can't upload images

codezer0 · 2025-06-29T22:20:27+00:00

As the title says. 99 times out of 100, whenever I try to make a post and add an picture, photo, image, whatever you want to call it? Whether it’s just one or ten, the site just rejects it and gives me a red box with no context, no error explanation. No rhyme nor reason. I can’t even share a screenshot without it basically refusing to let me post or share it. It’s exhausting, it’s frustrating, and it’s like I can’t even share what it looks like, because the issue prevents me from even doing that.

MacLeech

cypherstream How many MB are the original photos? This site has a 5 MB limit.

Chances are, sending them to yourself is reducing their size.

cypherstream

MacLeech I’m not really sure, it just seems to be some pictures. I think whats more maddening it its just a red X with NO explanation. Its very frustrating that the site doesn’t auto compress to fit like many others.

cypherstream

MacLeech tested with a 7.1mb file. Yup Red X with no explanation. That must be it.

Not sure how to change the size without emailing to myself. I hit adjust on iOS but don’t see a file size option. Am I blind?

At least with emailing a bunch of photos a pop up appears with a few size options, along with original size.

I might email myself 10 photos and original size is around 45mb but I choose something like 11mb, so 11mb divided by 10 photos, no wonder they all upload fine once I get to my computer.

cypherstream

Here I cropped the heck out of this screen shot and then eliminated all color information with a filter. It still says 5.2mb for this small snip no matter if I use the original or a color filter.

SLC_96

cypherstream I agree it is frustrating that no helpful error messages are displayed. Also, HEIC is not supported. I wish the site could convert and compress images but it can’t.

cypherstream

SLC_96 well not your fault, but certainly a feature request for the flarium people for sure!

HardlyWorthit

cypherstream Here I cropped the heck out of this screen shot and then eliminated all color information with a filter.

I reduced the size of screenshots on my Apple devices by changing the screenshot default format to .jpg

Donoreo

HardlyWorthit cypherstream Here I cropped the heck out of this screen shot and then eliminated all color information with a filter.

I reduced the size of screenshots on my Apple devices by changing the screenshot default format to .jpg

Open the “Settings” app on the iPhone and go to “Camera”
Choose “Formats” and select “Most Compatible” to shoot photos in JPEG format on iPhone camera

I have always recommended this to my iPhone using friends (and daughters)

cypherstream

HardlyWorthit interesting. I guess they want it to take up more space to upsell iPhones with larger storage, or convince you to buy iCloud backup. I use immich for photo backup but yeah I’m going to look into it.

Settings > camera > formats> Most comparable it says. High efficiency seems to be the opposite of high efficiency.

Somewhat-Reticent

cypherstream High efficiency

‘Equal’ images take less storage space.
However, using HEIC enables starting with higher res/color-depth … gotcha!

cypherstream

Would it be worth signing up and posting the issues here?
https://discuss.flarum.org/t/support

Figure the more voices the better?

ChromeJob

If taking a pic on an iPhone 14 or later, the image size is almost certainly TOO DAMN BIG. Learn how to resize it down without all the folderol of emailing and attaching and stuff.

In the Shortcuts app Gallery, find one called Resize Image. Add to your own shortcuts. If it doesn’t already, in the Info tab of the shortcut, enable “Show in Share Sheet.” (I’m not going to step you through these steps. Google for a video or tutorial on Apple Shortcuts. Trust me, you’ll find helpful videos or pages.)

Bear with me, I don’t know how this forum handles images yet…

In the Photos App, swipe up to see the resolution and file size. One of my screenshots shown here was 6.4MB!

Way too big for online sharing or emailing. Now click the little share button (box with upwards arrow). You should now have a “Resize Image” command from that Shortcut. Click that, and enter something reasonable like 640 or 1080 — those are sufficient for online sharing. Tap “Done” and the newly reduced image will be saved as a new image. Share that new image. (I find marking it as Favorite helps to identify it when I’m selecting to upload.)

ChromeJob

cypherstream No, they’re high resolution, higher quality images and image formats. As I think you found, you can change that in Settings. Easy.

cypherstream Both for an unhelpful error message, and the option to let the forum resize images on upload. I’ve seen that in forum software before, I think.

cypherstream

ChromeJob wow it took that 5.2mb screenshot of resize image options when emailing down to 33kb by resizing 50%.

Somewhat-Reticent

On some devices, recording long video in hi-res adds overheating.

cypherstream

I don’t know if this post will stick or admins will remove it, but I posted to Flarum.
https://discuss.flarum.org/d/37726-more-descriptive-error-message-on-mobile-phone-image-upload-failures

When searching HEIC I did find this post that shows how to allow HEIC uploads, but no solution to displaying the heic images inline.
https://discuss.flarum.org/d/20350-heic-image-file-support

For file sizes, theres some posts about size but not really pertaining to images:
https://discuss.flarum.org/d/29224-file-size-upload-limit-payload/17

Anyway their forum is a pretty great resource.

HardlyWorthit

cypherstream HardlyWorthit interesting.

fyi in MacOS it takes a command line statement in Terminal to toggle default screenshot format.

MacLeech

HardlyWorthit A few 3rd party apps will do it too like Onyx, Deeper, TinkerTool, and others.

On iPhone you can convert them in the Files app.

HardlyWorthit

MacLeech On iPhone you can convert them in the Files app.

My preference is to change the default, opposed to doing individual conversions.

ChromeJob

cypherstream Shame on me, I just remembered the simple way without Shortcuts. 🤦 (If it’s HEIF format, this takes care of it, too. HEIF is way better for a default photograph format, e.g. on vacation or taking selfies.)

Under share options, Save to Filles. Now find the exported image in the Files pap. Tap on it, and under Quick Actions, select Convert Image…. You can select JPG (smaller), PNG (usually way biggerer). For forums, JPG is fine. Now it asks you size … original, large, medium, small. I find even Large is okay for online use, but Medium will surely suffice. You can check file size here in Files before uploading.

I prefer the Shortcut because I can do it right in Photos, and macOS and iOS pickers will let me select from the Photos gallery, no “saved file” needed. YMMV. But for work I have to save to files so that Microsoft Copilot can upload to my corporate OneDrive. 🙄

HardlyWorthit Terminal commands for macOS screenshots:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true

then
“killall SystemUIServer”

As always, be very precise and careful using Terminal, particularly if you have sudo permissions.

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