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Have you had problems uploading pictures to WordPress lately?
Recently I’ve noticed that uploading pictures has been virtually impossible. It actually started after updating WordPress to 3.9. So I went into full debugging mode. I tested a local version of my site to see if the issue was my server or some other issue. It wasn’t my server.
How to fix it quickly.
- Deactivate all plugins and reactivate one by one. Plugins might have crashed because of WP Update.
- Using WP Smush.it? Go to settings -> media and change the option from auto-process upon upload to do not process on upload.
Read on for more info.
The gist of how I resolved it.
I deactivated all my plugins and reactivated one by one and tested. I did this since one of the key components of WordPress’ update was the visual editor, I figured there must be a conflict in the code with some of the plugins I use. This actually has been shown to fix the issue in other sites that were also impacted but not using the smush.it plugin. Why did this fix it? Because the update to WordPress made changes that causes some of the plugins to crash.
I narrowed it down to WP Smush.it and upon further debugging I found the best solution to be to go into the settings -> media and disabling the auto-process. Now I need to manually process pictures after upload. This resolved my issue with the uploading of pictures. The issue is a conflict with image processing upon upload and WordPress.
Why use WP Smush.it ?
In an effort to make page sizes smaller I have been using and recommending WP Smush.it which is a plugin that automatically reduces the file size of images that are 1mb or lower upon upload via the media uploader, post or page. This makes your page load faster and is great for devices like smart phones / tablets.
My alternative approach to WP Smush.it:
- Take a raw photo and optimize it in photoshop (premium software) or gimp (free software).
- If it’s a png then I would further compress it with the free online service at tinypng.com
- If it’s a jpg then I would further compress it with the free online service at jpegmini.com
- Then take the new file and upload it to your WordPress site.
This is not what the average WordPresser wants to do. It’s time consuming. Hence why I like the plugin.
Hopefully this helped resolve any issue you might have had with uploading images to your WordPress Website.