FTP images don't resize proportionally, Admin uploaded pics do

[monkeytown]

I am having a problem with my images on my server. The proportional images weren't working properly on all images but it was on others. I finally tracked this down to images that were uploaded via FTP and others that were uploaded through the Admin.

I thought this was perhaps a permissions issue, but when I chmod the files to even 777 it doesn't remedy the problem. Anyone have any ideas on how to get around this?

I can't upload all the images individually because there are somewhere upwards of 35,000 images and anywhere around 2000 new ones every quarter. If there is no workaround, I will just have to deal with the hard coding.

[Website Rob]

In order to use the automatic image proportioning within Zen Cart, you must have your images listed within the database.

Two ways to do that:

1. manually upload every image using the appropriate part of the Admin section.
2. use the Easy Populate module to enter Product information & related images. It is available from the Downloads section of the Forum.

With Easy Populate you will still have to FTP your images but... Easy Populate uses a Spreadsheet to allow easy input of database information. Store Owners with large numbers of Products and/or Images save a lot of time using Easy Populate.

[monkeytown]

I used EP to populate the DB... Obviously something is wrong though. I will look into it there. I didn't know the images needed to be stored in the DB to work proportionally.

Thanks.

[monkeytown]

Do the images just appear in the products table or also somewhere else? All my products have images in the products table. I didn't see any other obvious place they would be.

EDIT: I should mention also that the images where proportional sizing works correctly are able to be resized with the arguments in the zen_image function in html_output. The FTP'd images cannot be resized using the arguments. They are sized based on the width and height in the admin settings. This is how I originally discovered the issue.

[Website Rob]

To clarify, the actual images themselves are not stored in the database, only the path(s). This does allow Zen Cart to use Server software though, to re-size the images same as if you'd uploaded them manually.

When first starting with EP I always recommend to start small, use 4 or 5 Products & Images. Many people get confused about the path to use for their images and starting small plus using the Error log your Hosting Control Panel should/does provide, one can sort out their errors and get things working.

[monkeytown]

Yeah, I guess I am confused by what you are saying. The image paths, yes, are stored in the DB, and all the images are online in the correct spot. It sounds like you are suggesting that perhaps the images are in the wrong folder or something and not showing up (or I am reading your post wrong).

The only problem is that any images that were uploaded via FTP ignore both the proportional resizing and they also cannot be resized manually with the zen_image function. They just work off of the hardcoded width and height in the admin, so if I put 100w and 0h and turn on calculate size and proportional resize it displays the image at 100w and 0h. Similarly if I am using the zen_image function, setting the width and height there is ignored as well. If I use zen_image_OLD then those width and height are used. Seems very odd to me.

I have written scripts to resize images (in other applications, not zen) and it is pretty straight forward so I am not sure why I am needing to upload the images through the admin to get it to work. It isn't like it is reading the size of the image at upload and storing the width/height in the DB to be used later (or is it?). It shouldn't matter as long as it can find/read the image which it can.

Is it perhaps a file ownership issue? This concept is fuzzy to me but I think if it is uploaded through PHP the owner is nobody but if I upload through FTP is it owned by the user that logs in to upload files and so they can't be read properly to resize? I'm reaching for solutions here but that is about the only thing that I can think of why FTP would ruin this function for me. I don't understand it enough to know if that even makes sense.

[Website Rob]

It sounds like you are suggesting that perhaps the images are in the wrong folder or something and not showing up (or I am reading your post wrong).

What I am suggesting is to verify what you've done. Many people make changes but don't verify their work, so they don't know if something was done incorrectly and sometimes when they do, they don't know how to correct it. If your images are showing where they should be then that is not the problem.

Speaking of which, maybe I'm not understanding your specific problem? Having used IH2 I know that I can use the features/functions within Zen Cart to resize images as desired. There is or should not be, any permission problem as both the Admin upload and FTP upload will correctly use account Owner permissions. If you are perhaps using a 3rd party script for image resizing then that would be another story.