Its not using a lot of server disk space, but discovering that Ari PhotoGallery uses the Joomla Cache folder gave me a bit of a shock - not the use as much as the way!

I turned off cache in the Joomla (2.5.6) Configuration page and the front end web site was inundated with error messages relating to ARI PhotoGallery failing to write thumb nails (can't remember the exact messages but can be regenerated).

I eventually discovered, by dint of examining the error messages and connecting to the web site via an ftp client and checking folder names, that the act of turning off cache in Joomla back end, had in fact deleted the cache folder. Turning cache back on doesn't appear to recreate the folder!

I recreated the folder via the ftp client and all the error messages disappeared.

Is it usuual to use the cache folder in this way?
With cache turned off, is the cache ever actually cleared?

What surprised me most was that after all the error messages down the web page, the web page content appeared as normal.

Hello,

The extension save auto-generated thumbnails to cache folder to increase performance.

Regards,
ARI Soft

No problem. Works very well. Just wanted to ensure that you knew that Joomla can delete the cache folder and its absence causes a stream of error messages down the web page.

We will try to reproduce the problem. The extension creates auto-generated thumbnails again if they don't exist.

Regards,
ARI Soft