Recap of the Past Week
We're happy to announce that we've found and fixed the problems that people have experienced with creating and editing posts. We've also figured out the reason photos were being deleted. Sorry again to everyone for such a troublesome week. Here's a recap of what happened...
In General
When we released the new version of Photoblog, not only was the design different, but we completely rewrote the software behind the service to make it more efficient and clean. If something used to be 100 lines, we found ways to do the same thing in 10. However, doing this major rewrite of the software created a few bugs that took a long time to find.
Create Entry
Create entry did not work for Safari users after launching the new version. This was because Safari treats certain aspects of uploading files differently than Internet Explorer and Firefox. We did our tests on IE and Firefox machines, and did not realize that Safari users were having problems until launching. Sorry Safari users!
Editing Entries
Some users were experiencing various issues when editing entries and uploading additional photographs. We tested for hours without any success at reproducing the problems users were seeing. After looking through our software, we found out that the problem was only affecting users who were trying to manage more than 10 photographs in an entry. In our hours of testing, we had only uploaded up to 10. By sheer coincidence we did not discover this issue until now. Now photos should be fine no matter what you do, even up to the current limit of 20.
Mass Deletions
Since our launch, we had to use our backups after all the photos on our server mysteriously disappeared. After the first time, we installed some checks in the software, and thought the problem was solved. When it happened a second time, we studied every line of code until we found the cause. In our method of deleting photographs, we were using a loop and a wildcard to delete all three sizes of each photo. In very rare cases, when a nonexisting photo was submitted, the loop ran through the photos and deleted them all. This has now been fixed. We can't believe we overlooked such a thing.
I hope this gives everyone a little more information regarding what was going on. If you have any additional questions or issues, please email support@photoblog.com. We look forward to smoother days ahead.
Thanks again for all your support through these tough times!
Comments
"After looking through our software, we found out that the problem was only affecting users who were trying to manage more than 10 photographs in an entry."
Michael---I had the problem even if I was reloading only one or two photos on an entry. Fingers crossed for the repairs! :-)
well done guys, this is great news. Much appreciated
Thanks for fixing the problems, I am in love with this site. The only thing I would change would be a place to compile all the comments so we can see if someone comments on a past entry without going through every one to check. Thanks for providing such a great service!
Natalie,
thanks for the suggestion. We're working on this right now actually. We hope to have it ready for all of you soon.
Happy to see things are working. Keep up the good work guys.
Congrats, and thanks again for all the hard work on this, it is truly appreciated.