Photobucket Ransom.

Palifan

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Looking on this forum today I notice that there are few peoples pictures that have been removed and replaced with some upgrade notice from Photobucket.

There was a topic I read a few days ago on another forum about the same issue and it now looks like photo bucket are not letting people use their photos on 3rd party sites unless they upgrade their account (which costs $400 a year in the US). I think it's something to do with exceeding your bandwidth or some such nonsense and I think it's pretty bad if this is happening to peoples photo collections. I'm not a part of Photobucket or any of those sort of sites but would like to set one up at some point. From all I've ever read about Photobucket it sounds a bit of a nightmare with their pop up ads and with this dodgy move from them I've no intention of going anywhere near them now.

Hope people who do use them can sort something out but with other hosting sits being so cheap in comparison, maybe this could be the beginning of the end for them?

Ian
 

db94

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Yep it's royally f#cked up my limelight thread and 99% of the other pictures I've posted on here before the latest attachment upgrade.
 

mumbo

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Been having real problems myself with Photofucket when trying to copy a url gives me no end of frustration :evil:

Happy to report that my showcase pics are unaffected, probably down to the fact that I had a massive clear out whilst trying to get around my url problem which didn't actually fix the problem :lol:
 

Russ J

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Photobucket is a big pile of shite...it has been for a few years know....takes ages to link to sites.Once took me to upload and link to this site an hour just to do about 4-5 photos something like that :roll: ...

Ive given up on their service i just upload straight to the forum know with their 'add attachments' facility...
 

edd_jedi

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Moving this to the main forum as it's a big pain in the arse for a lot of people.

Jason recommends this alternative:

http://imgur.com

Unfortunately there is no quick and easy way to update your threads, you will have to upload your photos again and edit the posts manually. Please note though as with any 'free' service there is no guarantee it will not happen again in future. The best way to future-proof your images as best as possible is to either host them yourself, or use the attachment option on this forum - however this is only up to 10 images per post. I wish I could offer everyone free unlimited photo hosting, but if Photobucket are now having to charge, I would have to do the same.
 

edd_jedi

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By the way, it may be wise to wait a few weeks before making any snap decisions on your image hosting - this is such a big pain for so many people that I wouldn't be surprised if some other company comes up with a "Photobucket import" feature. However this may take time to appear.
 

subzero

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What a nightmare, I wouldn't use ImageShack either if I was you, I used them several years back when I was selling stuff on ebay to upload pics so I can add them into my main descriptions so I had nice large clear pics of all different angles of my items. The service was pretty bad as every once in a while a load of the images would just vanish leaving just the ImageShack logo in my ebay listings, and in my ImageShack account those same images I uploaded were just gone :!:

I had to regularly scour through every single one of my ebay listings ( about 120 of them ) on a weekly basis to check there wasn't any missing images, and had to re-upload the missing ones again, all this took so much damn time. Then after a couple of years of doing that they demanded x amount each month to carry on using all my images otherwise they wouldn't be viewable online, so I immediately ****ed them off, whenever I messaged 'support' to query the image problems they never responded, i'm never gonna pay for such terrible service.
 

mr_palitoy

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edd_jedi said:
Moving this to the main forum as it's a big pain in the arse for a lot of people.

Jason recommends this alternative:

http://imgur.com

Unfortunately there is no quick and easy way to update your threads, you will have to upload your photos again and edit the posts manually. Please note though as with any 'free' service there is no guarantee it will not happen again in future. The best way to future-proof your images as best as possible is to either host them yourself, or use the attachment option on this forum - however this is only up to 10 images per post. I wish I could offer everyone free unlimited photo hosting, but if Photobucket are now having to charge, I would have to do the same.

Yep, all of my limelights are royally ****ed. Had 1100 images hosted in photofuckit.

I'm using imgur as the way forward give its market share and proliferation on the web. Its also the migration of choice that the web is adopting to solve this issue.

Flickr is ok too, though there are concerns about its longevity as a free service with yahoo at the helm.

It's taking me 1-2 hours to de-Photofuckit my limelights. I'm starting with the ones I actively add to and doing a thread a day so far. Some of them are good reference guides and the top returned hits on google.

Here's the ones I've done so far:-

Palitoy stickers, posters, instructions and catalogues
http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12059

foreign cardbacks focus
http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11337

cheers Jason
 

mr_palitoy

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edd_jedi said:
By the way, it may be wise to wait a few weeks before making any snap decisions on your image hosting - this is such a big pain for so many people that I wouldn't be surprised if some other company comes up with a "Photobucket import" feature. However this may take time to appear.

Given the companies death spiral strategy, I dont think its got too long left to run. Other image hosting sites have used a similar strategy of extorting the user base before going bankrupt.

The one thing you should do now is log onto photobucket and download your bucket. It comes as a ZIP file and can then be saved locally on your PC/laptop. This is what I use to import the images to imgur as the filenames in the links are identical and you can just do search on your local disk from the uploader to find them.

cheers Jason
 

Richard_H

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Looked at imugr T and Cs and they also say no 3rd party hosting. For flikr I believe you need to have a Yahoo account.
I think google drive may be the best bet.

I'm worried about the accounts of those who are no longer with us like Craig and Andy. Those photos could be lost forever. :cry:
 

Palifan

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Thanks for all the advise guys and really sorry to hear this has been a problem you've had to suffer with, what a windup! Still have no idea what would work best for me ( :lol: ), maybe flicker or google drive for now but I don't have any problem still loading pictures to this site as the ability to upload up to 10 images is amazing and shows how great this site is, thanks Edd, you're a star :D

Ian
 

SAVORY100

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Unbelievable that they create a site that has a specific feature to embed images in other sites and then after they've gained a large volume of those embedded images that screw all the users that could've been customers IF they'd dome it more sensibly and over a time period! :evil:
 

SAVORY100

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does anyone know if there is a volume threshold? I see my Han focus (which is shamefully out of date) has yet to be affected... Might look at redoing it all using another site just in case.
 

Palifan

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SAVORY100 said:
does anyone know if there is a volume threshold? I see my Han focus (which is shamefully out of date) has yet to be affected... Might look at redoing it all using another site just in case.


I think it was some sort of volume threshold but now they won't allow any 3rd party usage without upgrading to a 500 plan. How much is a 500 plan? $399 a year!

Here's what they're sending out -

WE NOTICED THAT YOU HAVE BEEN USING
PHOTOBUCKET FOR 3RD PARTY HOSTING*

PLEASE UPGRADE TO A PLUS 500 PLAN.

Our Terms of Service does not allow 3rd party hosting with your current account level.
UPGRADE NOW

*What is 3rd Party Hosting?

Photobucket defines 3rd party hosting as the action of embedding an image or photo onto another website. For example, using the <img> tag to embed or display a JPEG image from your Photobucket account on another website such as a forum, Etsy, eBay auction listings, a blog, etc. is definitively 3rd party hosting.

Why Photobucket?

Photobucket is the global destination for linking and 3rd party hosting. In Photobucket's 14-year history, the Company amassed over 100 million registered users, over 15 billion images stored, 2 million daily uploads and 10 billion photos accessed monthly.

Easy to Use – Upload a photo from any device and copy the embed code with one click to host a photo with no development or technical knowledge required

Competitive, fixed pricing Offers the only unlimited 3rd party hosting plan (Commercial and Personal Use)

Are my pictures still safe?

Yes! All your photos are still available by logging into your Photobucket Account. Photobucket has only restricted the ability to view your photos on 3rd party sites.

Can I download my Photos?

Absolutely, at any time. It is an easy four step process:
Step 1. Login to your Photobucket Account
Step 2. Navigate to your library page
Step 3. View a photo and click the download button
Step 4. The picture will be saved to your computer
photobucket | for the love of photos.

Ian
 

edd_jedi

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$399 is absolutely ridiculous. If they had asked for $10 per year, I bet a lot of people would have paid it to save the hassle of moving. Nobody is going to pay $400 per year. It's a good reminder for everyone though, there is no such thing as free. Everything has a catch.
 
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