Website Photos view is slow

[Thijxx]

Howdy, viewing photo's on the Dropbox website is painfully slow. Is there a way to get better performance from the Dropbox website when viewing photos? When I use the profiler in Firefox I can see that the previews.dropbox.com takes 3.3 seconds to reply, is this normal?

• 1Gbit fiber connection, tested with Google Fiber speed Test
• 64GB RAM
• 16 Cores
• Tested with Chrome, Safari, Firefox on Windows, MacOS and Linux (Ubuntu, Arch, Manjaro and Debian)
• Rebooted every machine 7 times, just so I can write this

*Not many useful labels in the "choose a label" list

[Charlie Windsor]

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.

[Megan]

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! 

[Charlie Windsor]

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 ...  

[Megan]

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? 

[Charlie Windsor]

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).
  
   

[Walter]

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. 

[Thijxx]

Could we please stay on topic?

No offense@Charlie Windsor but get your own room! 😄

[Charlie Windsor]

No offence taken @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.

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 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?

[Megan]

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!

[Charlie Windsor]

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.