Upload uses huge amount of data – mostly received rather than sent
-
Whilst watching the bytes sent vs bytes received today, during an upload of some images (it was taking so long and I was bored) I was horrified to see the bytes received was massive in relation to those sent – for example 2 mb sent and 10 mb received, if memory serves. When I switched to the browsers upload, the bytes sent went up and bytes received barely moved. It would seem that the protocol in place for uploading via the multi file browser is massively bloated – not very helpful if you are trying to upload over a mobile data network where you pay for data usage. Why isn’t ftp supported and why only allow a single file upload via the browser upload? And why on earth is the data received so much bigger than that sent? No wonder I kept blowing my data allowance when uploading lately – it wasn’t the upload itself, but the protocol!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
I’ll tag this thread for a Staff response. Please subscribe to the thread so you are notified when they respond and please be patient while waiting.
-
Hi @bmcanulty,
Why isn’t ftp supported?
WordPress.com doesn’t support FTP for a variety of reasons. Mainly, we put this in place to make blogging as simple as possible. We also don’t allow FTP for security reasons. You can read a bit more here:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/ftp-access/
If you would like FTP access, you will need to move to a self-hosted blog.
Why only allow a single file upload via the browser upload?
Can you explain a bit more about how you’re uploading photos? Are you using a mobile device with a mobile browser or our WordPress app? Through either, you should be able to tap multiple images to upload.
And why on earth is the data received so much bigger than that sent?
That’s a great question! I’m asking our developers so I can get back to you with a firm answer. I’ll let you know as soon as I have more info!
-
Hi..
Thanks for the replies… I didn’t see anything on the FTP link you gave me saying anything about why it wasn’t supported but I guess if that is your decision then so be it. It seems odd to remove a useful well established protocol fir transferring files though. I understand many people wouldn’t want to use it but it ciuld be available for those who do…
Anyhow, it isn’t, so moving on…. :-)
I am using a laptop which is tethered to my mobile phone over wifi. I think I would go mad if I had to try and write anything lengthy on the stupid touchscreen keypad on my phone, as I spend 50% of the tine correcting typos… Plus all my photos are on my laptop…
What I was trying to say is that if the swish multi file uploader isn’t working for people, they have the option to use the basic ‘browserr’ upload, but this only allows one file per go. If this could be changed to allow multiple files (like yahoo mail for example when adding attachments) it would be more useful… Of course. understanding why the swish one uses so much data would be preferable and I await the outcome of that with interest :-) On that note I was using the Add New link from the media library not the menu option; in case that behaves differently.
Please remember that not everyone has the latest flashiest kit or a blazing internet connection – certainly not when travelling through Africa, for example :-) I noticed there was an ‘easier way to post’ and tried switching to it but whatever flash or whatever it was trying to download never arrived, just some silly beep bop thing bouncing around… I’m all for progress and such, but sometimes it pays to keep a very simple UI for those who need it – and by simple I mean lightweight as well, in terms of download. I should do some analysis next time I go online as to how much data is downloaded by for example just going to my dashboard…
Not ‘having a go’, just saying… :-)
Many thanks
Brian -
Hi!
Regarding the amounts of data, with modern web apps it’s not uncommon for bytes received to be much larger. You’re receiving font, CSS, and JS resources along with page content and images. I know you’re tethering your computer off of your cellular device. Your inspect element tool should provide you with a breakdown of the data. Could you take a look at that? That way, we can isolate where the additional bytes received could be coming from (it could be from other apps).
-
Hi…
I wasn’t doing anything else on the computer at the time – no apps active, no other tabs, nothing… Nothing else was using the bandwidth. All I was doing was trying to upload. When using the multi file upload, bytes received was huge. When using browser file upload, it was trivial.
Why would any content such as CSS/JS be returned from the server during upliad of images? Surely all that is happening is the uploader is sending packets of data to the server and at most receiving an acknowledgement signal in response prior to sending the next packet?
I imagine the tethering aspect is irrelevant – I expect that if anyone were to watch their network traffic associated with their browser they would see the same results. Next time I try and upload I’ll have a look in more detail but as I say, anyone should see the same effect.
Cheers
Brian -
Hey Brian,
The breakdown of the data would be extremely helpful to help identify the bytes received vs. sent. Next time you experience this, please pass that along so we can take another look!
-
Hi
Right, I think I’ve pinned it down for you… I don’t have development tools or time to dig around in the DOM etc so I have just done a few experiments and here are my notes from as I was going along:
Initial load of dashboard after opening browser, going to dashboard (to populate the browser cache), disabling any extensions, closing browser and restarting – everything should now be in cache really:
Sent around 170kb but kept going up, after page load – eventually stabilised at 206kb. Seems like a lot of ‘sent’ data for a few page load requests.
Received 4MB !!! Of what?!!! There are no images, and any JS/CSS should be fairly static and cached.
Selected Media > Add New from menu.
Sent now at 245kb (an increase of about 40kb, which again, seems like a lot of data for a page load)
Received 4.4MB. 400k increase, ok but for a static page, seems high.
Dragged 9 items, totalling 4,027,239 bytes from Finder into upload area.
When it had finished, it had sent total 4.5mb and downloaded a total of 4.7mb. Which is only a 300k increase on the download side of things. Again, for what it is, seems like a lot. But not the huge download I saw previously, but then I was using the Media > Add New button, not the menu, so try again…
I then uploaded the same 9 files via the Media Library > Add New button.
Counts after page had apparently initially loaded : 4.5mb upload / 5.3mb download. No noticeable increase in sent data but downloaded what 800kb? Oh hang on, its going up still.
i then clicked add new and surprise surprise, the widget is merrily downloading data in the background – I suspect its pulling down every single thumbnail . Its at 8.6 mb when I drag the 9 files into the upload area. I haven’t scrolled down through the gallery at all so any downloads are pre-emptive – probably to try and smooth out the scrolling?
I now wait for the 9 files to upload, which took an awful lot longer probably because its pulling down all that data at the same time.
Counts at the time it finished uploading the 9 files:
Sent : 9.1 MB (4.6mb increase, which isn’t too far off the size of the files)
Received : 20.3 MB !!! Its pulled down 15mb of data in the time it took to upload the photos. So what on *earth* is it pulling down? It must surely be thumbnails for each of the images in the gallery? And I’m only at 15% of my available storage! What would it be like if I was knocking on the door of 80-90% storage usage?!
I then reloaded the media library page to see if any caching of thumbnails was taking place, which of course there should be.
Sent : 9.1 MB, makes sense – nothing significant.
Received : went up to 21.7 mb (1.4mb increase), as it pulled down the thumbnails that were already displayed in the previous page after the upload had completed – why aren’t they being cached? At least it didn’t pull down every thumbnail again, but seeing as I’ve been on this page many times over the past week or two, why was it pulling down thumbnails when I was uploading as they must have all been there in the cache already?
So, basically, the total data usage for going to the dashboard and uploading 8 mb of photos comes to 31mb. Which is a lot, frankly. 20mb (at least) of that is wasted IMHO.
Clearly I won’t be using the Media Library > Add New functionality again. I do wonder how often these thumbnails are downloaded though – after all, whenever I go to add a photo to a blog entry it displays the gallery of thumbnails, so how much of that is being cached or pulled down every time??
If my assumptions about the content being downloaded being those thumbnails then I would love to see the end of pre-caching/pre-downloading of images like this – yes, its fine if you’re on a decent connection but is a total waste of data most of the time, I expect.
I await your response with interest :)
Cheers
Brian -
they have the option to use the basic ‘browserr’ upload, but this only allows one file per go. If this could be changed to allow multiple files (like yahoo mail for example when adding attachments) it would be more useful…
The browser uploader is intentionally kept as simple as possible to give users a way to upload media when other methods fail. One the one hand, I can see how wanting multiple file selection would be useful. But the idea is that the browser uploader is truly a backup for when the other, more full featured options are unavailable.
- The topic ‘Upload uses huge amount of data – mostly received rather than sent’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 