Batch Add: Why Not /userpics?

[Ocean]

Why shouldn't you put your folders to batch add in the /userpics directory?

Just curious.  I'd accidentally done that before seeing that in big red letters, and it worked okay.  Just wondering... I've duplicated my directories outside the /userpics folder and am editing the image paths in phpMyAdmin, so I'm fixing it.

Just wanted to know the reasoning.

[Joachim Müller]

Because there have been reports of strange things happening when you do that before - the stuff you upload there just might colide with the things coppermine does when people upload with the http upload. It's possible to ftp upload to userpics and all goes well for you, but not for others, or problems may arise later.

GauGau

[Ocean]

Probably why I didn't run into any issues.  No one uses the site but me.

Nonetheless, I've moved them to their own subdirectories outside the userpics folder and edited the paths in MySQL.  Should be okay now.

[honna]

So is it a problem to batchload to the userpics directory if you are the only one
uploading pics ? Or is this only a problem if you have multiple users ?

[Joachim Müller]

You must not ftp-upload to userpics-folder. Don't ask why, just create some other folder(s) within the albums folder and ftp-upload your stuff there.

GauGau

[Casper]

The problems that it can cause are varied, and can strike later, so don't do it.

As an added security against these problems, version 1.3 has the userpics folder hidden from the batch add utility, so if you ftp your pics there, you will not be able to batch add them anyway.