Notice to all Photobucket Users

[GiveMeABreak]

I'm pleased you can get on with it Jim - It has to be mobile friendly for me and the app is totally hopeless (crashing all the time, no way to share or get the links from) and all I can see when accessing via mobile desktop site is everyone else's pictures except mine!

Now looking at a few others like Postimage and Imagevenue.....

Not taking any prisoners today Jim - it has to work the way I want it to or not at all.

[CitroJim]

Not taking any prisoners today Jim - it has to work the way I want it to or not at all.

Good My attitude to all software and OSs exactly!

I'm bloody fussy and critical... Never tried flickr on a mobile device so cannot comment there...

[myglaren]

I've never read the flickr TOS Marc, I just signed up and started using it...

Mine's wide-open... I'm happy for the whole world and beyond to see my pictures

I challenge anyone to wade through my albums and not stifle many yawns

I must admit to never - or very, very rarely, reading the T&Cs or any other small print on the assumption that it is mainly there to confuse you and they will do as they please anyway.

[bobins]

https://imgbb.com/
......provide a purely bulletin board / forum based image hosting service - as in, you upload an image to them, they provide an image link to post in a forum. I've used it on a couple of postings already. I've no idea if it's a long term solution, and I've no idea what the T+Cs are for the basic service they provide. It doesn't require an account / sign in, and the very basic service doesn't even provide a photo album for you to get bored with There is an account based service you can sign up to, but I've not ventured that far

[GiveMeABreak]

I'll add that one to my reviewing list, thanks. Rapidly loosing the will to live today, but I will find something that suits me.

[CitroJim]

You will Marc, keep the faith

[bobins]

My main concern with them is that they could be gone tomorrow - and you'd lose any images you've uploaded. Not a problem for somewhat transient image uploads to forum postings, but more of a problem when it comes to permanent "How to's" or blog postings.

[myglaren]

AnnikaSarah.jpg by myglaren, on Flickr

My eldest two playing weddings when they were little.

Easy enough to post but the titling can go to hell.
Go for the large image, hit the share button, chose "BBCode" Bob's yer thingamyjig.

[white exec]

Have today gone into my Photobucket account, and 'rescued' all the photos there - a couple of hundred, mainly Citroen-related - and downloaded them back to my PC. Have left the albums on PB, in case they're needed.

The PB site was chaotic today. Screen format reduced to Times Roman text, no graphics. Took half a dozen attempts to sign in. Without AdBlock in use, each page was plastered with ever-changing pop-ups. Lord knows what they're doing to the site.

I think we are on risky ground in relying on any of the 'free' hosting sites for Forum content, especially posts of a technical nature, where photos and diagrams are essential. Bad enough losing photos from the social/chat side of FCF, but how-to posts can be rendered meaningless.

I think it might be sensible to advise that posts which need to endure have their image attachments directly loaded to the Forum, and not linked via a hosting site. Possible that a bit of work might need doing to make this straightforward. It's something we've done on Club-XM.co.uk for a while now, knowing that 'free' external sites cannot be relied on long-term.

[GiveMeABreak]

Mike is taking a look at the feasibility of converting all the links, downloading the images and re uploading and replacing the links on the forum. We're not sure if it will be a solution as yet because this is new territory and the scripts will need to be created from scratch no doubt.

So for the present as long as members don't delete their source files from photophucket, we'll be able to experiment. The problem at present is where the images have been blocked already, it will be hard to know what images go where without the visual cue. So fingers crossed we can make progress with Mike's suggestion.

[Zelandeth]

What a gigantic pain in the proverbial backside. Have used Photobucket for the last couple of years since Imageshack did something similar overnight and without warning.

Here's not so much of an issue as of course we have the attachment system - though I do feel bad clogging up server space with my often off topic blog posts. However I can think of three other forums straight away off the top of my head that have no such system and rely on external hosting.

Flickr will need me to make a new account as I use that pretty much exclusively for the bus and coach stuff and I'd rather not clutter it up with forum faff...plus I never did manage to work out how to get embedding to work - though it was a few years ago that I last tried. The website is virtually unusable on a mobile device too, though image posting I almost always do from my desktop/laptop anyway.

Really irksome though is the fact that I actually spent a good few hours only a week or two back, going through virtually my entire library on Photobucket adding titles and descriptions! *Sigh*

[MikeT]

What on earth are they (PB) playing at? I just re-visited my account this morning and was met with a failed format page (except the ads, they loaded perfectly!) After closing the ads I scrolled down the page to see this. Considering I don't have a facebook account to link to, how can they be importing anything?

[GiveMeABreak]

That's undoubtedly because of the worldwide demand from users to download their files before they close their accounts - the servers are obviously under extreme pressure and cannot serve all the pages correctly! People want to get their stuff off the site ASAP as they think this will be the end of them once the advertisers see people leaving en masse!

[Zelandeth]

The general impression I get based on reading "this thread" on another couple of forums is that so many people are downloading their photos now that the news of this change has spread that the PB servers are creaking under the load.

Reckon they will be closing their doors after this...Had they offered a plan for £30-50 a year I'd probably have paid it for the sake of not breaking a few hundred embedded images - as I imagine would have quite a lot of their customers. I accept that you don't get something for nothing...$399 though?!?... They're having a laugh. The way it's been done will have a lot of people turning away out of spite as well.

Still not sure where I'll end up shifting stuff to, have heard quite a few people speak of imgur, though looking through the T&C's there shows that they request you don't use it for 3rd party hosting, so that's a non starter. They get points though for having a T&C page written in plain English though.

[MikeT]

...Had they offered a plan for £30-50 a year I'd probably have paid it for the sake of not breaking a few hundred embedded images

One ad was obscuring most of my page and wouldn't close so I chose the "Upragde" link just to get out of it. The following page offered "ad-free" use for £2.50 a month. I make that about £30 a year?