Backlight 6 suddenly keeps crashing, need server help

Backlight 4, 5 & 6 Support
#1

Backlight 6 has worked great, till today. I haven’t needed to ask for server help in years. But Ben, Matt …or someone …none of my new content or changes are getting saved with my backlight 6. -need some expert help.

Server error: “garybrackin.com says
Unable to save settings: Something went wrong on the server.”

I don’t know what suddenly happened. I was trying add an Album Set and an Album, just like normal. While making a gallery; sometime today, I did get an error related to Running Out of Memory. Now, I keep getting server errors when I try to make any changes, like adding an album or changing a name …or anything, really. I guess I have a TTG database that is corrupted.

I am on Hostinger. After reading through Backlight docs, I logged into my server and updated PHP 8.3 to PHP 8.4. I increased memoryLimit to 3072M and post MaxSize to 2048M and uploadMaxFilesize to 1536M.

I read in the docs that Backlight Advanced Settings → SQLite Synochronous should never be set to OFF. But it was and I now have it set to Normal. None of these things fixed the Backlight crashing, so I need some help reblessing my Backlight 6.

If you’re there Ben, or someone that can look at my server. I can give you my TTG Admin and Password.
…thanks! …gary in austin, tx

#2

Hi Gary, that’s no good. Can you message me a Backlight admin login so I can take a look? The best way is by clicking my profile name followed by Message

#3

Hi @gary_in_austin, thanks for the access. I’ve found one issue that is likely the culprit. One of the album sets had itself as the parent. That can cause the database to get into a loop while trying to create a hierarchy.
I’ve unset the parent for the album set (Theater - Waveform Studios). Can you check whether everything is running as it should be?

I have made a number of fixes in our code to prevent this scenario from happening, and to avoid a loop for existing sites that might already have self-refencing album sets. The code hasn’t yet made it to our released version. It should be released before long.

Something else I noticed is that the affected album set and its children all belong to a non-existent Top-level Gallery (with id of 5). Do you know how this came about? If these aren’t appearing on your site then I can try to fix them for you in the database. The first thing I’d need to know is whether the albums are actually on your server, and if so, what the path is to the top-level directory that they sit under.

It’s best to continue this conversation by direct message. I hope that helps.

#4

You’re a true talent, Ben. I’ll direct message you, now. And I’ll come back and explain some things in general, …for everybody to read.

#5

You’re a true talent, Ben. I meant to mention my album set (Theater - Waveform Studios.) It was what I was working on when the problem arose but I deleted it to try to get the problem to go away. So, you might not need to do anything to my database …but you could give it an expert lookover.

The affected album set and it’s children belonging to a non-existant Top-Level Gallery, surely happened when either the out of memory issue happened or just after, …when I deleted the album set and it’s children albums. Maybe there was something muxed or left behind, because backlight said I couldn’t delete it, but when I cleared the template cache and the browser cash, there was a generic thumbnail like it was broken. And the second time I tried to delete it, it did go away …but perhaps didn’t remove everything.

Just now, just to be sure, I logged into my server and deleted the folder for Waveform Studios so I could start fresh. All my other albums and sets work great, just that one had the issue. It could be me not understanding the Backlight docs. If you could suggest, here’s what I’m trying to do:
I want and Album Set called Waveform Studios. Within that I want one folder for Photos and one folder for Videos. The Photo Album will have a gallery of 20 photos. The video folder, I want to have 12 videos …but Backlight only allows one Video ID. So, I guess I make one Album Set and in that is 12 albums, each contain one Video ID pointing to one video.

If I’ve been doing it correctly, I upload every video there is on my website into the folder www.garybrackin.com/public_html/videosrc/ somevideo.mp4

I would love to see the Backlight6 docs for Theater (using html5) to be tended to. It hasn’t changed in 4 years and I know people would love it and buy it …if they understood it. Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish

I want a branch of two choices, Photos Folder or Videos folder. And I’m not sure how to set up this, I guess Album Set? One pointing to a PHOTO ALBUM. …and one pointing to a VIDEO ALBUM SET?

->Waveform Studios Album Set

Choice A: Waveform Studios Photo Album (20 photos in the Photo Album)

Choice B: 12 Video Albums where each album has one Video ID pointing to one video. I kinda want it to work like a gallery of several videos.

#6

Hi @gary_in_austin, thanks for the kind words! This has happened enough times that I know what to look for! (simply querying the database for album sets that have matching id and parent id). It will be good to get the update out that fixes this.

There will be a bunch of redundant data left over related to the album set and all its child albums, their photos and metadata. I can help clean this up if you like. Please let me know.

I’ll ask @Matthew to chime in about your plan for videos and photos.

#7

Really, thank you so much, Ben. So for now, I deleted anything from my Waveform Album Set and Album Sets. I started fresh and decided to have a Waveform Photos Album in my PHOTOS Top-Level Gallery. And a Waveform VIDEO Album Set in my Videos Top-Level Gallery.

I would welcome you to clear out anything you see as junk data or any left overs. That would be great, Ben. And you can show, Matthew. I’d love him to see what I’m trying to do with having one Album Set, and within that a two folders: One for a PHOTO Album and one for a VIDEOS Album Set. Each video Album has one Video ID pointing to an .mp4 video that is on my server in the root videosrc folder. (I’m trying to get my understanding and explanations shorter …if that helps everybody. And if you have any suggestions on the logic or type of parent, child, album sets, albums …man, it kinda gets confusing late at night. When I get a handle on it, I will make photoshop info map that explains hierarchy and options. It think that would be good for the Backlight docs. And updating info on Theater using html 5 videos would be good.

So, clear out the cobwebs on my backlight database. Thank you for doing that. And you or Matthew can always reach me at gary@garybrackin.com Ben, you’re a rock star! …gary in austin, tx

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#8

Hi @gary_in_austin. The Theater docs haven’t changed much simply because Theater itself hasn’t changed much. The info that’s there should still be relevant. And just to ensure we’re on the same page, these are the docs in question.

So, yeah, pretty much just that. Structurally, should look like this:

Top-level Set ("Galleries", I presume)
-- Photos album set
  - inside, publish albums using your preferred album template for photos
-- Videos album set
  - inside, publish Theater albums configured for one video each

Understandable you probably want to stick with Pangolin modules and the Theater Add-on for now, as that’s what your existing site is built of.

But if you’re interested in tinkering, the newer Kookaburra modules are implementing video via the essays feature set.

Read about Kookaburra’s essay features, and then video support was released fairly recently as an experimental feature. I am hoping things will become less experimental over time. Doing video this way, though, is a lot more flexible than with the Theater add-on.

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#9

Hi, Matthew!
Good to hear your confirmation that I’m doing this correctly. And you spelled it out, so thanks …that’s very helpful. I think many people will read this and it’s just the info they need to understand.

I had seen the email you sent out announcing that the Kookaburra essay module allows for video. I was timid then. But I’ve uploaded the phpplugins as you describe and turned it ON in the backlight essay page template.

It would be great if I (…erm …uh …all the Backlight users) didn’t have to rely on the Vidstack Player and learn about using Hooks. If you could spend some focus on the Video parts of Backlight, …that would be …well, that would be a monumental offering for TTG. My clients love my photos but they all want Video. It’s become half my business, now. People love video, especially when they are on their phones.

This discussion has encouraged me to start using Kookabura Essay anywhere. That’s going to really fill out my website. I’ll still use Pangolin but the Essay feature of Kookaburra …I’m ready to embrace. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you, Ben. The help you provided me with the Theater module was excellent and precise. Much appreciation! …gary in austin, tx

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