Photobucket... WTF!!

[Lunch]

Switch to imageshack

[Sox]

Originally Posted by Lunch

Switch to imageshack

Originally Posted by Fed

Switching leaves you open to it all happening again.

And it will, you can count on it.

[Linz]

Originally Posted by Lunch

Switch to imageshack

I left imageshack for that very reason a few years ago
Maybe things have changed??

[FairmontGS]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

offers free service for 14 years, changes mind as they are entitled too and whamo, freeloaders revolt!
funny stuff.

JP

Not a car enthusiast eh?

[russellw]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

offers free service for 14 years, changes mind as they are entitled too and whamo, freeloaders revolt!
funny stuff.

JP

I doubt that anyone realistically objects to them charging something for the service they provide, particularly as their outbound bandwidth utilisation must be horrifying and the cost of storage equally so.

It's the method they have used and the actual cost they are applying that has people (justifiably) up in arms.

Regards
Russ

[GTENVY]

Originally Posted by russellw

I doubt that anyone realistically objects to them charging something for the service they provide, particularly as their outbound bandwidth utilisation must be horrifying and the cost of storage equally so.

It's the method they have used and the actual cost they are applying that has people (justifiably) up in arms.

Regards
Russ

Totally agree Russ and the $400 per year is absolutely ridiculous.

Rich

[jstanovic]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

offers free service for 14 years, changes mind as they are entitled too and whamo, freeloaders revolt!
funny stuff.

JP

It's not just free account holders. People who have paid accounts are having the same issue, only paying the $400/year will allow you to 3rd party host. Everyone on all the other <$100/year accounts have been shafted too.

[EB#]

This change at PB is massive. I expect it has ruined millions of free blogs and forums around the world. Good comments here, and thanks Russ for the canvassing of solutions and reassurance so far.

It seems to me that an AFF image server of some kind would be a great option. In this scenario, all info (text and images) would be under the one roof at AFF. This provides a more reliable image bank than a large, US based company that may suddenly change rules or possibly disappear altogether.

In my case, my build thread work over about 10 years is wrecked. I am now in the process of downloading all my image albums from PB, but it takes time... and true to the usual glitchy operation at PB, it's also not working properly. One of my albums (the main one for my build thread) contains 900 images and this one is proving hard to get... no success yet.

I still do have all my images on my computer at home, but it is the PB album that has the actual images linked to threads. As mentioned, it is the file name and image size which is the critical part.

Thanks again Russ. I feel somewhat more confident about re-building my main threads here on AFF after I had kind of let them go. For now, it's just a matter of getting ALL my albums copied back from PB.

[Fed]

Switching leaves you open to it all happening again.

[Professor Farnsworth]

With the horrendously laggy interface and 15 ads about poker and how hot and willing my neighbours are every time I logged in, I was considering charging THEM. life is funny sometimes.

[EB#]

Well... After many attempts, stops and starts, typical PB freeze ups, log outs and re log ins, I have now successfully downloaded all my images from PB, in their respective albums as zip files. This is around 1900 images, 250Mb in total. This is a major step in possibly re-building my main threads (x2) here at AFF and it feels good to have all folders copied out of PB and on my own computer. I have found that a number of images have been corrupted in the download, but it may not be that many and they could be replaced.

Note that I had all of the images on my HD anyway, but they are scattered in various folders and at various sizes. The prospect of finding each one, relevant to my threads would take forever and drive me mad, no doubt. Thus, the copy of the actual PB folders makes things much easier.... I now have the exact image files, same size (mostly at 640px wide for my threads), with the same respective jpg file name as linked in the threads.

I would certainly encourage others with PB stored images to download their albums. Things are getting pretty bent out of shape at Photobucket.... this could very well be the downward spiral for them!

The prospect of fixing my threads, with some much needed assistance from AFF, seems distinctly possible now. The free AFF website is such a great resource and a credit to the team that keep the site running. There are hundreds of fascinating and informative build and project car threads here that deserve to stay online, with all the great pics, for all of the future car enthusiasts to come.

[Fed]

Looks like Phildo's pictures are still working that's a relief.

[Cav]

It seems such a suicidal financial decision by PB I am beginning to wonder if they are the victim of the ransomware virus.

BTW my PB is working OK

[Ford17]

This is turning out more widespread than I first thought.

Imgur looks okay, and might be a possible substitute service.

[98TLS]

Originally Posted by Ford17

This is turning out more widespread than I first thought.

Imgur looks okay, and might be a possible substitute service.

Having a crack with Imgur but cant work out there sizing/how to resize

[98TLS]

Works on huge thumbnail but has a resizing option but blowed if i can work it.How long before it shuts up shop with everyone heading over from photobucket.

[Ford17]

Originally Posted by 98TLS

Having a crack with Imgur but cant work out there sizing/how to resize

Originally Posted by 98TLS

Works on huge thumbnail but has a resizing option but blowed if i can work it.How long before it shuts up shop with everyone heading over from photobucket.

Figured it out.

1. Create an Imgur account first, with username and password.
2. Go to your username, top RHS, drop down to view 'images'.
3. Click your image
4. Choose 'view and edit post' (blue bar on RHS)
5. Hover over image, and on the top RHS and next to 'copy' is a drop down arrow - choose 'edit'
6. Enter in new size in dimension box on RHS (keep 'lock proportions' ticked on)
7. There's an 'advanced' button above the image for other options (orientation, brightness, etc).

[EB#]

Originally Posted by 98TLS

Having a crack with Imgur but cant work out there sizing/how to resize....

I find it's best to edit copies of your pics to the desired size before an upload. A pretty good size for info and build threads here on AFF is say 640x480px or 800x600px, for example.

A freely available image editing program, by the name of FastStone Image Viewer is pretty good I reckon. This program has a feature where one may batch edit a stack of photos to a desired size, in a single command. The new, smaller size versions are copies of your originals and sent to a folder that you designate. Very handy and easy to use!

See here for more info:
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

[98TLS]

Originally Posted by EB#

I find it's best to edit copies of your pics to the desired size before an upload. A pretty good size for info and build threads here on AFF is say 640x480px or 800x600px, for example.

A freely available image editing program, by the name of FastStone Image Viewer is pretty good I reckon. This program has a feature where one may batch edit a stack of photos to a desired size, in a single command. The new, smaller size versions are copies of your originals and sent to a folder that you designate. Very handy and easy to use!

See here for more info:
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

Cheers mate,awesome.

[Mont5.0]

Originally Posted by 98TLS

Having a crack with Imgur but cant work out there sizing/how to resize image image

Its a B series Brother- Max pics away i say!!

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Mont5.0

Its a B series Brother- Max pics away i say!!

I concur

[nstg8a]

Can someone edit that post? That pic is rediculously large lol.

[PridenJoy]

Giving flickr a go but can't work out where to get the pic link to show the pic (like the IMG link in PB used to do)

[Pepscobra]

So why do some threads still have their photos and some don't?

Is it a progressive thing that will affect all photobucket photos eventually? Or is their some way around it?

[EB#]

Originally Posted by Pepscobra

So why do some threads still have their photos and some don't?
Is it a progressive thing that will affect all photobucket photos eventually? Or is their some way around it?

It seems like a progressive change to me; I believe the official change of terms came into play on 20/6/17 & PB must have millions of accounts on various servers to edit. I have not read of any way around it....

[Fed]

Some people still seeing pictures may be seeing them from their computer's cache or even the forum's cache if there is such a thing.
Wondering if the forum could retrieve the pictures by changing the links to go through a proxy server as a temporary fix, maybe write a program to change the links automatically?
Obviously computers aren't my strong point. Fire away.

[Uncle_Ken]

I've been looking at other sites.
http://tinypic.com/about.php is free but is owned by photobucket (see bottom of page)
http://postimage.io/about.php is a maybe and allows 3rd party links.
I would rather pay a small amount to Ford Forums and have my car pics here
UK

[GO FURTHER]

For those of you who have photos on Photobucket linked to your threads here... And are thinking that you don't need to download them all because you have them stored on your computer..... Think again!

The photo you upload to Photobucket that you then link to a thread here has its file name changed by Photobucket in the direct link with an extension added to the filename.

For example a photo I upload with the filename "diff-3.jpg" then gets changed by Photobucket to "diff-3_zpsrtbtdeie.jpg". This happens to all photos you have uploaded and have linked to.

What this means, is that if you were to then upload all the original files from your computer you had on Photobucket linked to threads here, to a space that RussellW and his team may provide on the AFF servers, and a program then links the file names to the Photobucket file names in the threads ... They won't match.... So won't work!

Try this for yourself... Look at the direct link name of your file you add to a post from Photobucket.

[EB#]

Originally Posted by BAXRSIX

The photo you upload to Photobucket that you then link to a thread here has its file name changed by Photobucket in the direct link with an extension added to the filename.

For example a photo I upload with the filename "diff-3.jpg" then gets changed by Photobucket to "diff-3_zpsrtbtdeie.jpg"....

After checking it out on PB, this doesn't seem to be the case for my photos... Perhaps accounts differ from one to the other in some fashion?

In my case:

- All jpeg files that I have uploaded to PB have retained the original xxx.jpg file name
- When I downloaded copies of the lot just recently, they also retained the original names.
- The jpeg file name appears to be the same in each direct link as well, apart from jpeg file names that include a space.
In these cases, the space is replaced with the characters '%20',
Eg. ... i530.photobucket.com/albums/dd344/sneak880/General%20Stuff/white%20AU.jpg
Note that the space in the album name is also replaced with the '%20' characters.

In the case of a prospective upload to the AFF server, a batch editing procedure for image links may need to decypher
whatever appears after the final slash in the direct link line. If the file names don't quite match exactly due to some added junk
characters from PB? This may not be possible? Or, in my case, the AFF image link line could simply use the same '%20' character
for a 'space' without editing the final element in the link?

Given that the jpeg file names are recognisable, I would consider doing the link edits myself for my build threads if the AFF image server
gets up and running and I can access an edit function to my own threads for a period of time. My main build thread is
only 18 pages, so it's doable in a 'manual edit' type fashion. A different task however for those with a thread of 50 or 100 pages!

Images (hosted by PB) that I have posted here and there on AFF, in all sorts of areas on the forum could not really be tracked
and links replaced manually. Perhaps Russ and the AFF crew has a robot method for this type of editing, forum wide?
That task is a mountain indeed, but then computers are fast with the right driver.

In regards to new image hosting options, I am only considering AFF at this stage. The prospect of moving to another US based host
service seems just too unreliable.

[GO FURTHER]

Originally Posted by EB#

After checking it out on PB, this doesn't seem to be the case for my photos... Perhaps accounts differ from one to the other in some fashion?

In my case:

- All jpeg files that I have uploaded to PB have retained the original xxx.jpg file name
- When I downloaded copies of the lot just recently, they also retained the original names.
- The jpeg file name appears to be the same in each direct link as well, apart from jpeg file names that include a space.
In these cases, the space is replaced with the characters '%20',
Eg. ... i530.photobucket.com/albums/dd344/sneak880/General%20Stuff/white%20AU.jpg
Note that the space in the album name is also replaced with the '%20' characters.

In the case of a prospective upload to the AFF server, a batch editing procedure for image links may need to decypher
whatever appears after the final slash in the direct link line. If the file names don't quite match exactly due to some added junk
characters from PB? This may not be possible? Or, in my case, the AFF image link line could simply use the same '%20' character
for a 'space' without editing the final element in the link?

I have just worked out why some members like yourself have their photo filenames retained exactly as uploaded to Photobucket, while others like myself have had the photo names changed once uploaded and linked to this forum....

In the "settings" menu (accessed on your album page from the little cog wheel on the right hand side)....

Scroll down to "Album Privacy settings"...

Under this submenu ...

File Name Scrambling
To protect your privacy, we recommend that you select the options to scramble both future and past upload file names. However, if you intend for your photos to be public or used for business purposes, we recognize that you may not want to scramble.

I had this set to "scramble" like many members ... Thus the change in filenames.

What this means, is that I now have to download all my photos from the Photobucket albums to my PC.... Even though I already have copies of all the photos !... Otherwise, it is impossible to know all the "scrambled" names.