IIP serves random, few small images very slowly (6x)

Ramon — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 13:06:06 -0000

I am using iipsrv 1.3 (and kakadu 8.5) apache 2.4

the server log does not show anything strange,
I thought at Disk IO at first, since the images are loaded from a NFS mount , then I tried using memcache but this was happening as well.

this is happening only when loading the small images for the mirador navigation, or when loading a group of thumbnails, what I noticed is that this is happening for 2 or 3 images out the first 10 requested

in the logs the images "37204602180215904973301709441820852317.jp2" and "34358478046495137033153354458709325349.jp2" are loaded by the browser in more than one second, the other images are around 300ms

IIP serves random, few small images very slowly (6x)

Ruven — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 09:42:11 -0000

What version of iipsrv are you running? And could you copy and paste the section of the log file when this happens?

This kind of thing can also sometimes happen due to reasons unrelated to iipsrv, such buffering in disk input/output or at the front-end web server level. So check also your web server logs for anything abnormal.

IIP serves random, few small images very slowly (6x)

Ramon — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 11:38:25 -0000

Hallo

I am using IIP image server compiled with kakadu to serve jp2000 from apache
I am serving the images to mirador viewer, when mirador loads the initial thumbnail list (all thumbs are +-3KB) the thumbs are loaded in 150-300ms except a few, 3 or 4 that are loaded in +-1200ms , these are not sequential but like the 4th 7th en 9th .
I tried to use memcached but no real improvement

Where can the issue be ?

This is my configuration:

FcgidInitialEnv MAX_IMAGE_CACHE_SIZE "100"
FcgidInitialEnv JPEG_QUALITY "75"
FcgidInitialEnv MAX_CVT "5000"
FcgidInitialEnv MAX_LAYERS "-1"
FcgidInitialEnv KAKADU_READMODE "0"
FcgidInitialEnv CORS "*"
FcgidInitialEnv CACHE_CONTROL "max-age=86400"

Serving images with transparent backgrounds

Ruven — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 10:12:21 -0000

You can create the tiled pyramid TIFFs using vips in the usual way. However, JPEG doesn't support alpha channels, so make sure you save your TIFF either using lossless compression such as Deflate or LZW like this:

vips tiffsave source_image output_image.tif --tile --pyramid --compression deflate --tile-width 256 --tile-height 256

Or if you want lossy compression, TIFF supports WebP compression which does allow transparency.

You can then use your TIFF image through OpenSeaDragon's Deepzoom API using a URL syntax like:

http://hostname/fcgi-bin/iipsrv.fcgi?DeepZoom=filename.tif.dzi

However, iipsrv hardcodes the format field in the metadata XML response to JPEG, so you'll need to override this either by changing iipsrv's src/DeepZoom.cc and compiling iipsrv yourself or by using javascript to override OpenSeaDragon's DziTileSource's fileFormat field. Another option would be to do this with some Apache server-side re-writing to change "jpg" to "png" on-the-fly when the request is made to the above URL.

Serving images with transparent backgrounds

Giles Hudson — Sun, 11 Aug 2024 08:59:40 -0000

Hi,
What is the best way of creating pyramids of images with transparent backgrounds? Is there a utility that can create pyramidal pngs? What would the URL syntax be for reading a pyramidal png in openseadragon?
Thanks

openseadragon + IIPImage

Ruven — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 00:10:47 -0000

By the way, I tried with a few images on the Chronicling America site and they all seem to work, so maybe it is indeed a problem at your end.

Thank you, sir, for the information!

openseadragon + IIPImage

Ruven — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 12:01:02 -0000

Again, I'm very sorry to inconvenience you, but thank you very much for your time and attention.

No problem. By the way, I tried with a few images on the Chronicling America site and they all seem to work, so maybe it is indeed a problem at your end.

openseadragon + IIPImage

Ruven — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 10:31:28 -0000

I'm afraid that you are correct that this is not the right place to ask.

I'm sorry for the mistake! I mistakenly thought this was affiliated with OpenSeaDragon.

Again, I'm very sorry to inconvenience you, but thank you very much for your time and attention.

--Charlie Jack

openseadragon + IIPImage

Ruven — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 10:09:36 -0000

Maybe this is the wrong place to post this, and if so, I apologize in advance, but here goes nothing:

I'm afraid that you are correct that this is not the right place to ask. From what I can see, the Library of Congress does not use either the IIPImage server or viewer. The software they use is the OpenSeaDragon viewer, so you could try asking for help on their help forums.

openseadragon + IIPImage

Ruven — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 02:51:39 -0000

Maybe this is the wrong place to post this, and if so, I apologize in advance, but here goes nothing:

I'm getting a similar error message when I attempt to access the Library of Congress's Chronicling America newspaper database in the customary way (i. e., by clicking links on a blog):

Unable to open [object Object]: HTTP 0 attempting to load TileSource

I get a similar message when I try to access Chronicling America by entering their website. However, I can usually get the document (i. e., the newspaper page) by clicking the PDF icon at the top of the viewer. Additionally, I can usually get an enlarged version of the newspaper page by clicking the scissors icon there. Also, remarkably, at least some of those links which lead to pages which I've clipped in the past seem to work on the viewer.

I also got that "Unable to open" message when I tried to access a map on the Library of Congress website.

I've e-mailed someone at the Library of Congress about this, and the contact person seemed to hint that the problem was on my end--that is, he asked me what my operating system was (Windows 11) and what browser I was using (Chrome, although after I first encountered the problem, I unsuccessfully experimented with Edge to see if I'd get a different result). I think he also said that no one else had complained about it. For all I know, that could just mean that there aren't very many "old newspaper nerds" who know about LOC's beautiful newspaper database.

Anyway, as folks say where I'm at now (Taiwan), "Zenmeban?" (how to manage?).

If you've read this far, thank you for your time and attention, and if the problem is on my end, or if it's intractable, the workarounds I mentioned above (especially the PDF one) should suffice.

Thanks, and again, I apologize if I've posted this in the wrong place,
Charlie Jack (Charles B. Jack)
Banqiao District, New Taipei City, Taiwan

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