Website Photos view is slow

Hey @Thijxx - thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Can you just clarify if you're noticing this on an incognito or private browsing window with no plugins or extensions running as well?

Also, have you tried another network since you first noticed this?

Let me know more and we'll take it from there.

Yes I run extensions, I block your Adobe trackers and your Qualtrics "Experience Manager" but when I use private browsing, without the blocker, it is just as slow. First page of photo's takes 7 seconds.

When switching to a 5G dongle the performance is the same.

Could you tell me what I should expect in terms of performance? Should the photos page load sub-second or is that not fair?

Thanks for the additional information @Thijxx

Could you also clarify if this happens only when browsing the Photos page or if it's affecting other folders of yours as well?

Other folders load fine except the photo preview at the top of the page called 'Suggested from your activity'

I see, thanks for clarifying that for me @Thijxx

May I ask approximately how many photos you've stored in your Dropbox account?

Oof, that is a hard question! I suppose somewhere around 50K

Nancy

@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?

Hey @Thijxx, let me also jump in here!

Yeah pretty much. I'd also like to ask you to clear your browser's cache if that's not too much of a trouble.

You also mentioned this happens only with the "Suggested" pictures, right? Meaning if you try to locate a picture in your account and then preview it, do you notice the same behavior?

Hi @Megan, @Thijxx

Same issue here ... 13k of Photos which are unviewable using the Dropbox website. As already mentioned the Dropbox Website loads the first 50 or so then needs to re-cache or re-index the whole collection again when viewing/scrolling .... Clearing the browser cache makes no difference, the only thing that helps is significantly reducing the number of images stored .... For reference OneDrive and Google Photos Websites work fine with >20k of images, give it a test with some images - its a Dropbox issue.

Hey @Charlie Windsor, thanks for reporting!

Do you think you could send me a couple of screenshots of a step-by-step that you follow on your end?

I'd love to have a visual of this.

Thanks a bunch!

Hi @Megan

I go to the "Photos" section on the Dropbox website and when opening I'm greeted with the following, either a blank page with empty numbered boxes or a page with a blue Dropbox logo spinning and a messages at the base of the screen in black boxes saying "connecting to server" & " Gathering all the Photos" can take minutes to complete.

(Refreshing the the page has the same effect, the photos need to be re-indexed but its slightly quicker)

When scrolling through the images you will have lot of blank numbered boxes shown in the pic below ...

Hey @Charlie Windsor, thanks for the added info!

Do you notice this behavior on multiple browsers too? Also, which is your preferred browser that you use?

Hi @Megan

Yes to multiple browsers and MS Edge and Chrome are my two browsers that I use - I'm based in the UK. The common denominator for me is the number of files or the number of file changes on a user account that affects Dropbox's website usability.

I've added comparisons with your competitor, not to be awkward but to vindicate my set up, plus to show there could be potential issues with your core product ... I hope the below helps...

P.s - Note I can open up a snipping tool and take image shots of your website operating very slowly which highlights things are not as they should be 😉

E.g

Photos Updating - as we're already discussing.

Rewind fails on a restore request when there has been a large activity on a particular folder(s)
Dropbox fails with an error v OneDrive 180 - 240 approx seconds to restore 1.5tb. (This fault can be replicated).
When trying to restore deleted data stored in the Dropbox online recycle bin which contains numerous files, it can take minutes for the files & folders to be indexed and displayed.
Dropbox >120 seconds v OneDrive < 3 seconds to restore a single file stored with numerous other folders & files located in the recycle bin. Bin contains 380GB of data. (This fault can be replicated).

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 offense@"Charlie Windsor" but get your own room! 😄

@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.

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?

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 ?

@Thijxx

If they can't do the above I will pass back to you any information gained via this thread ... 👍

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

Quick update .... Support have been in contact and its been escalated ... keep you posted

@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,
Maddison

Thank 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