32

Trying to upload an image, I get the response "Failed to upload image, please try again!"

Example error

Well, of course I tried again. And again. And again, and again and again --- I guess you got it.

So what? Where is the error? Read permission? Image size? File format? File size? Transfer speed? What's the error? Concrete, so I can guess whether it has sense to try again, to try an hour later, to convert the file, to crop it, to compress it - whatever.

Well - finally I found the error, by visiting the image-hoster, and trying to upload it there. Therefore I know that the advice: "Try again" is misleading.

A short note that the format is not supported - (png is ok, jpeg is not) better a list of supported formats beforehand, because if I do a screenshot or a painting, I like to know in advance, how to save it, which format to choose.

Improve this question
8
  • +1 The same error message is also shown when the file name box is left blank and you hit Upload.
    – Jon Seigel
    Commented May 24, 2011 at 4:04
  • 2
    Further, the error message should be more prominent. It is currently easily overlooked, and makes the user have to think just to notice it is there.
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 5:28
  • Related, if not duplicate: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/100593/…
    – Benjol
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 8:53
  • Without knowing the implementation details, this could well be a feature request to imgur?
    – davidsleeps
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 9:51
  • Why to you, @Benjol, think, it is a duplicate? I didn't write about Chrome, not about Windows, not about fakepath. Can you please avoid such useless comments? Thank you.
    – user unknown
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 20:33
  • @davidsleeps: I just testet, whether it is possible to upload jpg and gif images on the imgur-site, and both work there. SVG doesn't work. Why do you think, it is an API-problem?
    – user unknown
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 20:34
  • Because maybe when the image is sent from SE to imgur, the only response that they receive is "Failed to upload image, please try again"...if that is the case, then SE cannot add any further information...
    – davidsleeps
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 22:38
  • Maybe - maybe not. Not very much, to make a feature request, imho.
    – user unknown
    Commented Aug 3, 2011 at 2:39

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
11

The upload error message now contains additional information about the kind of the error:

  • an error occured on the server – that means the error occured on our server; in other words, it's a LOLcat in disguise. Highly unlikely, because we don't produce bugs.
  • couldn't reach imgur – somewhere between our server and imgur's servers there's a connection problem. The intertubez are clogged, imgur is down, or the like.
  • an error occured at imgur – the request got through, but imgur returned a 500 Internal Server Error or 503 Service Unavailable. Highly unlikely, because they also don't produce bugs.
  • the format is not supported – imgur returned a 400 Bad Request; the by far most likely cause of this is that the image you uploaded has an unsupported format or is corrupt.
  • imgur is rejecting the request – imgur returned anything other than 200, 400, 500, or 503. Highly unlikely, because most stuff that needs to be wrong to cause this is hardcoded and thus would always fail.

The error message is also bold, red, flashing, beeping, and dancing.

Improve this answer
3
  • I got the third error message several hours ago.
    – kiss my armpit
    Commented Mar 12, 2013 at 23:32
  • 1
    The error messages doesn't appear to be showing up when uploading very large images. I was attempting to upload a 5.3MB .png file with pretty large dimensions (around 2600x1050). When uploading, everything just seemed to hang there. Waiting didn't do anything. When I realized the image was huge, I resized it to a more respectable size and was finally able to upload.
    – Jeff Mercado
    Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 7:29
  • i.sstatic.net/xXV49.png can't get enough of a good thing! ;-)
    – uhoh
    Commented Nov 8, 2018 at 23:19

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .