Photon Plugin – is it worth it?

  • mwarbinek

    (@mwarbinek)


    8 years ago

    I realize that people like Photon and for some it works fine with what they do with their WordPress website, but here is my experience with it that led me to disconnect the plugin and never use it.

    The last time I used it (a year ago), it did copy the images I had on the WordPress website and whether they loaded faster than from the local server folder/files I do not know, but this is what it did that caused me more work than necessary.

    I needed to change a photo on the website. When I changed the photo, which was the same image but modified to show differently, the Photon service kept showing the previosuly cached image that I did not want.

    After much frustration, and some research, I found that I had to rename the image file to make the actual change on the website. So I did and that failed to change over the cached image to the new one I made.

    Now I see that I am banging my head against the caching system of Photon and this battle I detested because it was a hassle in doing work on the website.

    What did work was I removed the photo all together and re-saved the page. I had to wait a bit (I think it was about 20 mins), I then added the new photo. That worked, the new photo was showing on the website and cached by Photon.

    Was this worth my time and hassle to go through these steps just to force Photon to stop using a cache photo?

    Answer was No, it was not worth it. I disconnected Photon, got the cache of the website cleared and that removed this image replacement issue. Since that time, I never used Photon or any external service that caches the images because of the downside of doing work on the site.

    Why is it important to me not to waste my time battling with external services? I work as a web designer and build / maintain / repair websites and adding the time it takes to deal with services like Photon is not worth it.

    So if you find it worth your effort, all the power to you, but for those who are in the same place I am, it is not worth any use.

    Thanks

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Author Jeremy Herve

    (@jeherve)

    Jetpack Mechanic ??

    That’s indeed the expected behaviour, as images are cached for a long time with Photon.

    That said, I’d be curious to know more about the process you usually follow to update images on your site:

    I needed to change a photo on the website. When I changed the photo, which was the same image but modified to show differently

    When you do change photos on your site, do you actually log in via FTP, delete each one of the images generated by WordPress when you uploaded the original image, and then re-upload a modified version of each one of the generated images? That seems a bit complicated.

    The following would not generate any errors with Photon:

    1. Open the post / page where you’ve inserted the image you want to change.
    2. Delete the image from the post in the post editor, or in the gallery editor if that image is part of a gallery.
    3. Open “Add Media”, upload the new version of your image.
    4. Insert that new image in your post, or in the gallery.

    I hope this clarifies things a bit.

    Thread Starter mwarbinek

    (@mwarbinek)

    Hello Jeremy:

    Modified Image
    Refers to the same image, but changed as some element added to it, but to the same image as was before, maybe text, etc or a color fix or change.

    I uploaded via the media page in WordPress, not FTP. I did try the FTP method, that made no change with the same image name. I did try the name change and that did not work either. Photon loaded the cached version and name. Frustrating.

    What worked was deleting the image, saved the page, waited, uploaded a new image with a new name, then inserted the new image and saved. It was the extra steps and waiting that made me decide that this Photon service was not workable when building a site. Maybe for a site where content does not change much and mostly static, then it will be fine, but while in build mode or redesign mode, that service has to be turned off and cache cleared.

    There is a suggestion, a button to clear the cache for times when it is needed.

    Plugin Author Jeremy Herve

    (@jeherve)

    Jetpack Mechanic ??

    Updating an image via FTP wouldn’t help, as you discovered. Since the image filename remains the same, the old image’s cache remains the same. However, if you were to upload a new image via WordPress, it can’t have the same filename; WordPress will generate a new image with a new filename as you upload it.

    If that method doesn’t seem to work for you, could you give me an example so I can look into further?

    Thanks!

    Thread Starter mwarbinek

    (@mwarbinek)

    Ok, I would need setup photon on one of my test sites, one that is not live to the public and only for testing purposes.

    Give me some time to do that this week, if that is Ok. I have a few projects I have to work these next few days.

    I would prefer to send you an email of the link. I see you provided a link to your website in your profile, do you mind if I go there and use your contact form to send the link to my test site?

    I will post here that I have done that and we can continue to correspond here in this forum if that is Ok with you?

    Plugin Author Jeremy Herve

    (@jeherve)

    Jetpack Mechanic ??

    If you wish to send us private information, you can do so via this contact form:
    https://jetpack.com/contact-support/

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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