XF 2.1 alright, animated avatars stage 2

[Rick Kraut]

I've noticed quite a few tickets or what have you for animated avatars, because I personally tried to get it working.
Let me try to get a few things on the table before we get to fixing.

PHP built-in GD image library; apon uploading a gif, website couldn't care less, zero problems, just not animated with this setting.

Imagemagick PECL extension; mass panic apon uploading a gif, but if you pulled back the curtain, and rolled your dice just right, you now are one of the few people who somehow have a gif avatar, despite it being seemingly impossible.

I can't really, uh screenshot, a gif, and show it working, so uh, lets go with it works as I says it does.
but, you might ask, what kinda error does this fine fella get when he uploads a gif, ill tell ya what. a boilerplate error that doesn't even properly tell you that the server is temporarily busy, try again later.

Spoiler: respective screenshots demonstrating failure to upload

BUT, you might ask, what does the the ACP error log tell ya; jack.
then, you might be thinking, what does your host's logs say; jack. (not even a file in our logs folder)

then, after this line of thought, you might think to ask me about the version of my Imagemagick PECL extension;

and as far as I am concerned, that's as fresh as I know it to be.
and honestly;
I have no clue what you might ask, all I know is, this problem is honestly too convoluted and the solutions all seem to be for drastically different things.

my best possible guess is either php is dumb, or Imagemagick itself is being dumb here.

(please do note, that while I did manage to make this post, I am quite nearly illiterate with most of the more complex duties assigned to backend management and usually need to look up stuff, so be patient, and clear, and expect me to somehow not get it.)
- which is probably why I'm completely oblivious to what all that word cram about an AjaxError, doubt that even with my lack of experience here, that its genuinely what's the problem, but who knows, I can't summon wizards yet


P.S. apologies with the informality, and if it comes off as it, immaturity, with this situation, it't not the bottom of my list, but it't not really at the top, someone else reminded me that it was on my list though.

 

[Paul B]

How large is the animated gif you are trying to upload?

It's quite an intensive operation resizing every frame of a gif so try with a smaller one to start, like the one I have attached to this post.

If you still get a 503 error then your sysadmin host is going to have to start looking into it.

 

[Rick Kraut]

from as small as 546kb (30 frames), to as large as 6,628kb have been tested before this.
your cat gif seems to work just fine though.

I would also like to preface that I know our host is quite capable of aggressively large gif's, as I've had some complicated ones work prior to switching to xenforo

 

[Masetrix]

As long as the server provides the necessary resources, larger .gifs are no problem - in any case not for XF.

 

[Paul B]

If smaller gifs work then it definitely points to something on the server such as available resources, set up, tuning, etc.

For reference, I just managed to use that on a demo, but anything over about 200kb file fails with a 30 second time out error.

 

[Rick Kraut]

That does seem consistent with what I am experiencing, which is a shame. Although I went a head and tested that thumbs up gif and it struggles with that as well.

 

[Masetrix]

If you run your own server this helps:

PHP File Upload Configuration

Otherwise you have to ask your hoster to adjust the limits to your needs.

 

[Rick Kraut]

ok, i got a weird one, several hours later, I can say that the thumbs up animation is now set, so I guess it did upload, just that it got to it really slowly? I passed out at some point so, not entirely sure when it happened, just know its up now
was wrong on that, see image

as for php file upload configuration;
mem limit is 256M
The upload max is 128M
max post is 128M
max execution time is 120 seconds
max input time is 120 seconds

(which mind you is far larger than the file sizes are for these gifs)

 

[Rick Kraut]

I have a genuine distaste for this issue now, I uploaded the ostsee.gif as my avatar, to make sure it works, that was the last thing I did (it worked)
but, uh it got overwritten, no idea why, no one changed it for me

(this is forums wide now, not like the above post)
My best guess is that what ever manages avatar uploads got overwhelmed from one of the other times I tried uploading this gif, and buried the upload later into the queue to handle later, and it got to it about now. (notably not an intended 'feature')
I'll see if this is repeatable in any way, but I doubt that it will be apparent right a way, just like what happened here.

EDIT: in the avatar editor, it display's as ostsee.gif, no idea.

 

[Paul B]

and buried the upload later into the queue to handle later

Avatar uploads are not queued - they are processed at the time, or aborted completely.