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[Smush Pro] Issues with Smush & caching

Hi wpmudev team,
I recently bought a wpmudev licence (with a nice Blackfriday discount, thank you for that!) and started implementing the plugins.
Smush Pro was first on my list, as I was a Smush user already (free version). I was aiming for better jpg/png compression, combined with using your CDN. Installation, bulk smush, map smush, CDN… It all went fine.
Then I installed Hummingbird and ran a performance test. The “Audits” section of the Performance test recommends to “Serve images in next-gen formats”, followed by a list of images in the upload folder (that are effectively used on my site). I should use Smush Pro to fix this…
Also, I should “Efficiently encode images”, using Smush Pro… and “Avoid enormous network payloads” (the same pictures are listed because of not being Smush’ed I assume).

Smush settings: All image sizes, Automatic compression on, Super-Smush on, remove metadata, PNG to JPG conversion, Bulk Smush successfully done. No Lazy Load because of documented issues with Uncode Adaptive Images feature.

I use WP 5.3, Uncode theme v2.2.3 (with child theme active), PHP 7.2.18, running on Apache/2, url https://www.monx.be
I successfully ported my site to wpmudev.host to see if I’d run into the same issues, and that is indeed the case, url http://www.wpmudev.host (password protected for the moment)

I could really use some assistance/support here, as I’m looking for a solution for days now.

Thu, 5 Dec 2019 15:58:50
More Smush Pro discussions
Smush Pro
  • Nithin Ramdas
    • Support Wizard

    Hi Wilfried ,

    Could you please enable support access to your website so that we could check regarding what all settings are enabled in the plugin side, and what further could be done to help fix the issues noticed.

    You can grant access from WPMU DEV > Support > Support Access > Grant Access, or check this manual: https://wpmudev.com/docs/getting-started/getting-support/#chapter-5

    Please let us know once you enable access so that we could get this sorted. Have a nice day.. :slight_smile:

    Kind Regards,
    Nithin

  • Nithin Ramdas
    • Support Wizard

    Hi Wilfried ,

    Thanks for enabling support access could notice the issue with improvements stated for “Serve images in next-gen formats”, “Efficiently encode images”, and “Avoid enormous network payloads”.

    However, would like to test the website with Private Mode disabled to ensure the latest changes are being reflected in the Page Performance report, and it isn’t a cache. In private mode, the page speed results won’t be accurate in point out what might be causing this. Is it okay, if we temporarily disable the private mode on your website so that we could test further? Didn’t want to disable private mode without confirmation from your side.

    Please do let us know so that we could test further, and see what further improvements could be looked upon.

    Kind Regards,
    Nithin

  • Nithin Ramdas
    • Support Wizard

    Hi Wilfried ,

    Thanks for the update. I checked the website Page speed by disabling the Private mode and could notice some improvements, but the same aspects were still being pointed in the page speed score.

    For “Serve images in next-gen formats” the images should have been replaced with Smush CDN link, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

    Also, images seem to be smushed at it’s fullest, so it’s odd that it’s being displayed as issues under “Efficiently encode images”, “Avoid enormous network payloads”.

    I’m pinging our developer regarding this to see what might have caused this and will keep you posted once I get further feedback regarding the status of the issue asap.

    I have kept the website in public mode since it’s using wpmudev.host URL the website will not get indexed by search engines.

    Will keep you updated asap.

    Kind Regards,
    Nithin

  • Nithin Ramdas
    • Support Wizard

    Hi Wilfried ,

    Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Regarding the “Serve images in next-gen formats” issue noticed, we gave a closer look and could notice the CDN is serving JPG instead of WebP for the website which is odd, and that might be causing the anomalies noticed.

    This would require further debugging, are you comfortable with us installing the beta release of Smush in your website so that we could troubleshoot this further on your website side?

    For images listed under “Efficiently encode images” most of the images listed have a different thumbnail when compared to the default WordPress thumbnail format, that’s:

    Header-homepage-uai-1440x1080.jpg
boerenenburen-uai-803x803.jpg
logo-Brabanders-uai-273x273.jpg

    Where the “-uai” suffix doesn’t seem to be part of the default WordPress thumbnails. Smush by default will only optimize default WordPress thumbnail, the suffix mentioned is what’s causing the images to not get detected, and hence not optimized.

    I’m afraid, there isn’t any workaround to smush images which uses custom suffixes or thumbnails, and would require optimizing such images manually.

    Other than that, there’s one image which is also listed under “Efficiently encode images”, which is:
    https://monx.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KBG_pastel_blue-1024x1024.jpg

    The above image is an original image and not a thumbnail and since Smush by default optimizes thumbnails the above image wasn’t optimized.

    To fix that, you can enable the ” Smush my original full-size images” option in Smush Pro settings under “Original Images“, and manually smush the mentioned individual above via Media > Library
    which should ensure the image is compressed.

    Regarding “Avoid enormous network payloads” in general it means the page is really big, and enabling Lazyload settings or adding smaller images and reducing the number of images would be the way ahead.

    Since support access can get terminated unexpectedly to troubleshoot the issue with Smush CDN further, could you also share the WP admin login?

    You can send credentials by using our secure contact form: https://wpmudev.com/contact/#i-have-a-different-question

    – To Mark to my attention, the subject line should contain only: ATTN: Nithin Ramdas
    -WordPress admin username
    -WordPress admin password
    -login URL

    Please do follow up on the ticket once you have sent the above credentials. Have a nice day.

    Kind Regards,
    Nithin

  • Wilfried
    • Flash Drive

    Hi Nithin,

    No problem to install the beta release of the Smush plugin.

    The “uai” suffix comes from the Uncode theme I’m using (Uncode Adaptive Images). How could I manually optimize these images/thumbnails? Compress the images myself in the upload directory?

    I created an account for you with full access, credentials were sent via the form.

    Kind regards,
    Wilfried.

  • Nithin Ramdas
    • Support Wizard

    Hi Wilfried ,

    Thanks for sharing the login, unfortunately, password shared seems to be incorrect, getting the following error:
    FOUT: Het wachtwoord ingevoerd voor de gebruikersnaam Nithin_support is incorrect..

    Since support access to the website is no longer enabled, I couldn’t reset the password too. Could you please either re-enable support access or share the correct password for the shared WP admin login the same way as before?

    How could I manually optimize these images/thumbnails? Compress the images myself in the upload directory?

    I’m afraid, there isn’t an easy workaround. Maybe you could move the images to /wp-content folder using SFTP login, and then Smush these images using “Directory Smush” feature in the plugin side.

    Once done, move the images back to the respective /wp-content/uploads folder. Or you’ll have to use a tool like Photoshop and manually optimize the images, and re-upload in the /wp-content/uploads/ folder

    Regards,
    Nithin

  • Anton Vanyukov
    • Ex Staff

    Hi Wilfried ,

    I have tested out both image compression and CDN support on your site. The theme feature Asynchronous Adaptive Image is not allowing Smush to properly replace the images with CDN links, because images are loaded after the page was parsed by Smush. I would recommend you to contact theme support and make a query about this. Maybe they can provide an integration module or share some filter that Smush can use to filter such images.

    Regarding the image sizes. This is what I found on the theme support page:

    If you optimize your images with ShortPixel, please activate the option Theme Options → Performance → Register Metadata available from Uncode 2.2. After activating this option, we recommend that you delete the Adaptive Images that have been created, using the command Theme Options → Performance → Delete all AI Images. In this way, they will be regenerated again with the Metadata useful for the operation of the ShortPixel plugin.

    I believe this should fix it for Smush as well because we are also using metadata to find the images for compression. If you do decide to test this out, I strongly suggest that you do a backup first.

    Best regards,
    Anton

  • Wilfried
    • Flash Drive

    Hi Anton,

    Thanks for your answer.

    The Adaptive Image feature from the Uncode theme I’m using is clearly not compatible with Smush. I tried disabling this feature completely, and then Smush worked for new images I uploaded, but not for already existing images in my upload folder.
    I’m not using the ShortPixel plugin you referred to (and that is mentioned on the Uncode support pages), so that wouldn’t lead to a solution.
    I’ll have to choose between using the Uncode Adaptive Images and disabling Smush, or the other way around.
    Thanks for the support, case can be closed.
    Kind regards,
    Wilfried.