What does "Processing Failed" mean and how do a delete them?

[John Gold]

Newbie here.  I passed QC and got approved, but now most images I upload end up as "Processing Failed"  It does not say that they were rejected, only that they failed to process. I admit that I I have a slow internet connection, but I only upload one image at a time and make sure it fully uploads.  Another problem is that all of these "Processing Failed" images are in my submission manager and I can find no way to delete them.  How do a deleted these failed images so I can clean up the manager? 

[Harry Harrison]

You can search this forum for "Processing failed" in the quotes and that may bring up some answers. Just skimming the results suggests that there might be something irregular about the images, was the jpeg saved correctly for example, but I guess it could be an interrupted upload. Uploading one image at a time seems pretty drastic, does it arrive in the upload screen so that you then click on 'Finish upload'? Perhaps you could give a bit more detail. I can confirm that failed batches remain in your AIM but they are omitted from the download csv should you choose to use that in the future.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[Joseph Clemson]

I had a series of images fail to upload properly with the 'processing failed' message about a year ago. I eventually traced it to the metadata not being exported with the photos when I created the jpeg from RAW in Lightroom - I had managed to inadvertently untick some box or other in the export process. When I exported them with the metadata the problems was resolved. There may be other causes of the processing failure, but that was mine. As the images never reach QC the failure will not count against you in that respect. 

 

As Harry says, you can't remove batches from your submission list in AIM, they stay there forever as a reminder of one's fallibility ☹️ 

[Niels Quist]

- be sure you save the JPG file as Baseline (Standard). Somehow this setting can change nearly without noticing, I always check this setting is correct.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Niels Quist

[wiskerke]

41 minutes ago, Joseph Clemson said:

I had a series of images fail to upload properly with the 'processing failed' message about a year ago. I eventually traced it to the metadata not being exported with the photos when I created the jpeg from RAW in Lightroom - I had managed to inadvertently untick some box or other in the export process. When I exported them with the metadata the problems was resolved.

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AFAIK it's only mandatory for the first upload to include all metadata.

But I haven't tested it. 😉

 

wim

[Joseph Clemson]

4 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

AFAIK it's only mandatory for the first upload to include all metadata.

But I haven't tested it. 😉

 

wim

 

The processing failures I had at that time were on the Live News upload route. It may be that the headline/caption metadata is mandatory only on that route. Having said that, I seem to recall seeing somewhere that if all metadata had somehow be inadvertently stripped from an image prior to upload, it would be rejected either on upload or at QC - I'm not sure which.

[MDM]

I think there are several possible causes for this. Along the lines of what Joseph says, incorrect metadata formatting for Live News is definitely one. The system checks for this and automatically rejects images accordingly. These show up in the AIM and reside there permanently

 

There is also something random at work which will reject one or two images in larger batches but will accept them again on re-uploading, even as part of the same batch. I guess this is what David is referring to and is presumably a bug in the system. These don't show up in the AIM though (except maybe if all images from a batch are rejected they do?)

 

Another possible cause of automatic rejection with a similar error message used to be if the image dimensions exceeded 200MB (for panoramas). I don't know if there is still a maximum limit. These don't show up in the AIM though. It may also apply if images are below the 17MB mark. Not had that one recently either but again I don't think these show up in the AIM.

[NYCat]

I suggest emailing contributors@alamy.com. You don't show as having any images here though you say some have passed. Have you not annotated them yet?

 

Paulette

[meanderingemu]

i've had some, all from upload issues, mainly crappy WiFi.  They just get buried on the the AIM, can't see it as an issue to be honest,  maybe I am missing something.  

[John Gold]

Thanks for all the replies.  Let me try to answer a few questions.

 

I use a Sony A6500 camera and shoot my images in RAW (ARW).  I edit my images in Capture One.  I export my edited images to JPEG using the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 Profile @ 300 dpi.  I use the Stocksubmitter program to do all the keywording and metadata work on the image and to upload the image to Alamy.  Stocksubmitter shows that all the images uploaded successfully with no issues. I only upload my best special images to Alamy.  My intention is to host only my best work on here and to only post unique images that will only be available on Alamy.   

 

Hopefully this helps figure out what this issue is.  I have never had this issue with any other stock agencies, so I really don't know what the issue is.  Thanks again for your help.

[Joseph Clemson]

I believe some other contributors may also use Stocksubmitter, through I don't do so myself; they may be able to shed more light on that part of your workflow. However, as part of the process of troubleshooting your problem I'd be inclined to submit some images direct to Alamy using their web upload page and take Stocksubitter out of the equation for the time being. If the problem persists, you at least know that it is nothing to do with Stocksubmitter.

[John Gold]

29 minutes ago, Joseph Clemson said:

I believe some other contributors may also use Stocksubmitter, through I don't do so myself; they may be able to shed more light on that part of your workflow. However, as part of the process of troubleshooting your problem I'd be inclined to submit some images direct to Alamy using their web upload page and take Stocksubitter out of the equation for the time being. If the problem persists, you at least know that it is nothing to do with Stocksubmitter.

 

I will try that.  I really hope that I can find a way to use stocksubmitter though because I use it as a manager to show what has been uploaded or not.  Unfortunately, it can only manage what it uploads and cannot reverse sync data from images that are uploaded directly. Since there is apparently no way to delete failed images from my Alamy dashboard it makes really cumbersome to use it as a manager.  Right now this is what my dashboard looks like and I really need to clean it up. I am a very organized person and I do not like clutter. 

 

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by John Gold