steerpike58

Stef – thanks for following up and sorry for the delay in responding. Let’s try this:

1. I sign in to my wordpress account at https://www.wordpress.com .
2. I am presented with a list of my sites. These include the site hosted at wordpress.com, and my self-hosted site that has the jetpack plugin installed. This discussion focusses on the self-hosted site that has jetpack installed.
3. On that page, I see headers ‘Site’, ‘Plan’, ‘Status’, ‘last published’, ‘stats’, and ‘actions’.
4. Under ‘actions’, there’s an option for WP Admin, but that takes me to the NATIVE WP Admin for my site. If I click on ANY of the entries under the columns mentioned above, I’m also taken to the NATIVE WP Admin for my site. But – if I click on the entry for ‘Stats’ I’m taken to the admin for my site, BUT – it’s the wordpress.com admin. Url shows: https://wordpress.com/stats/day/<mySite>. And from there, I can click on ‘Media’, and see the media tab with Jetpack options (because the ‘admin’ is coming from the wordpress site, not my self-hosted site).
5. All I want to know is – how ‘ELSE’ can I get to that same admin panel, other than by clicking on the ‘stats’ entry in the grid?
6. As I said – I STUMBLED across the fact that I can type https://wordpress.com/media/<mySite&gt; – but it’s not customary to expect people to enter complex URLs these days – SURELY there is a navigation method ‘somewhere’ – a place to click and be taken to the media tab.
7. I’m happy to share screenshots with you showing specifics, but you’ll need to reach out to me at my email address.

Well here goes. I have a self-hosted site with jetpack installed. I can use the WordPress Android App to connect to it, and to add/edit posts and images. For troubleshooting purposes not related to anything here, I disabled the Jetpack plugin on the site. After that, whenever I use the WordPress Android App to edit or update a post, the images already in the post do not display – only white-space is displayed. Note – these are basic single-image blocks, not using any ‘jetpack’ feature like ‘carousel’, etc. The images remain in the post, but are not displayed in the App. If I tap on the white-space where the image should be, the image loads ‘full screen’, but a ‘back’ action again reveals white space only. If I create a new post, and add an image (using the App), the image displays until I ‘publish’, and then it disappears. Re-enabling the jetpack plugin on the host ‘fixes’ this problem.

I’m concerned that jetpack is somehow modifying how even a basic image block is being created.

I don’t consider it ‘solved’ because I can’t imagine that clicking on ‘stats’ is the only, or the intended, way of navigating. But it does work so I can get by with it. SURELY there’s a more obvious way to navigate?

Update – further testing is showing that the featured image is actually using a smaller version of the image than the full-page view of the same image – so I do think things are working at least somewhat as expected.

I’m curious if you know why the 4000x images that I upload are getting fewer variants than the 3000x images. And also why WordPress has never updated the ‘settings’ page to reflect the greater number of image variants now built into the program.

Thanks again for your assistance; it has been helpful in arriving at a better understanding of the situation!

Thanks!

Thanks for the response. To clarify, I do have Jetpack installed, and I do understand that ‘slideshow’ and ‘Tiled Gallery’ are Jetpack features. But as far as ‘the ‘basic’ gallery tool is concerned, are you saying that the ability to ‘step through’ the basic gallery feature (using < and >) (carousel) is not present unless you install Jetpack?

Now, I do have Jetpack, and you should see on the sample post I provided, that I have added a ’tiled gallery’ and a ‘slideshow’, and they both ‘function’ to some extent, but – for both ‘gallery’ and ’tiled gallery’, the ability to step through the gallery (the ‘carousel feature) is NOT working!

I just downgraded my site from php 8.2 to php 7.4 as a test; no change.

OK – I just read how to enable the carousel feature of Jetpack – thanks for the link – and SURE ENOUGH – I can now step through the gallery in the basic gallery feature! SO – not only does Jetpack add new tools, it enhances standard tools – that’s the part I did not understand.

So is there no ‘built in’ ability within WordPress to have a ‘carousel’ feature?

Anyway – thanks for the response!

Thanks again for the responsive and detailed reply. From what I’m reading, and seeing with my own testing, is that WP will generate at minimum FOUR variants – there are the thumbnail, medium, and large that are governed by the settings/Media page, and apparently at least one more that is referred to as “Medium-Large” that was added along the way to the core WP code, but never added to the ‘Settings/Media’ page – this is showing as 768x in my directory. So that’s 150x, 300x, 768x, and 1024x with everything at default. Then I see two additional sizes – 1536x and 2048x (this assumes your source image is > 2048, of course). Apparently these SIX images are now considered standard. Why doesn’t WP modify the very simple settings/Media page to reflect this? It’s a rather simplistic screen and wouldn’t be hard to change.

There’s also a concept called “web-optimized Maximum size”, and this is set by default to 2560x. This was introduced in WP 5.3 (this is based on what I’m reading on the issue – feel free to correct me). The image that is created by this latter process is given the suffix ‘-scaled’. So if you leave everything at default, and you upload an image that is, say, 2800x or 3000x, you will get EIGHT images – 150x, 300x, 768x, and 1024x,1536x, 2048x and 2560x (labeled -scaled). This is what you get ‘out of the box’ BEFORE themes come into play; they can change or add to this list. I see all these images in my test environment, which is using the freebie / minimalist ‘fewer’ theme. What’s really odd is, if I upload an image that is 4000x rather than 3000x, I only get 2 generated variants – 300x, 2560x, (‘-scaled’) plus the original 4000x!

So that now fully explains the ‘how’ of all the images I’m finding in the upload directory structure.

When I place an image in a simple post or page (using the block editor, no coding here), I don’t get to chose the ‘variant’; I only get to choose the base image. And I believe this is where the ‘srcset’ concept comes into play – I’m not really placing an actual ‘image’ on the post, I’m placing a reference to a list of images, with the idea that the best image will be chosen ‘at run time’ (when end-user visits the page. This I understand the concept of. Testing/validating this is happening is quite hard when you get to mobile and tablet devices, as they are less well-endowed with tools. I also note that my smartphone (S23+) has a screen resolution of circa 2500x, so in theory one could argue, it ‘deserves’ the biggest image available (the ‘-scaled’ version). So maybe all that is working as well as it can be expected to work.

The other thing I noticed is, when I place an image using the block editor, I DO get a chance to choose image size. Over on the right, after placing the image, I can choose the ‘resolution’ drop-down, and there I see: thumbnail, Medium, Large, Full Size options. I tested, and sure enough, they place the 150x, 300x, 1024x, and 2560x versions. There’s no choice for the ‘medium-large’, or the two ‘extra’ sizes mentioned above. So I would HOPE that, by specifying a size here, I’m constraining the max size that will ever be delivered. But I’m happy to go with the ‘Full Size’ since 2560x is no longer considered a large size by most device standards.

So my final concern/question here is in relation to ‘featured image’. When I choose a ‘featured image’, that image is likely to be used in TWO types of scenarios at least. I may have a full-sized featured image placement somewhere (the only image on the page, close to ‘full width’), and that would logically be using the 2560x variant (‘-scaled’). But another common use for ‘featured image’ is when displaying posts in a list or grid format, with a mixture of images and text. The image in this case is only occupying perhaps 1/6th of the screen width, which would suggest that the 768x variant (‘medium’) would be appropriate. But my ‘inspect’ tool in chrome is telling me that the 2560x version is being used for all these. Here’s a test page I’m using to place a ‘grid’ of 5 posts with featured image and title displayed; as you can see, they are VERY small, but I can see that behind the scenes each ‘cell’ is being fed a 2560x image.

View post on imgur.com

Thanks again for engaging in the discussion!

UPDATE – I just read this helpful article – WordPress Image Sizes Explained (And How to Add Custom Sizes) (wpmudev.com) . In the article, they describe how you CAN select the specific image size when you add an image from the gallery when using the Block editor, and I see it – ‘Full’, ‘Large’, ‘Medium’, ‘Thumbnail’ are properties on the right. So that’s good to know – I can manually choose, if I wish, when creating the post or page. The article also describes how “WP added responsive images to core WP in 4.4” – “It offers this list (of different image sizes for a given image) to the browser so it can select an image that is appropriate for the visitor’s device. If the visitor is using a mobile device, they’ll receive a smaller image in the?srcset” . This is all very informative and makes sense, but when I just tested on my mobile device, I was given the ‘full’ sized image, despite the existence of much smaller variants in the ‘set’. The article also describes how ‘featured images’ are supposed to use the ‘thumbnail’ variant; but again, my testing is showing that the ‘full’ (2560x) variant is being used in the ‘featured image’.

So is this really working for anyone? Has anyone ever validated that the smaller image variants are used when appropriate?

Thanks for the informative response. I understand the theory behind the multiple size-variants of an image, but what I don’t understand is their usage. I understand the concept of responsive design and performance, but what I don’t see is WP making use of any of the smaller sizes.

Are you saying that WP will deliver a DIFFERENT version of an image depending on the device displaying the image? So for example, if I pull up my page on my phone, a different version of the image is being delivered by the server compared to when I display the same page on my desktop computer? I just did a test on my phone and from what I can tell, the phone got the same ‘scaled’ (2560x) version of an image.

I also used ‘inspect’ in my desktop browser to see exactly what image is being served to me, and even on the page full of ‘featured images’, they are all the ‘2560x’ version – so this doesn’t appear optimized to me.

But perhaps even more relevant – if I upload a 3000x or 4000x image, WP spits out all the different sized variants, but does not even reference the original in its internal tables. So that 4000x original is sitting there, in the file system, just taking up space.

Neither custom nor premium – I’m using a free theme – ‘Fewer’. It is quite minimalistic. But I’ve also tested with ‘twentytwentyfour’ and ‘Bute’ (all free). I understand now that ‘core’ WP will create a bunch of different sized image variants when you upload a single image, and your chosen theme can add to that – so I understand ‘how’ I’m getting 6 variants of an image when I upload one image.

But what I don’t understand is – how do you ‘use’ (or how does WP use) any of these smaller variants if you stick to using the block editor (I understand that I could place a ‘hard reference’ to /wp-content/uploads/year/mo/<specific file name>, but I want to avoid that). In the block editor, when I choose to display an image on my page, I choose it from the Media Gallery, and the image is displayed. I don’t get asked whether I want the big, medium, small, etc variant. I was assuming that WP would be smart enough to choose the specific variant based on situation – if I’m in a ‘grid’ of 5 wide images, I clearly don’t need a 2560x version of an image. But that’s what WP seems to be using for the featured image.

So I basically understand how I’m getting 6 size-variants of a single image, but what I don’t have any sense of is, how is WP supposed to be ‘using’ those 6 variants – what is the point of their existence?

Ah – my apologies – I’ll post the plug-in question there.

In the meantime, though – while that plugin may help me by SHOWING me the current featured image size, I already know that, in the test cases I’ve been using, the featured images are the 2560x versions of the image. So the question I’m trying to answer is – what is the point of WP creating several different sizes, only to use the biggest size when showing 5 featured images side-by-side on a page (I’m guessing a 500x or at most 1000x image would be more than adequate).

And is there any way for me to control what sized variant of the image is used? As noted, when I upload an image, WP auto-generates a 150x, a 300x, a 768x, a 1024x, variant for use in exactly this type of situation. But when I choose the featured image, I only get to choose the ‘general image’, not any particular sized version.

Hi there – thanks for the plugin. I installed it, but I’m not seeing anything useful. After first installing, I roam around the site and I see ‘Featured Image Size: not set’ everywhere I go. Then I noticed there is a ‘settings’ option in the plugin, so I visit that, and I see

‘please set up featured image size. For example, “1200×600” – what’s the point of that? I’m expecting the plugin to TELL me what the dimensions are, so why would I type in 1200×600?

But I typed in 1200×600 anyway, just to comply, and now, I see ‘Featured Image Size: 1200×600’ on every page, regardless of the actual featured image.

Something is not right!

I did some further research and found that when an image is uploaded to WP, a pair of entries get made in the ‘post_meta’ table. The ‘_wp_attached_file’ meta_key gets meta_value’ of the ‘scaled’ version of the file (so that’s the ‘primary’ image reference) and the ‘_wp_attachment_metadata’ meta_key gets a reference to the 225×300 version and the ‘scaled’ version, but NOT the original. So even though the 4000x version was uploaded, it looks like it is never referenced within the database and so is a huge waste of space. Am I understanding this correctly?

It seems like the logic is – upload the file; create multiple size variants; reference ‘most’ of those variants in the ‘wp_attachment_metadata’ entry, but not the ones over 2560x in size.

I’m really curious where the logic is that decides what size variants to spin off!

I also just ran into this issue. I’m hosted on GoDaddy and my max file size is 32M in PHP config. But in my case, despite getting the error message, the images DO upload – they show in the WP Media gallery and I can see the image files in the CPanel File Manager on the hosting server. I created 2 copies of the image – original was 4000×3000, 2nd copy was 3000×2250. The 3000x copy uploaded without error, the 4000x image gave the error but loaded anyway. But then here’s another weird part – WP created 6 versions of the 3000x copy – a 1024x version, a 150x version, a 1536x version, a 2048x version, a 300x version, a 768x version, and the original (3000x). But for the 4000x copy, it created only 3 versions – a 225x version, a ‘scaled’ version (that was 2560x), and the original (4000x).

Note I don’t really WANT the 4000x or 3000x sizes, I was just doing a quick upload of an original file to see what would happen (sometimes I’m loading images on the go and don’t have time to resample before uploading).

Also – my ‘Settings / Media’ settings are thumbnail: 150x, Medium: 300x and Large: 1024x – NOWHERE near the actual file sizes involved. If this settings page were to be believed, I shouldn’t be able to load anything above 1024x!

OK, I finally got this to work. I installed the jetpack plugin (there are at least 8, by the way – need to pick the first one) – “Jetpack – WP Security, Backup, Speed, and Growth – Improve your WP security with powerful one-click tools like backup, WAF, and malware scan. Includes free tools like stats, CDN and social sharing.” (not at all obvious that it’s this one!). Then say ‘no’ to every option / feature / upsell, but then go in and configure it so you can log into your site using wordpress.com.

Then – magically – you will ‘see’ your self-hosted site as one of the ‘sites’ available. But then I don’t know how you are supposed to do the ‘media’ thing … but I guessed at it based on the screenshot in a previous post:

https://wordpress.com/media/<yourSelfHostedSite&gt; – and that does it!

I can’t find any good documentation on this on the web. Everyone just says ‘install jetpack plugin’ and that’s it!