Linux-Is-Best

25 minutes ago, Matt said:

I'm not convinced that Linux is best, but I do appreciate your warm and polite manner. 🙂

I'll take a look, it might be a caching issue, or a permission issue.

16 minutes ago, Morrigan said:

No worries dear. Bugs are just best reported direct to the source. It gives the team the ability to investigate directly and quickly. Unfortunately they can’t always scour the forums to verify bugs reported here.

Thank you both for your kind words and eagerness to help. It is much appreciated. 🙂

8 hours ago, Morrigan said:

Bugs should always be reported via ticket in the Client Area:

https://www.invisioncommunity.com/clientarea/

I apologize if my post was not following proper etiquette. I was unaware that was the policy regarding bug reports here on the support site. It just seems more intuitive to post it openly as a means to see if anyone else had encountered the issue or not (a better way to confirm the bug or not).

I will promptly submit a ticket with support. Thank you kindly for pointing out my error. I have marked your post as the current solution to my problem, and thank you for your time and consideration. 🙂

At the moment it would seem to be problematic to like a blog post.

1 hour ago, bfarber said:

Uploads have been redesigned for 4.6 to address this quirk which can happen with longer filenames.

I am looking forward to the soon (?) release of 4.6.

6 hours ago, Interferon said:

Americans always think everything is a big joke and then when obvious consequences catch up to them they act offended when no one feels sorry for them.

That is not an American issue. It is a human issue. Stupidity and lack of foresight are regrettably not exclusive to any one nation or corner of the world. You can find it everywhere and throughout all human history.  I imagine great things await humanity if and when that is not the case, but until that moment, I do sympathize.

I will be candid with you and straightforward.

YES, anything you add to your website, embed on your website, or enable onto your website can and will further allow tracking and data collection.  Even your users, hotlinking a harmless photo, can trigger further monitoring and data collection.

Yes, 3rd parties will collect your information and all your users too.  Suppose you are using Google login and Google Analytics (for example). In that case, Google will include several tracking cookies well beyond your website's interactions.  Facebook login will add their own cookies to track your users for a month or more. Long after they sign off your site and logout off Facebook, assuming they do not clear their browser history. Do you plan to have advertisements on your website? More tracking there too.

And I am only covering the cookies aspect on a desktop or laptop.  Within a month's time (if not less), your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, where you shop, what you like to browse, and much, much more are now out there.  Suppose your user is using a mobile device such as a cellular phone or tablet. In that case, they're even deep into the spider's web (metaphorically speaking).

But I digress.  

YES, anything you add to your website, embed on your website, or enable onto your website can and will further allow tracking and data collection.  Even your users, hotlinking a harmless photo, can tricker further monitoring and data collection.

Invision has provided an excellent example within their own privacy policy of how to word such a document.  https://invisioncommunity.com/legal/privacy/

Edit:  I see you have updated your post. Originally you had worded this as more of a question.

I think you did an excellent job wording this.

1 minute ago, Makoto said:

Anything that requires doing registry edits means it's not something that's accessible to the common user is my point.

Until it just works out of the box, without needing you to manually enable anything, it's still a problem, and why you should work to avoid having users download files in WebP format to begin with.

This is not at all an argument against supporting WebP as an uploadable image format, just an observation.

Fair point. Although I cannot test it since I no longer use Windows, I imagine Microsoft Edge could open a WebP without a reg edit. But I digress. Your point is valid.

20 minutes ago, Makoto said:

FWIW if your users download images as WebP, they probably can't open/view them on their desktop either. Windows, at the very least, does not recognize WebP as an image format.

The classic Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10 supports WebP. This means that you can open WebP photos with Windows Photo Viewer without installing any codec or plugin. Right-click on the WebP picture file, click Open with, and then select Windows Photo Viewer to open the WebP image with Windows Photo Viewer.  However, the catch is that Windows Photo Viewer has been turned off by default. You need to enable it.  Doing that is pretty easy.  Open Notepad and save this as PhotoViewer.reg (be sure not to save it as a text document). Right click the reg file and select, Merge.   Then find a WebP photo of your choice, right click, and open it with Windows Photo Viewer.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Change Extension's File Type
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.jpg]
@="PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Tiff"


; Change Extension's File Type
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.jpeg]
@="PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Tiff"


; Change Extension's File Type
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.gif]
@="PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Tiff"


; Change Extension's File Type
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.png]
@="PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Tiff"


; Change Extension's File Type
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.bmp]
@="PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Tiff"


; Change Extension's File Type
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.tiff]
@="PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Tiff"


; Change Extension's File Type
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.ico]

@="PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Tiff"

I should further add. Suppose you are using any cache services, such as CDN (content delivery network) or a proxy DNS (Cloudflare, for example). In that case, it may also be a good idea to purge these as well.  You will wish to clear them first before clearing your browser cache.

On 2/19/2021 at 4:36 PM, Ramil Valitov said:

The problem happens to different users as we see it in web analytics and also face it with our team. 

The error happens occasionally (not always) and inside forums. When unauthorized user tries to login this error appears. Currently we don't understand why this error happens sometimes, and sometimes does not.

I have a guess. If a user has the website opened in one of his inactive tabs, and then the user returns to this tab after some timeout like 30 min (or when browser has an option enabled to restore tabs on start), could it be that the session is considered to be expired, and instead of a meaningful error message, we receive 2S119/1 error?

Hello @Ramil Valitov

Assuming you have made any recent changes. It may be as simple as clearing your browser cache and cookies (clear your full browser history), which may resolve it. It is not common but doing a quick search within the community seems to suggest that on a rare occasion, conflicting changes between your site and your browser cache/cookies can sometimes cause this. The good news is there is a simple fix, and all you need to is clear your browser history. And if that works and you can confirm that it works with no-repeat issues, you can instruct your members to do the same. If that does not resolve your issue, I suggest you open a support ticket within the client area, allowing Invision staff to dig a little deeper. https://www.invisioncommunity.com/clientarea/

3 hours ago, Odiss said:

I have 1gb down and 42mbps up and it takes 5+ minutes to upload 20 images. Why is it taking so long? Is it the software or my host? The forum is hosted on a Hawk Host reseller account. Thanks in advance.

 

update: I just wanted to add that the image sizes are under 1mb

Hello @Odiss

Presuming you can confirm you are not experiencing any connection issues with your internet service provider (ISP), I would indeed assume this sounds like a hosting issue.  Hawk Host is primarily a shared hosting provider, and many shared hosting providers oversell their resources. They (shared hosts in general) can usually do this successfully because the resources they promise will likely never be used to their maximum potential by most people.  Using a "resell account" still means you are on the same principle. You only happen to have a few extra features that a standard shared account would not have, and it does not mean you have dedicated resources that a VPS (virtual private server) would provide.

5 hours ago, Jordan Invision said:

So in your example, your forum could theoretically implement Facebook as the only means to creating an account because they have the strictest onboarding process? Is that right? 

3 hours ago, Paul E. said:

More simply, for each login method:

• Enabled [ x ] Yes [   ] No
• Allow new registrations [   ] Yes [ x ] No
• Allow login [ x ] Yes [   ] No

Hello @Jordan Invision

I believe @Paul E. put is more simply, but, yes.  It would be idea of have chooses between each possible method. And given the choice, I would likely opt to disable the generic e-mail method. But someone else may wish to keep it enabled. It's really about having the choice on which method you feel will work best for your community.

22 minutes ago, Adlago said:

But it's weird anyway - every new version of a tool should be bug-free

2 hours ago, Jimi Wikman said:

As far as I know there are no mention of webp for WCAG or any W3 standard for that matter? I know of no ISO standard either that mention webp, so may I ask what web compliance you are referring to? User engagement I do not see how the format of an image would be involved based on the discussion so far?

2 hours ago, Joel R said:

To me, the problem is not in delivering webp images.  It's in posting webp images.  

My users re-post webp images from around the web.  It works when they post to Facebook, to twitter, to tumblr, to their blog, but then it doesn't work when they post to my site.

I believe the good gentlemen (or madam), Joel R, did a fine job addressing the general adaptation and common acceptance we see unfolding. True, there is no official certification and notarized documentation establishing this fairly transparent commonality of our reality. And you are, of course, wholly welcome to ignore the world around you and remain in your certified and quantified notarized 'bubble,' but I would advise against it, as a matter of opinion. 

Thank you once again for your time and consideration. 🙂

2 hours ago, Jimi Wikman said:

On your first point I would say that it is a bigger concern if you share images you do not own, especially in a community setting since there are numerous laws and suggested laws that want to make community owners responsible for the content. There are very simple ways around for your community however using the snippet tool for windows or the screen grab tool for mac.  I would say that encouraging copyright theft is a not valid point, but I see the case for why your community may be a bit lazy in sharing content they do not own 🙂

As for your second point you have way to many images on your site if your 20-30% size reduction from PNG bought you 4 seconds. Why did you choose png in the first place over say jpg or even vector files?

My start page have 15 large and NOT optimized images that makes up 60%+ of the page load at 1.6MB and my page load around 1.5seconds (with JS animations and other things slowing things down). Optimized I would probably be below 1 second using regular jpg files that would probably be around 500-700k in size. A reduction using webp would probably result in 0.1 second faster load time, which would barely be noticeable due to the structure of the dom rendering. If your target audience is low bandwidth users, then it might be a more important aspect with maybe 0.5 to 1 second faster loading time.

If you reduce loading times with 4 seconds, then the question is how slow the remaining time is because over 5 seconds your conversion rate drop exponentially and even at 3 seconds you will see big impact. I do not think a 30% reduction in images being loaded will have as much impact and I base that on 15 years of CRO experience in E-commerce where optimizing product images have far less impact than optimizing the experience and adhere to psychology such as gestalt laws and directional ques.

As a graphical designer I also do not see an increase in requests for webp images and as a technical project manager I don't even see many PIM systems that even have webp as a part of their roadmap.

Respectfully, I would ask that you not presume anything. Using public domain or freely-licensed images is perfectly kosher. I assure you every photo or illustration I use is entirely legal.  

Having said that, realistically, in a large community forum virtually impossible to verify the legality of every individual photo submitted by every person, and that is why safe harbor laws exist.  While we speak of 'safe-harbor,' there is a nice thread that gently touches the subject matter here https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/457695-protect-your-forum-with-dmca-safe-harbor/. I welcome you to participate if you feel you can contribute to the subject or perhaps think you have a better understanding of which everyone can benefit.

The static website I had previously mentioned (not my community) involves digital photography—a pastime of mine.  I would not say my website has too many photos per page, as I have an average of 2 or 3 per page (WordPress). However, I would reasonably argue that of higher quality in high definition images. I used PNG because when converting to JPEG (original RAW), I noticed some image degrading. So, for the time being, PNG became my preferred format when saving on a website. I later took the same images (RAW) and ported them to WEBP as I understood the compression (file size) could be improved. I had come to understand some web browsers rendered those images faster.  Of course, the result is my site did load (or render) the site quicker.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my experience.  And thank you for following up with your expressed opinion. It made for an interesting read. 🙂

2 hours ago, Jimi Wikman said:

May I ask what the business case is for using webp? How much time will it shave off your loading time and what benefit will it have on conversion?

I have seen many requests for webp in many systems and most are to get some adjustment to ratings in some system that measure loading times and best practices.

So, why do you want it, and why are your users asking for it?

I cannot presume to speak for everyone, but it has been my personal experience whenever seeking out photos to share; all the website's I pull from as a casual user are already using WEBP. That is to say, my members, when posting images, are already frustrated that all the cool photos they wish to share seem to be incompatible with the site. To put that into context, imagine visiting a forum that was incompatible with JPEG. At this point, general web compliance and practiced user engagement should be enough to justify adaptation, in my opinion.

From a technical standing point, I recently updated a static website, which was heavily image-related. One of the last modification was converting my PNG's to WEBP. I noticed a full 4-second speed difference as a notable improvement. 

16 hours ago, Jordan Invision said:

Interesting points! But what's stopping an anonymous troll / banned member from creating a new Twitter/Gmail account just to join? 😇  The skeptic in me fears that bots and spammers will find new ways to abuse the system regardless 🤦🏼‍♂️ 

As previously explained, I or anyone here can easily, and quickly I may add, generate a temporary e-mail and hop right back in within seconds. There is virtually no effort in doing so. I could easily create multiple accounts in under a minute if I were so inclined to do so without automation, just my keyboard, mouse, and a few open browser windows. It's that easy.  Which begs the question, why is it that easy? The answer is relatively straightforward; there is no filter. Nothing is stopping me in the least. It requires no effort or even thought, just intent.

But as previously explained, right now, making a new Facebook account, for example, is not so effortless.  I first need to confirm my e-mail address, confirm a phone number, and upload a clear photo.  Then assuming Facebook approves my new account, I could finally make my way to your site. In this instance, Facebook, not you or your forum, have done the heavy lifting. And should you ban my Facebook account from using your website, I would have to again make a new Facebook account. Which would require a completely different e-mail, a different verifiable phone number, and another clear photo.  Before replying to your post, I attempted to do just that. Let me tell you, it not as easy as that sounds.

I have always believed that if something can be abused, it ultimately will be abused, and if there is a will, there is always a way. Having said that, I hope you understand the belief that there is no perfect system for resolving any given problem.  But that is never an excuse to not attempt to strive for excellence and try to overcome.

As forums go, some would choose to see social media as the outlet working against us. I ask, why not have them work for us? They already have the filtration system, which has been battle-tested for decades. Why not use that to our advantage?  

At least, that is my hypothesis. I thank you kindly for your time and consideration. 🙂

I was humbly going to suggest that disabling the generic signup was potentially a bad idea. I was going to argue that further incorporating social media as the default requirement to join only further empowers people to use them.  But the more I thought about your concept, the more I could see a potential advantage.

First, it is not too far of a stretch to assume most people today already use Google, Twitter, Facebook, and alike. There is no helping it. Second, one of the biggest drawbacks to forums, especially small communities, is not having the human resources and infrastructure to root out many of the spammers and bots that social media does.  However, by disabling the general e-mail and requiring social media to join your community, you better ensure interested people join, as social media, at least in theory, have already rooted out the fifth.

Additionally, the more I think about your proposed concept, it could be a further deterrent when banning undesirables. Right now, if I ban someone, they can easily pick up a disposable e-mail and hop right back on. However, for example, for places such as Facebook, I need a verified e-mail, verified phone number, and upload a clear photo just to be validated. Banning a Facebook log-in can go along way in keeping more difficult people off your community when a simple e-mail is no longer an option.

Your proposal has caused me to think differently. I like it. 👍

Just for future reference. 

mysqldump --default-character-set=utf8mb4 -h [host] -u [username] -p [database_name] --set-gtid-purged=OFF --port=3306 --protocol=tcp --skip-triggers -r dump.sql

It turns out, using > is not always a safe way of exporting. Using -r dump.sql instead of > dump.sql does the trick.

Would that not better be served on the DNS level if you had a proxy DNS provider (Cloudflare, for example)? Or if you have no such interest, perhaps on the server level through rewrite rules? The more you rely on your forum to execute this, the heavier the load would be. Because while I do believe your solution would be useful in denying access, you would still be asking your site to inquire about each individual page load.

20 hours ago, Zdeněk Tůma said:

I have Cloud IPB, so I never paid any attention to this, so what you're writing about here unfortunately doesn't tell me anything.

Hello again, @Zdeněk Tůma

I regret to inform you that I and perhaps others here are not seeing the full picture. It could be a good indicator of why no one else has chimed in.   When I originally took it upon myself to provide you with some peer to peer assistance, you had written that your IP might have been blocked.

On 2/12/2021 at 5:34 PM, Zdeněk Tůma said:

support only said me the ip address with which requests are coming is not blocked...

I see you have edited your post to correct that, but the other half of your post continues how you used different IP addresses, which I presume you would not do unless you had good reason to suspect an issue with your initial IP address.

On 2/12/2021 at 5:34 PM, Zdeněk Tůma said:

So I tried some different IP addresses but always get same 403 error I tell this fact in support but few days without response...

You said you use Cloud IPB?  To answer the original inquire, 'what should you do?'  I advise you strongly to continue to work with support in resolving this issue.  And in the future, when asking your peers to help you, please be as forthcoming as possible.

15 minutes ago, Zdeněk Tůma said:

I'm sorry but I have no idea what you wanted to tell me. I do not block any ip addresses. And idk how to work with CDN in AdminCP.

18 hours ago, Zdeněk Tůma said:

support only said me the ip address with which requests are coming is not blocked

Your CDN (content delivery network), Amazon Cloudfront, should have a simple method to purge your stale (old) content. You may wish to double-check that you have not banned or otherwise blacklisted any IP addresses via your server. If you are using managed hosting, you may want to check with your hosting provider. If you are using a proxy DNS service, such as Cloudflare, you may wish to double-check this too (I know you have not stated that you do, but I figure I toss that one out there just in case).

Failing all this, I would suggest you hire a system administrator.

Hello @Zdeněk Tůma

I am sincerely sorry to hear you are experiencing issues.  I question if perhaps your CDN (Amazon Cloudfront) is still using the dated (older) cache files and if maybe a simple purge may help resolve this.  Additionally, if you are IP banning anything either through the software or server, you clear both (remove all IP bans) before flushing your CDN. 

1 hour ago, bfarber said:

We did not integrate Grammarly, however it does not work correctly with CKEditor 4 so we had to explicitly disable Grammarly in editor fields in a past release.

Thank you for clarifying the historical reference on the associations of Grammarly and Invision's software.

My conjecture of rambling nonsense into written enlightenment is a byproduct of Grammarly Premium integrated with the Mozilla Firefox web browser for our mutual benefit and enjoyment. While posting here within the Invision community, I have not noticed any technical blunders or otherwise undesirable effects that I have yet to become aware of. Though I must confess, I am astonished to learn that Invision had once incorporated Grammarly into their production.