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Image uploads are slow. It takes at least 6-8 seconds to upload one image (demo: https://youtu.be/laNmsiLhcFY). This is not due to upload speed, but because Imgur processing is slow (in the YouTube demo, the network speed can be viewed at the top of the screen).

It would be a more user-friendly experience if image processing wasn't that slow, especially since users can't work on their posts while an image is being processed. The problem is amplified in chat where the image gets uploaded, converted, then posted; while more than a few other posts are made between yours and the subsequent arrival of your image.

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    +100. I completely agree. The image uploading on SE is frustratingly slow, for no good reason. Images upload to Facebook and Messenger 10x faster.
    – user1271772
    Commented Aug 31, 2020 at 0:38
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    This has been bugging me for ages. I just want to point out that images uploaded to Imgur directly take a split second to be ready, so this definitely has to do with SE (i.e., stack.imgur.com).
    – 41686d6564
    Commented Aug 31, 2020 at 1:49
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    I would expect the upload to start in the background and the result to be posted into chat (or into the post at the cursor position at the time of pressing "upload") whenever it succeeds, or a failure toast message to appear which would not obstruct normal usage in the meantime.
    – user1306322
    Commented Aug 31, 2020 at 2:45
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    I would take the slow speeds if you could work on your posts while the image was uploading, but you can't. It would be really great if we could have both.
    – Ollie
    Commented Sep 1, 2020 at 18:13
  • In light of the update: It's far better.
    – Ollie
    Commented Sep 29, 2020 at 21:16
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    Upload image like GitHub. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/354612/…
    – Smart Manoj
    Commented Oct 25, 2020 at 12:01
  • @SmartManoj Agreed -> meta.stackexchange.com/q/325668/178179
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Oct 26, 2020 at 7:36

2 Answers 2

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Thanks for the reports here!

Imgur has just informed us this is resolved. An anti-spam mechanism they use was causing a DNS timeout on image uploads, adding almost exactly 10 seconds of latency to every upload. You should find all image uploads speedy once again across the network. Additionally, in finding this they've setup additional monitoring and alerting in hopes we're alerting automatically in the future.

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    Great thanks! That'd be nice by the way if this kind of reports weren't deleted by the Stack Exchange auto-deletion script, as this question first was deleted before I reposted it.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Sep 29, 2020 at 17:59
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    @FranckDernoncourt Not quite sure what you mean by that - Can you explain?
    – Catija Staff
    Commented Sep 29, 2020 at 18:01
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    @Catija sure, the same question was removed because of some downvotes from clueless users and the stack exchange automated deletion script meta.stackexchange.com/q/350284/178179 this is annoying.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Sep 29, 2020 at 18:04
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    @FranckDernoncourt I understand your frustration but that's not really the deletion script's problem. The problem is the people downvoting it so much. I'm not really sure why people did that but I'm not sure that changing the script and leaving actually bad content here is the right choice.
    – Catija Staff
    Commented Sep 29, 2020 at 18:07
  • Thanks Nick! It's so much faster now!
    – Ollie
    Commented Sep 29, 2020 at 21:14
  • I was going to write a comment about making removedeadabandoned less trigger happy, but theb I saw the post sitting at -10. That is nog how far I was willing to have the script changed. Tht definetly is a problem with downvoting rather then with the script.
    – Luuklag
    Commented Sep 30, 2020 at 6:29
  • Just curious, for how long did this anti-spam mechanism exist? Image uploads were slow for long long time as far as I can remember.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 17:54
  • @Catija There are many ways the deletion script could be improved without leaving bad content. E.g., if some amount of high-rep users upvoted a question, then the score threshold below which a question is removed should be decreased. Also the required if view count is too high, e.g. superuser.com/q/1472443/116475 had 562 views within 1.1 year, which is way more than average on SU, but yet got removed because of score = 0 (0 downvote, 0 upvote). Unsurprisingly it got upvoted once I reposted it. Removing good content decreases the good content:bad content ratio + pisses off good posters.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 19:25
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    @FranckDernoncourt But that doesn't have anything to do with this post. If you have ideas, please post a new question or bounty one that already discusses this.
    – Catija Staff
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 19:26
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Sometimes it doesn't even upload. I am not sure if any of you encountered this. I didn't take a screenshot. It shows some error message.

So at times, I keep imgur.com open in one of the tabs, when I am browsing through desktop and upload my images there directly and add image links later. If I remember it correctly, there was an error message in the image upload through link tab as well. The only way I uploaded it was by manually typing ![ ] ( )

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    Oh yeah, this has happened to me too. I just reloaded the page like an idiot and lost my question :D. But I was able to upload the image the second time.
    – 10 Rep
    Commented Sep 29, 2020 at 17:56

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