Thumbnails - Catalog
This information is for the legacy Catalog that has been replaced by UltraCart StoreFronts as of May 2015.
This information remains for long time merchants who may still be using a legacy catalog. Please see the StoreFronts User Guide for current catalog technology.
Thumbnail Images
Introduction
Thumbnails are important. Every online store has them. UltraCart will automatically create thumbnails for common image formats (jpg, gif, png) whenever you upload an image to an item's multimedia gallery (Home → Item Management → Items → [Select an Item]. Whenever you make a change an an item's multimedia gallery, fresh thumbnails are scheduled. If you change the Image URL (a deprecated feature), a thumbnail is also scheduled. But you really shouldn't use deprecated features...
Thumbnail Status
UltraCart receives a lot of inquires about thumbnails. The most common question is "I uploaded a picture and refreshed my web site. Where is the thumbnail?" Thumbnail creation is offloaded to a separate server farm to avoid impacting the main server farm. Creating thumbnails consumes large amounts of memory.
There are two image farms, large and small. Large images (around 2Mb or larger) are separated from small, again, for performance reasons.
UltraCart has a page that shows the status of your thumbnails.
Navigate to:
Main Menu → Catalog → [Tool Section] → Thumbnail Status
The thumbnail status page will display the following metrics:
Metric | Description |
|---|---|
Pending Thumbnail Checks | This is the number of thumbnails awaiting processing. |
Total Thumbnails | This is the total number of thumbnails scheduled/generated for your site |
Other Merchant Checks in front | The system goes round robin, and this lets you know your position in line |
Seconds Until Next Run | The system runs in batch mode periodically. This metric lets you know when the next batch run will happen. |
Any errors, such as invalid formats or 404 (not found) links that prevent thumbnail generation will display at the bottom. Use these errors to correct any issues.
