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After upgrading to Sitecore 8.2.something (currently Update-5), some users began to notice that the functionality to upload multiple media items at once changed.

Before the functionality was such that when you clicked on "Upload Files (advanced)" you would be prompted to select one or more files and would have the option to enter alt text. For accessibility purposes, we found this was the best experience as users were much more likely to enter alternate text.

Old Upload File interface with space to enter Alternate text

However, now they're getting a Batch Upload interface instead, which requires files to add selected individually, and doesn't prompt for alt text.

New Batch Upload interface with single file selection and no alternate text

Sitecore's documentation on Upload a file to the Media Library still displays the old functionality. I've also found mention that patching the Upload.Classic setting to true in the config will revert to the old functionality, but this doesn't appear to be relevant to this Batch Upload interface.

Since some users are still receiving the old, working, interface, is it possible to get the better interface back?

Thanks!

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5
  • have you checked if this behaviour happens on all browsers?
    – josedbaez
    Dec 7, 2017 at 17:41
  • I've only checked Chrome and IE. IE just had the Batch Upload, Chrome had both, depending upon the machine.
    – James Skemp
    Dec 7, 2017 at 20:28
  • Sorry, too late to edit. Others seem to have only used Chrome.
    – James Skemp
    Dec 7, 2017 at 20:59
  • Can you delete cookies and try again?
    – Artem Prashkovich
    Dec 7, 2017 at 21:17
  • I believe the answer below resolves the issue, but to be complete, Firefox: 'new' uploader. Clearing cookies on Chrome resulted in the old behavior again, on my machine. Checking with designers on their machines.
    – James Skemp
    Dec 8, 2017 at 14:28

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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The Advanced Upload dialog which allows you to upload multiple files and immediately set the alt text uses a Flash based uploader. The "Batch Upload" dialog just uses HTML to provide a simpler upload interface.

There are 2 things which determine which uploader to use:

  1. Upload.Classic setting in config, by default this is false and so the Flash upload interface should be used
<!--
  UPLOAD CLASSIC
            Indicates if uploading runs in classic (no flash) mode.
            Default: false

-->
<setting name="Upload.Classic" value="false"/>
  1. Browser Support - if your browser does not support Flash, or Sitecore thinks your browser does not, then you will shown the Classic/Basic Upload dialog.

Browser Compare

Check that the Upload.Classic is false, but since it seems to work fine in Internet Explorer you can pretty much rule that out.

In more recent releases of Chrome and Firefox, by default Flash is not enabled and as a security measure you must explicitly grant permission to run Flash. You can enable Flash following these instructions.

Enable Flash

If this value was previously set as the default (Ask) or Blocked then you will also need to delete the sc_fv cookie, the value of this will be 0.0.0 if it thinks Flash is or was disabled. Since the cookie is persisted and the javascript will not re-run the code which checks Flash version, if the cookie is present you need to forcefully delete it.

Alternatively, you could create a <loggedin> pipeline processor which forcefully sets the sc_fv cookie with a value of 9.0.0 or higher (this is the minimum version Sitecore is expecting and checks to enable this functionality), or deletes this cookie. The cookie will be recreated anyway when the check is next run.

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  • Verifying this is the issue, but it seems to be. What's interesting is that I have it set to Ask on Chrome but I got both interfaces. Not sure what I did that would have resulted in different behavior.
    – James Skemp
    Dec 8, 2017 at 14:30
  • 2
    Not sure, but what is quite annoying is because it doesn't immediately activate check Flash (it just makes a check for available plugins) Chrome never asks the users if they want ti enable Flash on the site. Even if you enable it, the persistent presence of the cookie means the "is Flash enabled" check is never done again. I'll raise a Sitecore Support ticket describing the process, hopefully they can resolve it for a future release.
    – jammykam
    Dec 8, 2017 at 14:44
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April 2021 Update: Sitecore 8.2 Update 4 user here. If you are using Chrome 88 or greater, Flash has officially been removed, essentially breaking this older functionality out-of-the-box. You'll have to rewrite the sc_fv cookie to a value of 9.0.0 or higher in some other way.

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