Hi there,

Please find your inquiries below.

1) FFMPEG

Path you need to include is where FFMPEG installed on your site/pc is. You can consult with your web hosting service provider regarding this. By the way, you can check the path by running this prompt "whereis ffmpeg" or "which ffmpeg" on your command prompts. It will shown you it path like this http://take.ms/z2Opb

2) Your Themes: How does one get access to customizing bits of it? I see the minified file but obviously making any changes to that is like looking for a needle in a haystack especially when all one wants to do is change the main body text color.

In order for you to change them, you can apply your changes accordingly on custom.css as you can refer here https://stackideas.com/docs/easysocial/administrators/templating/adding-custom-css-codes
By doing this, those changes wont be overridden on your next update.

3) How does one get the camera working that comes with the user profile “Update Picture/Avatar” thing that says ‘Take Photo’ as I see a popup that flash is requesting for access to the camera and microphone but when I accept it does nothing just a white square.

Currently, this feature only useable if and only if your site using HTTPS as you can refer here https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/Home/chromium-security/deprecating-powerful-features-on-insecure-origins

please advice.

Dear Warith (Customer Service),

Thanks for the prompt response. Parts 2 and 3 of my query I think you have both understood and answered so there is no problem there. However, question 1 of my query it seems you may not have understood as in my ticket I gave you one of the paths that show up when I do a whereis command (/usr/share) on our system where FFMPeg is located as it is inside the share directory. But as I pointed out I also noted that in your components folder there was also a "path" and another path showing the bin directory (/usr/bin/ffmpeg) hence why I asked which one as no matter which one I even put it still rejects it.

We own our own servers so we have full access to the underlying Operating System and to installing stuff on the servers However, when I entered the path usr/share/ffmpeg [and even usr/bin/ffmpeg] in EasySocial Settings I am still getting the RED warning color on the message that says (The path you specified is invalid. Please enter a different path to FFMpeg).

This is the path that shows up when you do a whereis : ffmpeg: /usr/bin/ffmpeg /usr/share/ffmpeg but no matter which path I enter EasySocial does not even accept them! The only thing I have spotted is that these folders are owned by "Root" does this make a difference? As does EasySocial require the folder to be owned by another user instead?

Does FFMPeg also require the SSL certificate to be installed? Because like I said the Settings in EasySocial is not accepting the path to the FFMPeg folder.

Thanks
Bamidele

Hi there,

Actually, path you stated should be correct already but might be those path not accessible because of permission or other possibles issues on the FFMPEG path.

By the way, you can ignore those errors actually if and only if you confirms that you can upload your videos on your Easysocial. Can you implement them and see whether those upload works or not.

Or maybe you can provide us with your backend and FTP access so that we can further check why those error still shown on your end.

Please advice.

Hi Warith,

I guess you guys are away for the weekend, but when you do come bac could you help tell me where EasySocial is getting the values it error messages for Video file upload size as the php.ini files (there are two in different locations on Ubuntu 18) has been set to a high of 1500 yet EasySocial is reading "Maximum File Size" as 8mb (see below cut and paste). I have tried changing the values in php and resetting apache2 just to see if EasySocila will read the new values correctly but still it does not so I am a bit lost where EasySocial is actually reading this information from!

I wanted to feedback on whether we can upload video and ffmpeg is working or not but then we noticed this problem. If you coudl explain to me where EasySocial is reading its file size info from that would help me know where to cross check if needed!

Thanks and till monday do have a nice weekend anyway!

Peace
Bamidele

EASYSOCIAL ERRORS THIS BELOW:
(Add New Video
Category:

Select a category that would best fit your video.
Title:

Give a meaningful title for your video
Description:

Set some description of your video
Type:
External Video Upload Video
Video File:

Maximum file size: 8mb)

Thanks for understanding Bamidele.

Regarding with your issue, if your PHP server already allow user to upload more than 1.5GB file size on your site, then you have to configure this from the Easysocial setting from backend > Easysocial > User > profile type > edit your profile type > ACL > Video > Maximum File Size For Video Uploads

If the issue still persists, perhaps you can update your site backend and FTP access at http://stackideas.com/dashboard/site so we can better have a check.

Dear Artex,

Thanks a million as that is exactly what I needed to do to get the upload stuff working. Before I close this ticket do you mind if I ask three other questions:
1) The Video "encoding" stuff is it absolutely necessary to be done as not only does it take a long time I presume it is also using the servers CPU to do the number crunching for encoding? That is to say to have the user play a video they upload do they need to have the video encoded as often the video accepted is MP4 and I am sure the video player within Easysocial has supporting codecs for that stream.

2) I tried to batch-load a bunch of images and noticed that on the server under the Easy_Social Component folder in the Media folder a number of "Numbered" (that is folders that have just numbers as their folder name) folders got created and it seems they had random images placed in them from the ones I have been uploading. My concern is that duplicate image entries could easily consume disk space on the server if the user constantly tries to upload images when they fail. For instance when I tried to upload it stayed on 90% for a long time and then I cancelled and re-uploaded again as this happened a few times I noticed these numbered folders again being created with the uploaded images. I wont say the hanging at 90% is either a bandwidth issue or a resource issue as the servers have 32GB RAM, with SSD drives on Xeon 4core CPU's and test internet connectivity of 50MB so it should not be a resource issue for the multiple file selection upload to hang at 90%. Do you have any tips on how to overcome this? When you upload the files one by one they are super fast but when you select multiple files thats when the hanging occurs.

3) Is there a way to Upload images directly into a users profile from the web server (as we also use Webmin for server administrations) as if there are specific folders that are assigned to a user that EasySocial looks for, for images etc. then that should be feasible. What I mean is that those "Numbered" folders do not have user names or user specific visible id's assigned to them so it is hard to tell what image belongs to whom. If when a user uploads a file it was assigned to that specific users folder that would help tracking things easier. Also Is there a way to have users using EasySocial see pre-uploaded images/avatars (for instance canvas background images that I could upload to a specific folder for users to choose from a selection of canvas backgrounds when they are updating their profile images) stored in a specific folder?

Do have a nice weekend and guess hear back come Monday.

Thanks
Bamidele

You're most welcome Bamidele. I always check our forum during weekend and see which user need urgent help, if I still got a little bit time, so I will answer the rest of the unanswered ticket.

1) The Video "encoding" stuff is it absolutely necessary to be done as not only does it take a long time I presume it is also using the servers CPU to do the number crunching for encoding? That is to say to have the user play a video they upload do they need to have the video encoded as often the video accepted is MP4 and I am sure the video player within Easysocial has supporting codecs for that stream.

Yes, that is correct, this is why you need to install FFMpeg library on your server in order to encoding video to the standard format, so user can able to play this video on different browser and mobile.

2) I tried to batch-load a bunch of images and noticed that on the server under the Easy_Social Component folder in the Media folder a number of "Numbered" (that is folders that have just numbers as their folder name) folders got created and it seems they had random images placed in them from the ones I have been uploading. My concern is that duplicate image entries could easily consume disk space on the server if the user constantly tries to upload images when they fail. For instance when I tried to upload it stayed on 90% for a long time and then I cancelled and re-uploaded again as this happened a few times I noticed these numbered folders again being created with the uploaded images. I wont say the hanging at 90% is either a bandwidth issue or a resource issue as the servers have 32GB RAM, with SSD drives on Xeon 4core CPU's and test internet connectivity of 50MB so it should not be a resource issue for the multiple file selection upload to hang at 90%. Do you have any tips on how to overcome this? When you upload the files one by one they are super fast but when you select multiple files thats when the hanging occurs.

Actually there got many possibilities why the upload process hand at 90% for example :
1. It could be some of the image dimension very large, it needed more PHP memory to proceed it, because each of the photo you upload in Easysocial, it will go through the PHP and resize it to another 2 different size image e.g. large and thumbnail.

2. It might be the script timeout since you have upload a lot of image at the same time.

If this issue still happen every time to you, can you try identify which image it upload then hand at 90%, then send us these image to us so we can able to check on your site.

Also did it happen on desktop?

3) Is there a way to Upload images directly into a users profile from the web server (as we also use Webmin for server administrations) as if there are specific folders that are assigned to a user that EasySocial looks for, for images etc. then that should be feasible. What I mean is that those "Numbered" folders do not have user names or user specific visible id's assigned to them so it is hard to tell what image belongs to whom. If when a user uploads a file it was assigned to that specific users folder that would help tracking things easier. Also Is there a way to have users using EasySocial see pre-uploaded images/avatars (for instance canvas background images that I could upload to a specific folder for users to choose from a selection of canvas backgrounds when they are updating their profile images) stored in a specific folder?

Unfortunately currently that is not possible to do this.

The current photo storage structure is :

1. If the user upload those image through the story panel, it will store in this file location JoomlaFolder/media/com_easysocial/photos/AlbumID/... , this is the default story album for the user http://take.ms/FEeWc .

2. If the user create a new album from their user profile, it will store into this same format as what i mentioned at the first point.
JoomlaFolder/media/com_easysocial/photos/AlbumID/...

When you hover those album link, it will show the album id in the URL https://www.screencast.com/t/i12wSrUvO6

Dear Artex,

Thanks for the prompt feedback and hope you had a pleasant weekend. You were absolutely correct on the "Image" dimension stuff as I noticed the majority of images were all 4K pictures (I thought I had shrunk them in the past) so when I shrunk them in Photoshop to 1920 they all uploaded trouble free. That is not really a problem as long as I spot these things so I can put in our FAQ and App notices that image size should not be more than 2K.

For the video working I still need to get that resolved as although I can now upload the videos they are still not being encoded despite installing ffmpeg from the Ubuntu repository.

Is it possible for me to send you an IP address to see if you can reach the specific server? Like I said because we are in the process of transferring and remaking content from the test site (which is publicly reachable via dns) due to the same hostname being used (pending when we remove the test server with the same public facing hostname) the best way to access the server is direct via IP address. Let me know where to send you the IP address and I can create a user account for you so you can check the ffmpeg problem (or if you prefer you can also just tell me what needs to be done) as the sooner I can get that working I can move on to the numerous other things that I still need to get done.

Thanks
Bamidele

Hi there,

Glad that those images issues solved for you

By the way, for those videos issues, you can put them on your first reply or on your dashboard under Optional Informations. Your credentials should be safe, only us, Stackideas staff can see them.

or maybe you can emails us those credentials at this address, warith@stackideas.com and arlex.wong@stackideas.com

Hi there,

Thanks for those credentials. Seems like we need to access your FTP in order to further check this issues. Can you provide us with those access so that we can further check this issues?

Please advice.

Hi there,

It seems that the path is here "/usr/bin/ffmpeg" as you can see here http://take.ms/8pQv4. You videos upload should works as it should now.

Please give it a check and see how it goes.

Dear Abdul,

Works like a charm....many Thanks! Thus, may I ask was the path the problem or did you have to do something else to get it working?

Finally before I close the ticket could I also ask how can I stop "administrators post from showing up in user profiles/followers etc pages? As each time as an admin I make a config change to an article it shows up in the connected users profile pages is there somewhere in the configuration that I am not seeing g that I can set to stop administrators updates from showing up on user profile updates pages? I cant seem to see where in the backend.

Thanks
Bamidele

Hi there,

I have done nothing actually on your site and tried to implement those path on your site and works as it should.

As each time as an admin I make a config change to an article it shows up in the connected users profile pages is there somewhere in the configuration that I am not seeing g that I can set to stop administrators updates from showing up on user profile updates pages? I cant seem to see where in the backend.

Are you referring to Articles update/edit? if yes, you can turn them off here http://take.ms/C00hr. But it seems that those settings already disabled on your end.

May i know which post are you referring to? Please advice.

Dear Abdul,


aduwaif posted a new article
17 hours ago

On user pages that have "followers" when another user makes a post (in this case "aduwaif posted a new article
17 hours ago" made a change to an article then the whole article got posted (repeatedly) on the users page which also shows up on other users that are being "followed".

Is there a way to prevent this happening especially when the person who made the post was an administrator/super user? I know users can "hide" posts but best prevention than cure so if it is possible to prevent such post showing up in the first place the better.

Hope this helps to explain things better?

Thanks
Bamidele

Hi there,

Currently, it seems that this articles app http://take.ms/GzWYJ does not saved correctly. I have re-saved it and it should not shown now.

Please give it a check and see how it goes.

Dear Abdul,

Thanks seems like you resolved it as it seems to be working normal now!

Thanks for the assistance and I will mark this one as resolved. In the meantime do have a pleasant week!

Peace
Bamidele

Hi Bamidele,

Thanks for the updates and have a pleasant weeks also.

By the way, you are most welcome. Glad to hear that your issue has been resolved now.

Just for your information, I have locked and marked this thread as resolved to avoid confusions in the future. Please start a new thread if you have any other issue in the future so it will be easier for us to manage your inquiries.

Thanks for understanding.