Album link takes user to home page

Backlight 4, 5 & 6 Support
#1

Hello.

I am trying to publish a test album to my website and am clearly doing something incorrectly. Whether I publish the album from Lightroom or from Backlight, I am getting the same issue. At first, it seems that the album has been published: when I visit the url for the top level gallery, I can see a link to the album. That link contains an image from the album, so it appears that the album has been uploaded. The problem is that when I click on that link, I am taken to the website’s home page, not to the album. I’ve been trying for hours to see what I have configured incorrectly, but can’t figure it out.

An additional symptom that I might not have set things up correctly: When I visit the album’s administrative page in Backlight, the thumbnails are not showing up in the Photos section (where you can add/delete/move/copy photos in the album). There are squares for each of the two photos I uploaded, and their filenames are displayed, but not the thumbnail images themselves.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

– Walter

#2

Can you post a link?

Also, try clicking on the Update Album Files link under Special Links on the main dashboard

#3

Thanks Rod,

My galleries page is at


There is only one album, and that’s the one I’m having problems with.

I did try clicking on Update Album Files, but that didn’t fix the issue.

Walter

#4

If you want to PM me with Backlight admin or guest updater credentials, I can take a look to see if I can find anything obvious. Otherwise, you could wait for Ben to chime in.

#5

Do you have your .htaccess files in place, per documentation?

#6

Matthew,

Thanks for your help with this. I do have .htaccess in my directory, public_html/memorial, which is where I installed Backlight. But I think you put your finger on the issue.

I had modified .htaccess by adding the code below, so that I have SSL throughout the site, including in the authentication window where users enter login credentials. (The directory was password-protected, but I have removed the protection while we troubleshoot.)

SSLRequireSSL
ErrorDocument 403 https://memorial.wedelberg.net/

That code got around two issues that I was having with more conventional code used to force SSL – namely, no SSL present when user enter their login credentials, or double-authentication required to gain access to the site. (The alternative code suggested by two Bluehost elevated support staff had resulted in those issues.)

I have more information on symptoms:

(1) With the above code included in .htaccess, images do not display at all in the album, when I go directly to the album’s url at https://memorial.wedelberg.net/we-toplevelgallery/charlotte. There, I find an error message in the padlock saying that some of the content, such as images, is not secure. Moreover, if I go directly to the top level gallery’s url at https://memorial.wedelberg.net/we-toplevelgallery, and click on the album link, I am taken to the home page.

(2) With the above code omitted from .htaccess, images do display correctly in the album, if I go directly to the album’s https:// url above. But if I go to http://memorial.wedelberg.net/we-toplevelgallery/charlotte (plain http:// prefix), I am not redirected to the https:// version, and the album does not display correctly. Same result, if I click on the album’s link on the top level gallery, at https://memorial.wedelberg.net/we-toplevelgallery.

I am way out of my depth here, but I suspect I am doing one of two things wrong: either (a) incorrect code for adding SSL throughout the site; or (b) I have Backlight incorrectly configured for extending SSL to the uploaded images. In any case, if you could point me in the right direction, I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks again for your help.

Walter

#7

Do not include the code.

There’s a checkbox option in the settings to redirect to HTTPS.

#8

Thanks so much. I removed the code from .htaccess and enabled “Automatically Redirect Browsers To https”. (I also updated the site’s url to HTTPS version in Backlight settings.) That fixed the problem with the albums. My apologies for overlooking the SSL/HTTPS part of the documentation.

A follow-up question. After implementing the above solution, I re-enabled password protection for the website’s directory. The result was that users who land on the HTTP version of the url must authenticate twice: once for the HTTP version of the url, with no SSL during password entry; and once for the HTTPS version. (Users who enter the url with neither prefix will land on the HTTP version.) Is there a way to address this issue?

Walter

#9

That’s server-side protection, and so you will need to deal with it on your server. Perhaps contact your host. Is there a reason you’re using server-based passwords, rather than protection features built into Backlight?

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#10

I will be using Backlight’s protection features on my next (planned) website. The website I’m working on now includes not only albums, but also some documents that I need to protect.

Restoring the code below (without the square brackets) to the directory’s .htaccess file solved the server-side double-authentication issues:

SSLRequireSSL
ErrorDocument 403 https://[domainname]/

Your suggestion to click the checkbox for HTTPS redirect, in Backlight settings, solved the issue about albums not displaying.

Thanks again for your help with all this. Everything is working beautifully now. :blush:

Walter

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