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Forum Discussion
Website Photos view is slow
Howdy, viewing photo's on the Dropbox website is painfully slow. Is there a way to get better performance from the Dropbox website when viewing photos? When I use the profiler in Firefox I can see th...
Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHey @Thijxx, hope it’s OK to jump in. Since the number of photos is quite large, this may be the issue here.
However, when did this start? Is this something that started only recently or has the issue been going on for a while now?
It has been this way since I can remember. If you want I can take a look at how many photo's are cached but I guess not many because when I scroll down a bit, it needs to load for about 10 seconds 😂 and this makes it impossible to casually browse my photo's.
If I have 2 million photo's or 2000, loading the first 50 should always perform more or less the same, right?
- Walter
Hi @Charlie Windsor - thanks for the additional information and the screenshots too.
I just wanted to mention that the grey squares are called placeholder files which will sometimes show up while your files are still being processed in the back-end.
In case you have only recently added these photos to your account, please wait 24 hours to see if the problem is only transient.
If the problem persists, please check that this isn’t a browser problem, by using a different browser, loading the Dropbox website in an incognito window, and/or disabling any plugins or extensions you may have running on your browse.
In case the above didn't help, please make sure that you don’t have anything blocking your connection to the Dropbox servers such as an antivirus, firewall, security program, proxy or VPN.
You could alternatively try a different network as well.
Keep us posted, Charlie.
Could we please stay on topic?
No offenseCharlie Windsor but get your own room! 😄
No offence taken @Thijxx and yes you're correct ... I only mentioned the other issues as I think that they're possibly linked.
... anyhow back to the Photos 😉
@Walter...
In case you have only recently added these photos to your account, please wait 24 hours to see if the problem is only transient.
My photo collection is months/years old and it make no difference as old and new photos don't display quickly just the place holders are visible.
If the problem persists, please check that this isn’t a browser problem, by using a different browser, loading the Dropbox website in an incognito window, and/or disabling any plugins or extensions you may have running on your browse.
In an effort to help you to assist us I built a new PC with just the default Windows 11, Service Packs and Edge running incognito installed. It make no difference to the Photo's displaying slowly on your website.
In case the above didn't help, please make sure that you don’t have anything blocking your connection to the Dropbox servers such as an antivirus, firewall, security program, proxy or VPN.
I haven't any issues with my fibre network plus as noted above I built a separate new machine to test.You could alternatively try a different network as well.
@Thijxx has the same problem so this rules out any network issue at my end.... As already mentioned competitor products work fine .
- @Walter can you explain the difference between the way the iPhone IOS Dropbox app and the Dropbox website views/loads photos.
For me the IOS app works perfectly viewing online photos but the website is very poor - Why?
- @Walter can you explain the difference between the way the iPhone IOS Dropbox app and the Dropbox website views/loads photos.
- Megan
Hey there, @Charlie Windsor, let's jump right into this!
The first thing to keep in mind here is that we're talking about two different platforms, that are built and function differently.
Now onto the issue at hand here: in regards to the antivirus and firewalls, have you tried the steps on your end? I'm asking since it's a bit unclear.
If you made sure this isn't causing any problems, then I'd suggest we take this to ticket, to have a closer look.
Thanks!
Hi @Megan
Now onto the issue at hand here: in regards to the antivirus and firewalls, have you tried the steps on your end? I'm asking since it's a bit unclear.
Sorry about that ... I built a new standard Windows 11 PC with the Default Windows Security installed running the Browser Edge in Cognito mode. Nothing else was installed. Just to confirm I disabled the Firewall and Antivirus and this made no difference (screen shot below to prove/confirm)
When raising a ticket can you also include @Thijxx as they raised the issue and I joined in as a frustrated end user .... many thanks.- Hannah
Hey @Charlie Windsor, currently it's not possible to include another user in the email chain; is it okay if we reach out to you, on the address associated with your Dropbox Community profile?
@Hannah ... Yes that's fine, thanks ....
Can you set up a separate support ticket for @Thijxx instead of including them in on the same chain ?
If they can't do the above I will pass back to you any information gained via this thread ... 👍
- Megan
I just sent you an email, in order for us to have a closer look into this @Charlie Windsor!
I'll see you there!
@Thijxx ... The latest reply I have from support ....
Colin, Aug 26, 2024, 3:40 AM PDT:
Hi ,
Thank you for the updated information.
I can confirm that your issue is currently being investigated by our engineering team.
Please rest assured I’ll reach out to you as soon as I have updates.
If I can assist with anything else in the meantime, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Regards,
Colin
@Thijxx Its still on going .... Colin has asked for some more info which I have passed on ....
@Thijxx Still waiting, not sure if anything is going to happen in the short term ... I've included the ticket number below as reference for you to follow... I'm slowly migrating over to OneDrive, which is working perfectly for my needs hence my Dropbox account may close in October..... Hopefully this and numerous other issues will get resolved going forward.
ID #24144018Created 19/08/24, 04:22 pm
Thijxx Please see their final reply below .... not good .. Also added the update below to their Photo Group .... How do you organize your photos? - Dropbox Community (dropboxforum.com)
The engineers have informed me that a resolution for the indexing issue may come at a later date. However, they don't have an exact timeline to provide at this moment.
If you have any other questions, please let me know.
Regards,
MaddisonThank you for keeping me in the loop! Much appreciated!
I do not understand what this indexing is about, what is indexed, the meta-data? You can't index what you don't have so it can't be the actual photo data. But the meta-data is way too small to create any delay.may come at a later date means will not fix in project speak 😁 so I'll be looking for an alternative solution
Thijxx ... No problem
I’m not an expert on indexed or cached images, please correct me if needed . Ideally, our photos and thumbnails should be indexed and cached the first time they are viewed. This will improve performance when revisiting Dropbox, as the website wouldn’t need to re-index or re-cache most of our content, only the new or changed items.
The issue with Dropbox is that when we close our browser and reopen it later, it has to re-cache and re-index our entire photo library from scratch repeatedly, including any new photos. My collection contains over 13,000 photos, which can take 20 to 30 minutes, significantly impacting the performance of viewing and scrolling through photos on Dropbox.com. Even when the indexing has been completed the viewing performance is still slow with place holders showing for a few seconds when scrolling though the images.
I sent a support request with a comparison showing OneDrive and Dropbox side by side loading and caching the same set of photos. OneDrive took less than 5 seconds, while Dropbox took 1 minute and 40 seconds.
I’m not saying OneDrive is the solution; it was just used for comparison. Google might even be better. 😊
Basically Dropbox has issues not us 🤔
