Is it just me or is Smugmug down

down again; 2nd time this week

Didn't realize this was the second time Thanks!

Maybe its crashed from all the PBasers moving because pbase was down for a couple of days

After almost 4 years with Smugmug I gave up on them a couple months ago. They spend way too much time out of service, the weekends are hell even when just viewing images, and upload speed can be painfully slow/problematical any time. Also, there are cheaper alternatives that actually offer more. My wife is trying to get away from them (after renewing her subscription just 3 months ago) but they aren't making that easy. Finally, they refuse to embrace browsers other than IE (which we don't use).

Smugmug was good in the past but they certainly aren't what the use to be.

They are SLOW uploading! 40 photos took all night! Besides the slow upload I've been happy, for now.

It's back up and running!

bitmaker wrote:
Smugmug was good in the past but they certainly aren't what the use to be.

Which raises the question, what's the best alternative? What are you considering shifting to?

Chris Moy wrote:
They are SLOW uploading! 40 photos took all night! Besides the slow upload I've been happy, for now.

It's back up and running!

Are you shure it's SmugMug and not your connection that is so slow? Normaly I upload 40 photos in a couple of minutes at SmugMug

What uploader are you using? When I use the java plug-in its pretty quick. I uploaded a slew of stuff last week and I'd estimate that 40 photos would have taken me under 25 minutes. Are you on cable or DSL? Upload speeds are very different from download speeds on those. I'm on Verizon FiOS which is known for much better upload speeds. Just saying it might be your ISP rather than SM.

That being said, I also am frustrated by the down time. Last week it went down right while I was doing some updates to my layout and it made things look pretty bad until I was able to get back in and finish. I'm also interested in alternatives (specifically ones that won't break the bank right now).

I was doing full-size images too, so we're talking upwards of 4-500MB.

I might give Zenfolio a try. I've spoken with two friends who've been with them for a while and they're both (mostly) happy with Zenfolio. The downside is, again, the IE issue. Like Smugmug, Zenfolio plays best with IE. One of my friends uses Safari and he states the upload speeds are very fast on his DSL. Zenfolio is a bit less expensive than Smugmug, and offers right-click-protect for all accounts (SM only offers the feature on the two more expensive accounts).

Another option is to go to a multi-rendering engine browser like Lunascape. It moves easily from Trident (IE) to Gecko (Firefox) to Webkit. So, for anyone preferring browsers like Firefox, Opera, and Safari one could easily switch Lunascape over to IE rendering to upload images and then easily get back to their preferred browser rendering engine.

I'm on DSL, Verizon. Uploading is sooooooooo slow! This is what I use to upload on my McBook Pro...

Yup, that's the same java applet that I use. But as for Verizon, their basic tier only has 128kb/s which is pretty slow. Could also be your phone line quality. Either way, I'd bet a buck that its a Verizon slowness issue rather than a SM issue.

We're on a 1.0Mb/s up DSL line here and it doesn't make any difference. There are simply times when uploading to Smugmug is a pain. Doesn't matter what uploader we use... and the upload challenges are much worse than they were just a couple years ago. Coupled with the frequent "maintenance" shut downs along with the trouble just viewing images, and we've had enough.

It's actually a bit faster here at work, also Verizon DSL. Might be our phone lines.

Trouble viewing images? Curious to hear about this. I've had an account for a while, but just started using it so I haven't seen this. Do images just not display, slow load?

Check their blog - http://smugmug.wordpress.com/

It is an issue with the infrastructure of their site and many are experiencing problems.

Jeff Langevin wrote:
Do images just not display, slow load?

It'll do both. If it's really bad, images will take forever to load... often minutes.

If they are experiencing problems with their "infrastructure", that's their problem... and it's been a problem for awhile. Shouldn't be the customers problem... they are afterall paying for a service.

bitmaker wrote:
I might give Zenfolio a try. I've spoken with two friends who've been with them for a while and they're both (mostly) happy with Zenfolio. The downside is, again, the IE issue. Like Smugmug, Zenfolio plays best with IE. One of my friends uses Safari and he states the upload speeds are very fast on his DSL. Zenfolio is a bit less expensive than Smugmug, and offers right-click-protect for all accounts (SM only offers the feature on the two more expensive accounts).



I've been with Zenfolio for three years and I'm very happy with them. The only downside I find with ZF is the lack of customization vs. SM. Otherwise, I think they are as good or better in the other areas.
I don't use IE, but use Firefox and have no issues with ZF. I use the plugin for LR2 and uploads are easy.

Hmmm... that's bothersome as I have a pro account with them. I can deal with not getting into the admin on occasion due to normal maintenance. But its been down outside of that scheduled time pretty frequently lately. My main issue is if my galleries don't load. That's unacceptable...

luke_28 wrote:
I've been with Zenfolio for three years and I'm very happy with them. The only downside I find with ZF is the lack of customization vs. SM. Otherwise, I think they are as good or better in the other areas.
I don't use IE, but use Firefox and have no issues with ZF. I use the plugin for LR2 and uploads are easy.

Thanks for the info!

I've been with SM for 2 years. However, a month ago, I decided to switch my primary hosting to Zenfolio. I have grown, very tired of all the downtime/ maintenance/ upload issues, with Smugmug. I had a Pro Acct, & dropped down, to a Power User, as the Svc & CC Fees' were higher & killing my profit margins', more than other hosting sites. I utilized MacDaddy, as my uploading tool of choice, as I was not aware, that SM, had added PhotoMechanic, as an upload tool. Connection speeds are of No Issue, on my end. I have a 10 MEG DL / 1 MEG UP, Cable Connection. Also, I have not found that IE is preferential over FireFox, as I use FF, as my browser of choice, and have yet to encounter any problems.

There would be times, while I'm uploading, that suddenly, I started getting errors with MacDaddy, & I switched over to SM, to only notice, that site was down. Sometimes' its down for 10 minutes, sometimes' its' 4 hours. Either way, that does not work for my needs, when I'm Bulk Uploading xxxx images at time. Since I switched to Zenfolio, they have had, one instance of downtime, however, they sent out an email about 3 days in advance, so you could work around it. I am extremely happy with Zenfolio. Although, you don't have the level of customization, that I have found so far, IMO, it is more streamlined & easier to use/ navigate, than Smugmug. I'm not bashing Smugmug, but the up/ down time has been a pretty steady inconvenience for me.

James

I usually kick off my SM uploads before I hit the rack for the night, so it doesn't really bother me, but I've never thought it was excessively slow. I use a LR plugin and it queues them up if I want to upload to more than one gallery.

But about those coupon codes...

I had problems with SM Pro for long time, over a year's worth of problems...the site was down a lot and host of other issues--I spent so much time on my site problems, more than actual photography by far. I documented this here on FM at the time in several long threads so won't repeat any of that...long time ago now.

I switched to Exposure Manager a couple of years ago and it was one of the best decisions I ever made regarding the web and how much time I had to spend on it. SM customer service was fast, but actual problems were far longer to fix. Exposure Manager is both quick and will actually dig into the issue and follow to a resolution that works. Any time day or night...kind of amazing really. The bottom line is that the time I spend on making my website work, or waiting for it to work, has been almost zero in over two years. I can't put a pricetag on that but it I were to bother, it would be worht a lot...not to mention the stress reduction.

Zenfolio looks interesting too but they were not around when i switched. I like thier basic setup, professional. Good presentation and you can very easily get thier brand off your site...a mandatory feature IMO and the same with Exposure Manager. I also a little off topic, just started selling DVDs and digital downloads from my site on a selected basis, along with prints...very easy to do. This feature has been on EM for a long time but wish I had not waited so long to do.

They also have coupon codes but I find that whole thing really obnoxious...please, use my code so I can save five bucks and you can too...please, ugh. We should ban coupon code posts from FM.