Hi @Film54

Yes we know and we're concerned. I'm trying to contact Vlad but I don't get any response. Here is the email I sent him:

plg by email to alloyphoto wrote:

Hi Vlad,

I hope you're fine.

For several weeks now, your website alloyphoto.com gets an "Error establishing a database connection". Of course it prevents any user to buy a new license, but it seems to also block the use of the plugin in Lighroom.

For a few users, the Piwigo plugin for Lightroom is an important piece of the Piwigo experience. Having it unusable from time to time is a real problem, considering we (Piwigo Team) have no power over it. I would be happy to discuss a long-term sustainable solution for Piwigo users.

Bye,

For at least three years, the plugin has not been updated and the site is regularly down for days or even weeks at a time. So we have a fundamental problem to solve. I would like Vlad to “transfer” (or “sell” to us, if the cost is reasonable) his plugin to us. We could then distribute it via piwigo.org

The other solution would be for Pigolabs (the company behind Piwigo.com) to finance the development of a new Lightroom plugin. But that would only be if Vlad refuses to transfer his plugin to us.

User "pascalou" has reported:

pascalou wrote:

FYI, I was able to downgrade my LrC to 14.5.1 and reactivate the plugin with my key from last year. Obviously, this is neither satisfactory nor very sustainable, but it works....

Today I have been able to talk to a coworker of Vlad. I hope Vlad will get my message and make some feedback.

plg wrote:

This is more related to the way we (Piwigo dev team) "don't break anything" on the API, rather than the plugin itself.

Then I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks! Well done!


So the functionality is available in the new LrC main version 15, but the plugin switches back to demo mode and deletes the old key. When downgrading to version 14, the key is gone and must be re-entered. The activation apparently runs offline within the plugin, otherwise reactivation would not have been successful in the current situation with the server unavailable.

Why you have to buy some plugins again with every new main version of LrC is a mystery to me. There seem to be alternative options, because not all plugins behave this way.

Ultimately, it comes down to having to enter a new key. Then you should gain a year. Adobe is very cautious in this area within the main versions and focuses strongly on compatibility. This is evidenced by an image conversion plugin from 2013 that still works perfectly for me (further development was discontinued in 2013). But yes, if there are major changes in the area of database fields, it becomes difficult.

I have not noticed any deficiencies in the ongoing operation of the plugin. So I would almost bet that the version as it is now will continue to serve for a few more years – provided that the problem with the key no longer arises.

plg wrote:

Today I have been able to talk to a coworker of Vlad. I hope Vlad will get my message and make some feedback.

That's good news. Let's hope for the best.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Hi all,

I found this thread as I’m also a longtime user of the AlloyPhoto Piwigo plugin - and have been caught out previously when I couldn’t relicense it after an annual LrC update.

This time I’ve decided to have a go at writing my own version. Obviously without the polish and some of the features of the alloyphoto plugin, but it largely does what I need and I can once again publish directly from a LrC publish service to my Piwigo gallery.

As a beta release the code is still full of debugging messages as I've grappled with the complexities of accessing the Piwigo web service API via the LrHttp namespace with all it's idiosyncrasies - but if anyone wants to take a look I’ve released it under the GNU General Public License version 3 here https://github.com/fjb2020/PiwigoPublish-lrc-plugin/

I should say out the outset that as I’ve no access to a windows platform that runs Lightroom Classic I’ve done no testing at all on that platform.

Last edited by fjb2020 (2025-11-14 16:44:05)

fjb2020 wrote:

Hi all,

I found this thread as I’m also a longtime user of the AlloyPhoto Piwigo plugin - and have been caught out previously when I couldn’t relicense it after an annual LrC update.

This time I’ve decided to have a go at writing my own version. Obviously without the polish and some of the features of the alloyphoto plugin, but it largely does what I need and I can once again publish directly from a LrC publish service to my Piwigo gallery.

As a beta release the code is still full of debugging messages as I've grappled with the complexities of accessing the Piwigo web service API via the LrHttp namespace with all it's idiosyncrasies - but if anyone wants to take a look I’ve released it under the GNU General Public License version 3 here https://github.com/fjb2020/PiwigoPublish-lrc-plugin/

I should say out the outset that as I’ve no access to a windows platform that runs Lightroom Classic I’ve done no testing at all on that platform.

A very welcome initiative. I run a windows platform for LR and will test the beta. It wil be on LR version 14 so I can compare with the Alloy version. Where do you want me to report my findings?

P.R. wrote:

So the functionality is available in the new LrC main version 15, but the plugin switches back to demo mode and deletes the old key. When downgrading to version 14, the key is gone and must be re-entered. The activation apparently runs offline within the plugin, otherwise reactivation would not have been successful in the current situation with the server unavailable.

Why you have to buy some plugins again with every new main version of LrC is a mystery to me. There seem to be alternative options, because not all plugins behave this way.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

I tried blocking access to his domain. The result when downgrading and re-entering the key is that registration fails with an error from the plugin complaining about a lack of network access. Restoring access to his domain permits registration. Thus it would appear that while his primary website (registration, download, etc) is broken at this time the registration portion of the site is working.

This alone is disturbing given registration relies apparently on a working website from an author who is less than reliable and apparently doesn't care about the revenue generated.

A little more investigation shows that his plugin when it determines that a version change has occurred tries to contact his registration server. If the version does not match the version which is stored on the server, registration is revoked with the local key deleted. Simply blocking access to the server is not a solution where after a short time the plugin revokes when it can't contact the server when the version change is detected.

At this juncture I'm stuck using an older version of Lightroom where I have a working plugin registration. It's crazy that this alone dictates which camera I can use right now given something newer is not supported in the version of Lightroom I'm stuck with given Lightroom doesn't permit simply installing a newer CameraRaw (e.g. CameraRaw is baked into Lightroom).

There is a lot to the AlloyPhoto offering. While I don't use all of the capabilities, I do appreciate the time investment by the author. That said I have not played with the code posted to Git, where I think if I head down that path I will also create a VM to test with.