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How does signal do media messages? All the time i'll open signal and see someone sent a picture but I have to download it. If signal doesn't store anything on i

How does signal do media messages? All the time i'll open signal and see someone sent a picture but I have to download it. If signal doesn't store anything on it's own servers but ip and timestamp, where is this media message stored after it's sent but before I received? Am I just downloading it from the device that sent it to me? That would explain why it's so unreliable.

wskinner 8y ago
Signal does store encrypted media on their servers until your client downloads it (and for some time after).
windexh8er 8y ago
"Unreliable" - It's not. I've been using it since the early RedPhone and TextSecure days. The only times it's been remotely unreliable is because of my connectivity. I can say I've never had either a lost picture or file sent to me that I can recall. My family and circle of friends (~40 people) use it daily. I just transferred my backup from my old phone to a new one (which by the way thank you for implementing real backups Signal devs!) and I was surprised that my backup sat at over 300 thousand messages. I do leverage many group chats that are repositories of pictures, but I was actually surprised at the volume. To say Signal is "unreliable" is bull shi*. It's a fantastic product and service that I would gladly pay for but am glad it's free. In the meantime I'll continue to donate as Signal has been very reliable in my years of use.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  Sorry but you must see how that's obviously jumping to conclusions. Just because you haven't had issues with Signal doesn't mean it's reliable. I have been using it for 3 years and struggle to recommend it to people because I constantly have reliability issues, including messages delayed for hours, bugs where contacts get in an unusable state and other little weird things. Whatsapp doesn't have these issues, so even if it's due to not being online 100% of the time, Signal should deal with it.
  - windexh8er 8y ago
    I'm not jumping to conclusions. For a product to have millions of users and no long term, outstanding, unfixed issues in their repo I don't seem to see the validity in your claim. Claiming it's Signal because your WhatsApp works is, obviously, jumping to conclusions. Can you provide any issue you've submitted from years ago that hasn't been addressed? Please post it, I'd like to see.
    - pwnna 8y ago
      Uh... about the long term unfixed issues.. They don't have them in their repo because they just close the ones that are open too long: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/7598 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/7598 Granted, a lot of these are probably outdated. However, given that there are literally >1000 issues closed by a bot, there must be some that are still valid but no one actually looked at it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ngngngng 8y ago
  Signal is great, but on my home internet sending and receiving a photo in fb messenger or whatsapp might take 3-4 seconds total. In signal it regularly takes 30 seconds just to send or receive. I'm inclined to believe that's a problem with signal.
markovbot 8y ago
It stores encrypted messages server side until all of your devices have downloaded it or some time period has passed (not sure how long, based on my limited observations, maybe around a month?). About having to click on images to download them: it should automatically download pictures unless you don't have the sender in your contacts. Auto downloading on cellualr networks might be disabled by default though.

wskinner 8y ago

Signal does store encrypted media on their servers until your client downloads it (and for some time after).

windexh8er 8y ago

"Unreliable" - It's not. I've been using it since the early RedPhone and TextSecure days. The only times it's been remotely unreliable is because of my connectivity. I can say I've never had either a lost picture or file sent to me that I can recall. My family and circle of friends (~40 people) use it daily. I just transferred my backup from my old phone to a new one (which by the way thank you for implementing real backups Signal devs!) and I was surprised that my backup sat at over 300 thousand messages. I do leverage many group chats that are repositories of pictures, but I was actually surprised at the volume. To say Signal is "unreliable" is bull shi*. It's a fantastic product and service that I would gladly pay for but am glad it's free. In the meantime I'll continue to donate as Signal has been very reliable in my years of use.

akvadrako 8y ago
Sorry but you must see how that's obviously jumping to conclusions. Just because you haven't had issues with Signal doesn't mean it's reliable. I have been using it for 3 years and struggle to recommend it to people because I constantly have reliability issues, including messages delayed for hours, bugs where contacts get in an unusable state and other little weird things. Whatsapp doesn't have these issues, so even if it's due to not being online 100% of the time, Signal should deal with it.
- windexh8er 8y ago
  I'm not jumping to conclusions. For a product to have millions of users and no long term, outstanding, unfixed issues in their repo I don't seem to see the validity in your claim. Claiming it's Signal because your WhatsApp works is, obviously, jumping to conclusions. Can you provide any issue you've submitted from years ago that hasn't been addressed? Please post it, I'd like to see.
  - pwnna 8y ago
    Uh... about the long term unfixed issues.. They don't have them in their repo because they just close the ones that are open too long: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/7598 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/7598 Granted, a lot of these are probably outdated. However, given that there are literally >1000 issues closed by a bot, there must be some that are still valid but no one actually looked at it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ngngngng 8y ago
Signal is great, but on my home internet sending and receiving a photo in fb messenger or whatsapp might take 3-4 seconds total. In signal it regularly takes 30 seconds just to send or receive. I'm inclined to believe that's a problem with signal.

markovbot 8y ago

It stores encrypted messages server side until all of your devices have downloaded it or some time period has passed (not sure how long, based on my limited observations, maybe around a month?). About having to click on images to download them: it should automatically download pictures unless you don't have the sender in your contacts. Auto downloading on cellualr networks might be disabled by default though.