Common Issues and Questions
Image Sizes
The file upload page contains a button, "Instructions and Restrictions on Uploading Images".
The page that displays contains information on image sizes.
You are encouraged to upload an image with pixel dimensions up to double the maximum size
that might be used in any competition, but not larger than a physical screen size that
might be used to display the image.
Members might belong to multiple organizations or images might be forwarded to
an external competition. Each destination might have different specifications.
A copy of each image is downsized, if necessary, to comply with a competition size limit.
This size image is used when judging or voting on an image.
This is the size downloaded with the ICM program.
When viewing images on the website, the image will be sized to fit in the browser window.
If you have a high resolution monitor, the image could be scaled up or down to fit
in the browser window.
If your image is small, any upscale action might cause the image to be degraded.
Images are not scaled up in judging or voting mode.
High resolution monitors will use a "zoom" factor to scale images displayed in browsers.
Browsers report back their un-scaled dimensions, so we send more pixels to ensure
that images display in their full fidelity. There is no need to send more pixels than the physical
monitor supports.
If you right-click and save an image that is displayed in the browser, you will get an
image that has been sized to fit the browser window and may not be the size of
the original image.
Duplicate Images
When a duplicate image is detected, the website generates a detailed message
identifying the duplicate. The message is always accurate.
The system can easily detect when a pixel identical image is uploaded
and it is handled automatically by rejecting the new upload and using
the existing image instead.
If you make a minor change to an image so the images are not identical pixel by pixel,
the system compares the metadata for the images, including the date and time the
image was created. If there is a match, we warn the user when they upload
the image and ask them to resolve how the images should be handled.
The matching process will not be perfect, which is why we ask authors to specify
the action to be taken.
If you have a duplicate title, we warn the user, but add the Image Id to the title
to make it unique. No action is required by the author.
Date and Regional Formats
All of the date, time, currency and other locale specific formatting comes
from the browser and operating system configuration values.
If USA formats are displaying, it is because the browser or operating system
specified a USA locale.
Each operating system and each browser has a different method for setting your locale.
Your locale settings are usually set for your operating system and your
browser will default to those settings.
On Windows 10:
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Open your Windows Settings and click "Time & Language".
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Select "Region" on the left side of the form.
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Select your "Country or Region" at the top of the form.
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Select your "Regional Format" value.
The formatting of dates and time is displayed below your selection.
If the operating system settings are correct, you need to examine regional (locale)
settings for your browsers.
You may need to search for instructions for your specific browser.
Email Not Delivered
The first place to check for missing email message is your Junk mail folder.
If you are storing your email locally you may also need to check the website
version of your email as well. If you find a message in your junk mail folder
from your organization you will need to mark the domain "SoftwarePursuits.com"
as "not junk". There is always an option for a "white list" for email that
should always be allowed.
This should prevent future messages from being delivered to the junk mail folder.
It is also common for people to mark email from organizations as spam.
If a member does this for email from your organization, our email service
respects that selection and blocks all future email to that person.
This is part of the anti-spam laws that we must follow.
We use an email service from SendGrid to send email from our websites.
We send about 100,000 messages per month to about 10,000 users and there are
always a few that people mark messages as spam.
A member can reset this spam indicator by logging into the website
and using the menu "My Account", "My Account Settings".
There is a button there to clear the "spam" flag on your email address.
It is also possible that an Internet provider for a recipient's email will
reject messages, thinking they are spam.
There should be no reason for such rejections as we follow all of the
security and identification protocols.
Website email messages, however, have one unusual aspect.
All messages are sent from NoReply@SoftwarePursuits.com, but the "Reply To"
address is for the person sending the message.
This method is used to avoid a "message relay", which would nearly always
cause a message to be treated as spam.
If an Internet provider rejects email as spam, there is little we can do,
but subscribers can contact them for help and provide the information above.
Restricted Images
A "Restricted Image" is an image that will only display when a member is logged in.
If you are not logged in, a placeholder image is displayed that says "Restricted".
These images are flagged by the author or the system to block the display of images
that might not be appropriate for public display, such as nudes or violent content.
Individual images may me marked as "restricted" by checking an option for the image
when uploading or when editing the image in an Image Library.
Authors can also set a profile setting to restrict the display of all of their images.
Go to "My Account", "My Account Settings" for details.
The system may also mark an image as restricted if it is discovered that is contains adult
or violent content. This is mostly an automated process provided by Google.
They rate the probability that the image may need to be restricted.
ViewState Errors
When an update is published to your website, it is possible that a person using
the website might get an error when they access a page.
This is a temporary issue caused by the browser caching old references to the website.
There is nothing wrong with the website.
Our server validates the data sent from each page as a security measure and
if it receives data cached from a prior update to the website it will generate
a "ViewState" error.
The problem is usually remedied by one of these steps:
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Click the "Refresh" button on your browser.
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Exit all copies of your browser and try again.
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Re-boot your machine and try again.
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Try a different browser. Each browser has an independent cache, which is
eventually purged of old data.