAAAARRRRGGGHH - how long have I have put up with slow databases on my site because I just thought MySQL was slow. Little did I know that there was 358Mb of data lying around slowing everything up!! I still don't understand WHY this had so much impact on everything so if anyone can explain things to me a bit more I'd appreciate it.

Everything's sweet now though - I just wanted to share this information with anyone else who visits this thread wondering [the following should help google pick up this thread if anyone is searching for a resolution to this problem] why Exhibit Engine is slogging, chugging, blocking, failing, taking too long, being very slow, not showing images or doesn't allow viewers to see the photos due to timing out. [that should do it!]

Regards
Roger Attrill

www.Eye-Shot.co.uk
www.Coffeo.co.uk
www.Where4ArtThou.co.uk