Issues with Photobucket

[Heron SSVParticipant Central Coast NSW2009 Pajero Exceed 84 VK SL LS3 View build HERE Member since: May 5, 2015 Posts: 585]

^^^^ and thats the f*cked part. Gary already went through and transferred his thread from SC to here, and now he’ll probably have to go through and modify each post to replace the pics with the same one but from a different source.

I’ve read a few comments that Photobucket was recently purchased by another company who have more than likely had this plan all along. But to go from it being free to $399 a year is ridiculous, fair enough if they changed it so you had to be a paying member and all their plans could do it, but to only allow the top one is just mental.

[GeorgieParticipant Tech Support View build HERE Member since: February 20, 2015 Posts: 48]

Hi guys, tech support here. Unfortunately at this stage I have no real news for you, I was totally blindsided by this as I think were many forum administrators out there. Needless to say Photobucket is getting a lot of hate on their social media etc, so I think it may be wise to see how it plays out over the next 24 hours or so. In the meantime I will keep wracking my brain trying to see if I can think of any way to avoid everyone having to edit all their posts. Sorry all 

[GeorgieParticipant Tech Support View build HERE Member since: February 20, 2015 Posts: 48]

Totally agree with you Heron. It’s not so much the charging bit I’m angry about, but the absolutely deplorable way they have treated their customers in this. To not give anyone any warning and then charge some astronomical price to ‘unlock’ photos is madness. Then to treat ‘third party uploads’ like it is some extra service and not Photobucket’s bread and butter just defies belief. It’s not just this forum but tens of thousands that have used Photobucket for 15+ years who have been affected by this. So many people have put their time & knowledge into informative posts and then for a company to make such a disgusting cash grab out of it is really sad.

[VRSenator065Participant Adelaide SAVR Senator LSx454 1960 Kombi (project) 1921 Nash Hot Rod (future project) View build HERE Member since: February 17, 2015 Posts: 5 777]

Hi all, just to let you know, not sure what we can do.  But if PB at least temporarily allow access to your images so your threads work we are looking at trying to maybe be able to download a thread including pictures as a single post, sort of like a pdf, then afterwards maybe move to another hosting site.  Not sure stay tuned.

[ImmortalityParticipant 97 HSV Senator 185i 02 VX L67 Calais View build HERE Member since: August 31, 2015 Posts: 535]

Georgie wrote:

Hi guys, tech support here. Unfortunately at this stage I have no real news for you, I was totally blindsided by this as I think were many forum administrators out there. Needless to say Photobucket is getting a lot of hate on their social media etc, so I think it may be wise to see how it plays out over the next 24 hours or so. In the meantime I will keep wracking my brain trying to see if I can think of any way to avoid everyone having to edit all their posts. Sorry all

No fault of yours so nothing for you to stress over.

[Heron SSVParticipant Central Coast NSW2009 Pajero Exceed 84 VK SL LS3 View build HERE Member since: May 5, 2015 Posts: 585]

Cheers Georgie and Gary, definitely agree it’s not a forum issue, and the way Photobucket have done it is similar to the viruses that have encrypted PC’s and asked for a payment to unlock them, PB have just basically issued a ransom demand, wonder how long till they lock user accounts so you can’t even access your pics unless a payment is made.

All my pics are on my phone/PC so I wont really lose the pics all together, it’s all the posts I’ve put online that will turn to crap, and I’m a minor poster compared to some. Take IJ for example, his thread has hundreds if not thousands of pics across multiple forums, not sure what he uses for pics but there’d be others just the same.

[VRSenator065Participant Adelaide SAVR Senator LSx454 1960 Kombi (project) 1921 Nash Hot Rod (future project) View build HERE Member since: February 17, 2015 Posts: 5 777]

Immortality wrote:

Probably only a matter of time before your pics don’t work me thinks. You could always host the pics directly on your own forum server.

Yea nah, not sure people know I personally paid to create this forum out of my own pocket. Georgie built it for me, but I decided it wasn’t fair for her to do if for nothing given at the time she was putting herself through uni, so I paid her.  She literally put hours and hours into it way before it went live to make it look and feel exactly how I wanted, never complaining about making lots and lots of requested changes.  All up with creation & hosting I think it cost me about $2k.  Not complaining as that was my call, but I was sort of thinking people would donate $20 when they joined, and over time that would pay it back.  I was also hoping I might pick up an advertiser or two, but that hasn’t happened either.  I think I have more than done my bit for the old SC guys, I’m not doing any more out of my own pocket, if someone else wants to put their hand up great.

[VRSenator065Participant Adelaide SAVR Senator LSx454 1960 Kombi (project) 1921 Nash Hot Rod (future project) View build HERE Member since: February 17, 2015 Posts: 5 777]

Heron SSV wrote:

All my pics are on my phone/PC so I wont really lose the pics all together, it’s all the posts I’ve put online that will turn to crap, and I’m a minor poster compared to some. Take IJ for example, his thread has hundreds if not thousands of pics across multiple forums, not sure what he uses for pics but there’d be others just the same.

Yep totally agree, I’m same i have all my pics, but having recreated my thread once before, I am not sure I will do it again.  Its just bullshit by PB, its extortion.

[GeorgieParticipant Tech Support View build HERE Member since: February 20, 2015 Posts: 48]

Whether or not to allow direct uploads was something we considered early on and felt was just impossible. We did try to compromise and allow people to attach uploads to their posts, within a certain size. I know its not an ideal feature but any larger than that and I doubt our server would keep up. The cost of upgrading to a server that could store the fullsize pics + retain a decent user speed would just be prohibitive as it wouldnt be a once off cost but an ongoing one. Of course we could try to ‘crowdfund’ it but we’d need a lot of money to keep it going for many years which is the plan!

I also have concerns about allowing people to upload their own photos as a free for all. One thing that is not well known here is that our spam filters have blocked over 50,000 spam bots and users. Nonetheless a few do slip through the cracks – it would only take a couple to upload large files onto our server to crash it, or illegal/copyrighted/inappropriate stuff which tbh is a headache I don’t want to deal with!  That is why I have made the decision to keep such a tight rein on photo uploads, as have most other forums.

We do everything we can to have good functionality here on the forum but we are working with limited resources which we try to be honest and transparent about so users know why we make the decisions we do.

[OZ38Participant Jurien Bay W.A.VS & VY Sedan & Ute. Ecotec powered Hilux 4WD. View build HERE Member since: April 24, 2016 Posts: 59]

Hi all, some of you would know I spent a lot of time on the L67Torque forum. As a admin from the start, to take it over for a few years & now back to just admin on it. After paying out of your own pocket for years to keep it going for the benefit of others, I too got tired of trying to hussle members to throw a little in to help. With the coming on of Facebook less & less people came to the forums. Using it as a storage for tech info & some facebook sites would link back to it. I am not an IT expert so always needed help from others with computer problems.

So I do know how you feel Gary trying to keep people involved.

This Photobucket thing has really rattled me, as I was always trying to do how to pics for the forum & the size limit on pics caused so much hassles. I found imageshack & used that for a while till it started become unreliable. Then someone put me onto Photobucket…..wow, you could put up full sized pics without a problem. TILL NOW.

I am a free member on PB with 2 gb allowed upload & an extra 8 gb for being a good member. Currently I have only used 2% it says. I have been talking via email to PB about their sudden ransom demands. I am getting nowhere as I think I maybe talking to a computer judging by the replies.

They gave me a link to download my pics after I said it was extorsion & wanted my pics back to see if I could get them hosted elsewhere.  Well needless to say the link doesn’t work, with it crashing before it gets started & then saying they will zip it up & send to your email (which never happens).

I am most annoyed because the suddeness has caught us all out, with most not knowing what pic & in what order we had posted in all our previous threads. Trying download or save one pic at a time is just too frustrating with slow internet connection etc.

I too have tried tapatalk & if it is suppose to be fool proof, well just call me Stupid ! I cant work with it at all. I really feel worried for all forums now. Most people will just give up caring now. If I was a good computer geek, & I wish I was. I would have my own server & host my own pics.

Where to now I wonder as I don’t  see PB doing too well out of their sudden decision.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by  OZ38.

[VRSenator065Participant Adelaide SAVR Senator LSx454 1960 Kombi (project) 1921 Nash Hot Rod (future project) View build HERE Member since: February 17, 2015 Posts: 5 777]

Yea that’s pretty much my experience and frustration too, that they think they can do it with no warning.  I have just gone into my thread and I am able to use print, and take it to a pdf, and it does at least give a multi page print out including all the images of the thread as some sort of a record, but its pretty ordinary.

At the moment though I would have to go and do that 67 times in my case to capture it all for each page.  I am seeing Georgie tonight and am hoping there may be a away we can display an entire thread in one long page, so we can print it once, but not sure about that.  if we can, then at least if people get at least temporary access to there images they can save their thread as a file.

As you there are thousands of forums effected by this, so also maybe someone else much more tech savvy than me can work out a way to do a sort of download and post with the images embedded.  if anyone comes across anything like that on another forum please let us know asap, it might even be some sort of script Georgie can somehow embed into the site.

If they don’t, seriously I can see this being the end of a hell of a lot of forums.  So many of us on here have gone through a similar thing when we came across from SC when we started this forum, I am not sure many will want to go through that all over again, and I recon lots of other people and forums will be the same.

Not happy Jan!!

[ImmortalityParticipant 97 HSV Senator 185i 02 VX L67 Calais View build HERE Member since: August 31, 2015 Posts: 535]

I stopped hosting files on puke bucket years ago, I use a couple of forums to host my pics that allow users to upload and then hotlink from them to other forums if/when needed.

Been a donating member on the JC forum gives the user extra privileges which include a increased upload limit, I also tend to crop photos so that I’m not uploading >1mb file per image to help stretch how many photos can be uploaded.

[OZ38Participant Jurien Bay W.A.VS & VY Sedan & Ute. Ecotec powered Hilux 4WD. View build HERE Member since: April 24, 2016 Posts: 59]

Immortality wrote:

I stopped hosting files on puke bucket years ago, I use a couple of forums to host my pics that allow users to upload and then hotlink from them to other forums if/when needed. Been a donating member on the JC forum gives the user extra privileges which include a increased upload limit, I also tend to crop photos so that I’m not uploading >1mb file per image to help stretch how many photos can be uploaded.

I also crop nearly all pics I have posted up using IrfanView to reduce the file size down as a lot of forums have a 100kb or less file size for posting pics up direct.

 

[VRSenator065Participant Adelaide SAVR Senator LSx454 1960 Kombi (project) 1921 Nash Hot Rod (future project) View build HERE Member since: February 17, 2015 Posts: 5 777]

Immortality wrote:

I stopped hosting files on puke bucket years ago, I use a couple of forums to host my pics that allow users to upload and then hotlink from them to other forums if/when needed. Been a donating member on the JC forum gives the user extra privileges which include a increased upload limit, I also tend to crop photos so that I’m not uploading >1mb file per image to help stretch how many photos can be uploaded.

Yea, just hasn’t been an issue until now.  I guess that strategy is fine as long as those forums don’t change their policy, if they do I guess you are in the same position.  Just sucks balls, that they did it with no warning.  I personally haven’t had an issue until now with or using pb, I had like a $2 account, which got rid of a lot of the adds, and I sort of knew my way around it, for me was pretty simple to use.  Nowadays I actually dump most of the build pics on the fb pages of the Senator and Kombi.  Its nice coz from anywhere you can get them or show people.  Be cool if fb added a link function to the pics.  Maybe we should call up Zuckerburg or whatever his name is

[OZ38Participant Jurien Bay W.A.VS & VY Sedan & Ute. Ecotec powered Hilux 4WD. View build HERE Member since: April 24, 2016 Posts: 59]

Trying Imgur & Flickr out now to see how they look.

[vspeteParticipant vspeteVE SV6 MY12 SPORTWAGON View build HERE Member since: May 2, 2015 Posts: 74]

OZ38 wrote:

Immortality wrote:

I stopped hosting files on puke bucket years ago, I use a couple of forums to host my pics that allow users to upload and then hotlink from them to other forums if/when needed. Been a donating member on the JC forum gives the user extra privileges which include a increased upload limit, I also tend to crop photos so that I’m not uploading >1mb file per image to help stretch how many photos can be uploaded.

I also crop nearly all pics I have posted up using IrfanView to reduce the file size down as a lot of forums have a 100kb or less file size for posting pics up direct.

I use IrfanView resize pics 640 x 480

[Judge1 FrazerParticipant new zealand1983 VB LSA MG9 6060 6 speed View build HERE Member since: February 5, 2016 Posts: 775]

They finally got to me so my photo’s are all of limits on the forum now

[WraithParticipant View build HERE Member since: March 2, 2015 Posts: 50]

They have really screwed the pooch with this one.

Only a matter of time before the other free uploading sites crack down on free linking as they don’t get any ad revenue from it.

Facebook picture linking works even if your account is locked down but not sure for how long.

 

• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by  Wraith.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by  Wraith.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by  Wraith.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by  Wraith.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by  Wraith.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by  Wraith.

[VRSenator065Participant Adelaide SAVR Senator LSx454 1960 Kombi (project) 1921 Nash Hot Rod (future project) View build HERE Member since: February 17, 2015 Posts: 5 777]

Wraith wrote:

Facebook picture linking works even if your account is locked down but not sure for how long. 

Hey Wraith, more info on that, are you linking directly forma  FB pic onto the forum?

[WraithParticipant View build HERE Member since: March 2, 2015 Posts: 50]

Yep directly from FB. Right click on the FB image, copy image location and then post the link in the pictures option.

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