Sorry, Zip File Not Found

A customer reported this error when trying to download files from their gallery using the "Download All" button. I confirmed that it is happening, but only when you select "Large" downloads. The file sizes are not too big - 1.5 mb per file. There are 80 files in the directory. PHP zip functions are turned on.

I did a quick search and could not quickly find what to check - I am sure I have seen this issue come up before. Can anyone point me in the right direction to troubleshoot.

Thank you

I had this issue a week ago. Something with the new update it appears to me. Check your sessions folder on the website to see if any old sessions are still there. Delete those and it should work fine. Tim, advised he'll look into it but no time line to correct it.

What I have seen a couple of times now (which has absolutely nothing to do with the recent upgrade) is during the zipping process the zip file just disappears when it gets to a certain size.

My theory right now is that the zip file becomes larger than the amount of space available in the /tmp folder (which is a server folder) and when it does it is deleted. 

You can watch this behavior by viewing /sy-photos/zips , start the creation of the zip file and while it is working, refresh that /sy-photos/zips folder and you will see the process. 

My plans is to be able to set a level of which this may happen and then split the zip into separate zip files (which means the customer will have to download  zip 1, zip 2, etc...)

What you can try to do is separate that gallery into sub galleries where is sub gallery is downloaded separately and not too large where it disappears. 

Using Saratoga Hosting for my Sytist for many years.
Have used Pictures Pro since inception... prior to Website D.
Saratoga recently updated servers on their end.
I have all the most recent Sytist updates installed.
This issue appeared for me with my latest gallery with 215 images.
I separated those into 2 sub galleries of about 105 images in each gallery.
Still had the issue happening.
I've spent 8+ hours toubleshooting this issue with Dave at Saratoga.
I understand the session files are being retained within the software that normally would be deleted, this causes the host server to lock up due to the size limit of the web hosting package purchased.
If the session files are/were auto-deleted by the software, I understand this issue would not be happening.
Never had any issue with Pictures Pro not resolving an issue when the software isn't working properly.
I'm not a programmer.
I just know it appears to work fine when I manually remove the session files.

Thank you both for your suggestions. Tim, I can confirm that it seems to be a "hit or miss" problem - perhaps having to do with traffic on the server. The same client gallery that did not work yesterday creates no errors today, and produces a downloadable zip file. I did monitor the /sy-photos/zip folder and it created some temporary files as it worked (a few seconds) and then a final zip file.

M Davis - you suggested clearing out old sessions in the sessions folder - am I correct to assume that you are referring to the /sy-phpsessions folder? I do have some stuff in there, and it is all from a single day in 2022 - I am guessing there was some issue back then. I deleted the cruft I found there (after backing it up just in case) and I have noticed no impact to the functioning of Sytist.

Tim or M Davis - does the presence of files (especially old files) in /sy-phpsessions indicate a problem?

Geoffrey, are you using AWS by chance to host your images separate from your host provider? Also, have you checked the errors text log on your site. If so, are you seeing any errors in the log file?

My understanding, if your hosting plan is restricted to a certain size limit - or data transfer limit - that the old sessions files will take up space with the host provider.  Thus, when you create new zips, the host provider will shut down or restrict or place a cap on the process from working, because you will be going over the allotted space for the hosting plan. 

Why those old session files are not being automatically deleted once the session is concluded, leads me to think it is a programming error. However, I am only a lay person with no programing experience, just a logical thinker. 

M Davis - not an AWS thing as I don't use AWS. I self-host on a dedicated server. However, I have not checked into error logs at this point. If I continue to see issues that will be the next place I look. Since it is my own server, there is no data cap or size limits beyond the physical limits of the machine.

For whatever it is worth, my old session files were all from a single day nearly two years ago - nothing since then, so I have to assume that there is some checking being done to delete older sessions, or perhaps there is a new way that sessions are tracked.

Interesting. Thank you. I can rule out AWS. My session files were old ones, as well.