[BUG] Forum avatar can now only be 160 x 160px [SOLVED]

[WillLem]

Ex post facto rules are generally frowned upon

Yeah, that was meant as a joke to make a point. Hence why I deleted it.

FWIW, I saved all the avatars in this thread, and the largest was Simon's at 23 kB, so it really would not be so unreasonable.

You saved the compressed versions. The originals are likely to be bigger.

Anyway, I went to upload my Xmas-themed avatar to get into the festive spirit, and have ended up having a days-long discussion about it instead. Great.

[Mindless]

You saved the compressed versions. The originals are likely to be bigger.

That's the whole point!  The originals are *likely* bigger, but nobody can see them.  Everybody only sees the resized versions, so that's all that matters.  There's nothing magic about the resizing that happens on the server or in the browser.  If you resize the image yourself, you at least get to control the resizing algorithm.

Anyway, I went to upload my Xmas-themed avatar to get into the festive spirit, and have ended up having a days-long discussion about it instead. Great.

That was your choice.  Another choice would have been to just resize the image to a reasonable size using one of the more-than-adequate resizing algorithms in Paint.NET, upload it, and be done with it.

[WillLem]

That's the whole point!  The originals are *likely* bigger, but nobody can see them.  Everybody only sees the resized versions, so that's all that matters.

I understand that side of the argument. My point is that I can't upload the image because of some limit (likely filesize, I imagine it's probably 20-30KB). Even if we don't change the limit, people still need to know what it is if only to avoid the trial and error process of failed uploads.

Rather than wasting Forum time/space asking what the limit is and waiting for a reply, I thought I'd instead suggest that we increase it to a limit that I know would allow my picture to be uploaded. As a bonus, others might benefit from the increase as well (e.g. Simon when he uploads his own Christmas avatar).

Anyway, I've managed to get the image down to 36KB and it still won't upload. If 480KB seems too excessive, could we maybe increase the limit to 100KB?

[Mindless]

Anyway, I've managed to get the image down to 36KB and it still won't upload.

I just uploaded a 36 KB avatar and had no problem.  There is probably something wrong with your file.

[Silken Healer]

I don't know if there's a special way to make a certain avatar size have a certain file size, or if you just found that ghost lick one randomly online, but I found a 657 KB one to test it by going to an open commons licence website and filtering by gifs until I randomly found one < than 480 x 480 but bigger than the file sizes we've been talking about and it still worked.

[WillLem]

I'll try uploading via a different browser.

EDIT: Yep, FireFox to the rescue

[Silken Healer]

EDIT: Yep, FireFox to the rescue

What browser were you using previously? I personally don't like Firefox because they are paid by Google to make their search engine the deafult.

[WillLem]

What browser were you using previously?

I use Chrome, but I find that whenever Chrome has some sort of fart, FireFox usually sorts it out.

EDIT: In hindsight, I should definitely have tried to upload the avatar via FireFox before starting this topic. Or, at least after namida increased the allowed size to 480 x 480.

[Silken Healer]

Yeah, Firefox is infintely better than Chrome even if it is not perfect 

[WillLem]

Although this is "resolved" in the sense that I've finally been able to upload my avatar (and have seemingly found a workaround that should work for others as well), I'd be genuinely interested to know why the avatar wouldn't upload in Chrome.

[Silken Healer]

Although this is "resolved" in the sense that I've finally been able to upload my avatar

Also, I don't want to feel like I'm causing a fuss over nothing, but 480x480 is still quite small. I don't know why it had to change at all. It just seems like an unnessercary change. It's just extra user inconvenience to make them downsize it when it worked fine before the upgrade though. I can't imagine avatar images are draining the bandwith for Lemmings Forums or anything. Also, this may just be me, but I like to open up images on websites that have been resized by clicking "open image in new tab" to look at the image in it's full glory. Again, I respect Namida invented the site so it's up to him, and I get that this is low priority and people are busy with a lot more important things in life. This is just my opinion.

I agree with what Mindless said about making it based on file size, but maybe a bit higher than his suggestion of 20KB. The file size is actually what you want to limit probably, and then people can upload bigger avatars. Everyone's a winner.

[WillLem]

480x480 is still quite small. I don't know why it had to change at all. It just seems like an unnessercary change. It's just extra user inconvenience to make them downsize it when it worked fine before the upgrade though.

Agreed. It was likely a default change when moving over to the new SMF rather than something that was decided.