PhotoDeckHelp CenterBackground jobs
Some tasks on PhotoDeck are not performed immediately when you trigger them: heavier work is placed in a queue and performed in the background, so that you can keep working without waiting. You can follow the pending background jobs of your account under Avatar / Background jobs.
Most actions are performed instantly: only tasks that can take some time are handed over to the background, and the list only shows the unfinished jobs that belong to your account.
What kind of tasks run in the background?
Background jobs do most of the heavy lifting on PhotoDeck, for example:
- the processing of media after an upload or a replacement (previews, video encoding…), and reprocessing when needed
- imports and exports: CSV metadata updates, imports from an FTP inbox, exports of your account data, clients or orders
- e-commerce operations: charging an order, delivering the sold files, preparing lab orders
- website tasks: delivering a newsletter, rebuilding your sitemap, provisioning your SSL certificate
- account tasks: subscription changes, and the final deletion of media, media libraries or websites emptied from the trash
Each job is identified by a short technical code, like media.process for the processing of a media file. If an entry is unclear to you, please contact support!
Analyses submitted to the AI assistants are also processed in the background: please refer to the help on microjobs for more details!
Understanding the list
Jobs are listed with the most recent first:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| When | who triggered the task (you, a team member, or “System” when PhotoDeck triggered it on your behalf), and when the job was created |
| Action | the type of task, as a short technical code like media.process |
| Scheduled / next attempt | the earliest time at which the job will be performed, or the next attempt after a failure |
| Status | where the job currently stands, see the statuses below |
| Request ID | the identifier of the request that triggered the job; it links to the matching entries in the audit log |
If your account has team members, each of them only sees the jobs triggered under their own login, while the account holder sees all jobs on the account and can filter the list by team member. The list can also be filtered by action and by request ID.
When contacting support about a specific task, provide the request ID shown next to it: it lets us find and investigate the job quickly.
Job statuses
The Status column tells you what is currently happening to each job:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Queued | the job is waiting for an available worker and will start shortly; urgent tasks are picked up first |
| Scheduled | the job is deliberately planned for a later time |
| Running | the job is being performed right now |
| Waiting to retry | the last attempt failed, and the job will be retried automatically |
A job that fails is retried automatically, with increasingly long pauses between attempts, up to 25 attempts. If it still fails after that, the job is dropped: PhotoDeck support can inspect the error and help you get the task done.
Good to know
Entries disappear from the list as soon as their job completes (or once it has exhausted its retries). The list never shows finished work: an empty list simply means that nothing is waiting to be performed.
The Scheduled / next attempt time is the earliest time at which a job may start, not an estimated end time: how long a job actually takes depends on the task and on how busy the servers are.
Background jobs cannot be canceled, paused or restarted from the list. If a job seems stuck for an unusually long time, please contact support with its request ID.
FAQ
Why is my media still processing?
Most likely it is simply waiting in the queue: background jobs are performed one after the other, and urgent tasks (for example order processing) are handled first. The time shown for a job is the earliest possible start time, not an estimated end time, and videos in particular can take a while to process. If a job seems stuck for an unusually long time, please contact support with the request ID shown next to it.
Why did an entry disappear from my background jobs list?
Because the job is finished: entries are removed from the list as soon as a job completes, or once it has exhausted its retries after a failure. The list only ever shows pending work, so an empty list is good news: nothing is waiting to be performed.
Can I cancel or restart a background job?
No. Background jobs are performed automatically: they cannot be canceled, paused or restarted from the admin space. If you believe a job has failed or is stuck, please contact support with the request ID shown next to the job so that we can investigate.