Reloading pictures from LR to a new PIWIGO installation causing errors and unexpected album configurations

[KCFoto]

Recently I changed to my new internet provider where I made a clean PIWIGO (16.2.0) installation.

Iwanted to re-upload all my earlier published pictures again to my new site.
First step i tried was: check and link Piwigo structure

While trying to do that I received all kinds of error messages resulting in erranous album configurations a the PIWIGO side such as:

• The album/subalbum structure is not correctly transferred to Piwigo Not al subalbums are set correctly, some subalbums are set to ther main directory
• Some pictures al uploaded to a complete different direction (Al picture supposed to go to album\2016\race1 went to album\2014\race xxx

In Piwigo a main directory called "NULL"appeared and could not be deleted.
Also a long list of warnings was indicated on the albums page
Synchronising and repairing in the Mainrtenance panel repaired the above

The error message: Doc1.pdf

Am I doing something wrong or is this an error?

Thanks for your help

[fjb2020]

To help me understand what has happened, can I check the following:

Did you have a wortking publish service connected to your previous Piwigo host?

When setting you your new clean Piwigo host did you then change the connection details in your existing publish service or create a new one connected to the new Piwigo host?

[KCFoto]

I have no working connection to my previous host. I started testing this after my website was migrated to a new host including a clean install of PIWIGO.

I kept the settings in my publish services as they were. I created a new account matching the existing publish service credentials

Then I tested the publish service with setting up 2 test albums on the new host through this service on the clean PIWIGO instal on my new host. This worked as expected.

Then I tried to republish the existing (published on the old host) albums one by one. This gave errors on both the publish service as wel as on the PIWIGO ( The album called NULL and some messages as above) which I repaired though the maintenance functions of PIWIGO).

Then I cleared al albums on the PIWIGO admin menu an tried the check and link piwigo structure. Again with the same (or similar) issues.

Hope this helps

[fjb2020]

Thank you for the information.

I've just pushed a new release which includes some changes that may help, though at the moment I am not clear what has caused the issue.

My approach to migrating to a new Piwigo host would be

• create a new, empty, publish service connected to the new host.
• run the Clone Existing Publish Service option and select the old publish service to clone.

This should clone collections/sets and images from the old service and create the associated album structure on the new host.

FInally publish the photos which should already be in the newly created collections, in the New Photos to Publish panel for each collection

[KCFoto]

Thanks for your reply.

After updating the plugin to the latest version 202260208.32 I retried to update pictures. with the same results as above.
Error:

Doc1.pdf

After clearing the Piwigo albums and foto's on my new host I followed the clone procedure as you suggested.

This worked fine in LR an cloned al albums and subalbums in LR. No updated yet on the Piwigo host.
Then I uploaded 32 pictures in one subalbum (eg album2023/subalbum2023-06-25 Race xxx). This resulted in 32 uploaded pictures in album /subalbum 2023-06-25. However is dit not create the main album 2023.

I did not test any further after this.

Any thoughts suggestions?

[KCFoto]

Update:

I did another test: first clone the published service from the older one. This did create the sets and albums on LR but did not create anything on the Piwigo host. After this I ran the check and link piwigo structure. After this the sets and albums were created on the Piwigo host.

This procedure seems to work. I will test further from this.

[fjb2020]

Thanks for the update.

I wonder whether an assumption I made in the Clone Service code is causing this problem.

In an earlier message you mention a new host including a clean install of PIWIGO, and my assumption was that this has a different hostname to your previous one.

The Clone Service behaviour is as follows:

• Cloning a non-Piwigo service, or from a Piwigo publish service with a different host url

  • clones the collections/sets and images and then goes on to create the corresponding albums on the Piwigo host by calling the Check and Link Piwigo Structure function

• Cloning from a Piwigo publish service with the same host url

  • clones the collections/sets and images, but 'assumes' that the Piwigo albums and images are already in place and so does not attempt to create them on Piwigo

A fresh Piwigo installtion using the same hostname as previously would fail to run the Check and Link Piwigo Structure - but this is needed in this case.

As it seems like you had to run the Check and Link Piwigo Structure manaually this is possibly the reason.

If that's the case I'd missed that scenario it in my testing.

[KCFoto]

Thanks for your response

First I removed all sets, albums and photo's to create an empty Piwigo on mij new host.

Then indeed I cloned a piwigo publish service (which was made with the old Allyphotoplugin by the way) with the same host url as on the previous host. The previous host is no longer available nor conneced in any way. And indeed the "check and link" did add what was needed, being adding the set/album structure to Piwigo.

All the errors I have encountered seem to come from the plugin not knowing what to do when there is no corresponding set or album existing on the piwigo host.
The Alloy photo plugin did create this automatically so it was my assumtion that this would work on this plugin like that as wel.

PS:
I still have a fully operational registered version of the Alloyphoto plugin but I am not using it anymore to avoid unexpected interferences.

PS2:
Thanks for all the work you are putting in this. I really appreciate this!

[fjb2020]

That's helpful as I now understand why the errors appeared.

Can I check that now you've run the check and link process that you have a working installation or are you still encountering errors?

The original thinking and design behind the Clone Service option was to allow easy migration from the Alloyphoto plugin to this one - preserving links etc - where the Piwigo host remained intact. I expanded it to allow non-piwigo services to also be cloned but hadn't considered the scenario you are using it for - I can now incorporate some additional checks to cope with this in the future.

[KCFoto]

After running the check and link proces I uploaded the all sets and albums ( 5 sets and 8500 pictures in 100 albums spread over them). So far it works fine.

I have seen an occasion where pictures did not get updated after a change in LR. This may have been a cashing thing on my host. I will test this again and report an additional issue if this is a real problem.

So far, so good. Thanks