Workaround: Compressed Photo Upload for Slow Connections

Been running into this one on rural job sites where cell coverage is spotty at best. When you're trying to upload photos from a completed job and the progress bar just sits there spinning, this workaround's saved me more than a few times. Summary: Manually compress photos on your device before uploading to FieldPulse when you're on a weak or metered connection. Symptoms you'll see: - Photo upload stuck at 0% or timing out repeatedly - "Upload failed" errors after multiple retries - App draining battery trying to retry failed uploads - Other sync tasks blocked behind photo uploads Why this happens: FieldPulse mobile captures full-resolution images (which is usually what you want for documentation), but on 2-3 bar LTE or flaky site WiFi, a 4-6MB photo times out before it completes. The app doesn't auto-compress — it just keeps retrying the same large file. Workaround: 1. Before you start your jobs for the day, open your phone's camera settings and temporarily switch to a lower resolution or "medium quality" mode. On iPhone: Settings > Camera > Formats > High Efficiency (already default) but also check that you're not in ProRAW. On Android: Camera app > Settings > Photo quality > Medium. 2. Pro tip: If you've already taken high-res photos and need to get them uploaded now, use your phone's built-in image editor to crop slightly (even 10% off edges) — most phones save the edited version as a new compressed file. 3. For iOS: Open photo > Edit > Crop > adjust slightly > Save as New Photo. Upload that version. 4. For Android: Gallery > Edit > Crop > Save Copy. The copy is usually 30-50% smaller. 5. Alternative if you've got tons of photos: Use a compression app like Image Size (iOS) or Photo & Picture Resizer (Android) to batch-shrink images to ~1200px width before upload. Still plenty clear for documentation purposes. Important caveats: This is a workaround, not a fix. You're trading image quality for upload reliability. If you need original resolution for insurance claims or warranty documentation, mark those specific photos and re-upload later on WiFi. Don't use this for photo evidence you might need to zoom way into later. What FieldPulse says: This is a known limitation — see Photos Upload Slowly on Weak or Spotty Connections for the official issue. Engineering has discussed auto-compression but it's not on the near-term roadmap from what I can tell. If anyone's found a better workflow for this, especially on Android, I'm all ears. The built-in editors vary a lot by manufacturer.