Photofucket.

[GammaBoy]

Quick community service announcement - if you have photos hosted on Photobucket, download the albums now and transfer it to another hosting service - Photobucket are disabling what they're referring to as "3rd Party Hosting" - so if you're using it to host pics for a thread, your images will be blocked from hosting. They're charging people in the uk 400 *pounds* to allow the linking. Rumour has it this is a last ditch attempt to get cashflow into photobucket before it goes the way of imageshack...
So download your shit, host it somewhere else, edit your threads and delete your Photobucket account - fuckem!

[The Phantom]

Likely too late for many people.

This is a big problem for forums like this everywhere - it will render many build topics, how-to guides and trip reports virtually useless. I'm admin on www.patrol4x4.com and we are scratching our heads about how we can best deal with it...

[ozzy1100]

Fuck all my stuff is there.....

[GammaBoy]

I'm told if oyu're running Chrome, this plugin is the best way to download the albums
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobucket-album-downloa/jmpbbfglflhdhbmimlcacoojpkeopelc?hl=en

[Gix11]

Another smack in the face for the forum. Facefuck is going to get the monopoly of everything before long.

[GammaBoy]

Yeah, Failbucket, in the press of a key (ok, well, probably a whole fuckload of keys), has fucked over Forums the world over. Every forum i'm on has lost photos in ~90% of it's threads - some guys had only just rebuilt threads after the Imageshack debacle... and now they'll have to do it again.

[ozzy1100]

I'm told if oyu're running Chrome, this plugin is the best way to download the albums
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobucket-album-downloa/jmpbbfglflhdhbmimlcacoojpkeopelc?hl=en

I'm to skint to repair pc and have been mobile only for 12 mths sighs

[LKC73]

I just updated by thread on the R1 the other day and all the pictures are still there and still can load new ones. What's the go? some have lost it while others haven't?

[GammaBoy]

There's a couple of theories - 1 is that they're not hitting low bandwidth users yet. The other theorey is that they just haven't rolled it out to everyone yet.

[GammaBoy]

I'm to skint to repair pc and have been mobile only for 12 mths sighs

Should be able to download the albums using the app?

[chinski]

This is fucked !!! Got years of pics on there and so many linked to threads now all gone !!! Will slowly populate another site and update my build thread . Gaaaaaaaaay

[GammaBoy]

Had been waiting for Failbucket to fuck me over, just to see how long it took for them to get around to me...
Copped this in the email this morning. Time for PB to upgrade their account to Eat a Dick.
8099

[latheboy]

It's spelt GHEY chinski!!

I went and looked at my PB and there is only a few pictures there and I have multiple backups of everything anyway.

You can keep my dic picks photobucket

[LKC73]

Yep, all my photos are now gone from my R1 build and what ever else I have here. This is the only forum I link pictures to from PB.
When I get home, the deleting will begin. It will take me a while to rebuild my thread.

[wackyrider]

Yep, the fuckers screwed me over too. All photos gone from my threads

[TillerRider]

I'm on five different forums each with there own build threads on vehicles I've owned over time, they'd all be stuffed now! I have moved all my pictures onto my hard drive and am now using imgur (how long that will last?)

[Gix11]

I have a strange feeling that the Brand specific streetfighter photo section of this forum will soon become a bomb site.

[LKC73]

I have a strange feeling that the Brand specific streetfighter photo section of this forum will soon become a bomb site.
Probable that it already is, unless directly linked from the websites they would all be missing. Sucks arss big time.

[GammaBoy]

Yeah, it was pretty fucked up after imageshack broke everything... I imagine it's proper fucked now.

[Gix11]

...and indirectly, this again all boils down to Facebook taking over. Say goodbye to all the small fellas and bow to the new god. It's Bunnings all over again.

[The Phantom]

True to a degree. We had a trojan attack on www.patrol4x4.com a few years back and a few guys fired up a Patrol4x4 FB page. It's going strong, but it's actually become something of a feeder for our forum because members there get sick of answering the same questions over and over, and point people to our site. So the two can co-exist if the dynamic is right.

Photobucket seems to be standing their ground on this so it does look like everyone will have to re-host their pics elsewhere (or here) and update their topics - that is, if they want to preserve them, I'm sure many won't bother especially for very big topics.

[LKC73]

I'm still in the process of uploading all of my build pictures onto another site. Once that is done I will do the task of updating my build threads here again to replace all the broken links to pictures.

[Gix11]

Big effort. Thanks Luke.

[LKC73]

Big effort. Thanks Luke.

One down, and next the 7/11 build! That will take some time as it had alot of pictures. but if anyone wants a link to the album, let me know and I can post a link to it.

[rod185651]

So much info lost, I was doing some research yesterday, so many threads on this and other forums ruined.

[LKC73]

So much info lost, I was doing some research yesterday, so many threads on this and other forums ruined.
I would think its fucked over basically the world of the net. I see alot of Ebay listings used photofuckers to host pics as well. they have been removed. its just shit.

[LKC73]

So I thought I would share how to use Imgur, and once you have an account, and if you have albums set up, follow these steps to post your pictures in your threads or replies.

Once you have an account set up, and albums done, pic the album you want to use
http://i.imgur.com/V8Lc3XK.jpg

If you want a new album, click as pic below,
http://i.imgur.com/BW0p2EP.jpg

Once you have opened an album, your pics will appear from top to bottom with most recent at the top.
http://i.imgur.com/lldGQrw.jpg

To get the link you want to share and host in the forum, "hover" the mouse over the area located in this pic.
http://i.imgur.com/sobpP3h.jpg

You'll see this arrow show up,
http://i.imgur.com/70RqB97.jpg

Click on it and you see options drop down,
http://i.imgur.com/uiWRkLN.jpg

After you have got the new options open, see here for the needed link to post on forums.
http://i.imgur.com/ZvNIbnJ.jpg

Then it is as simple as pasting in here,
http://i.imgur.com/X0C9NWa.jpg

I hope this helps out some of you.

[rod185651]

Nice one

[Bob]

Ta mate. Next update I'll give it a go

[CK 187]

You can go back and repair your existing Photobucket pics if you have ability to edit your own posts. We have had big success with restoration over at Customfighters


Insert "~original" after the JPG bit of your photobucket picture link............
has worked on all mine

like this................

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k67/370steve/GS750 retro/100_5444_zpsk9osgsya.jpg~original[/img]



It's a patch that seems to be working on many forums. Give it a go. It's time consuming, but if each person went back and repaired their own threads, it would be a huge savings of photos and historical info

Just my $.02

[GammaBoy]

You can go back and repair your existing Photobucket pics if you have ability to edit your own posts. We have had big success with restoration over at Customfighters


Insert "~original" after the JPG bit of your photobucket picture link............
has worked on all mine

like this................

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k67/370steve/GS750 retro/100_5444_zpsk9osgsya.jpg~original[/img]



It's a patch that seems to be working on many forums. Give it a go. It's time consuming, but if each person went back and repaired their own threads, it would be a huge savings of photos and historical info

Just my $.02

Nice. Just tried it, wonder how long it will work for?
I suspect that's what the chrome plugin does to allow you to see other peoples photobucket images.

[Gix11]

Yea, interesting.

[LKC73]

That's a very cool tip CK, I may give it a run on my 7/11 build.

[sen]

That ~original trick wont work for long, but it'll give you time to rehost the images. It just tricks their URL detection into thinking it's not a direct link to a .jpg, but as soon as enough people do it and it shows up in their logs, they'll fix it.

Rehosting to imgur is your best bet for now, but they've also shown they're desperate for money and trying various user-hostile tactics lately.

Trusting some random company to look after your images forever for free was never going to last. The only truly future-proof way to protect forum images is for forums to host their own images. It's not expensive/hard anymore, it just requires customising the forums a bit.

[rod185651]

That ~original trick wont work for long, but it'll give you time to rehost the images. It just tricks their URL detection into thinking it's not a direct link to a .jpg, but as soon as enough people do it and it shows up in their logs, they'll fix it.

Rehosting to imgur is your best bet for now, but they've also shown they're desperate for money and trying various user-hostile tactics lately.

Trusting some random company to look after your images forever for free was never going to last. The only truly future-proof way to protect forum images is for forums to host their own images. It's not expensive/hard anymore, it just requires customising the forums a bit.

So what do we need to do?

[sen]

So what do we need to do?

I was going to contact Si soon about upgrading ASF (for various reasons, but mainly for attachments), just got a baby due literally any day now, so was waiting until that's passed.

Ideally we could migrate ASF to one of the new forum platforms like Discourse with s3 image hosting for an all-round more future-proof setup. Discourse is much much lighter on the server, faster, more adaptable to modification, and generally just works better since it's written from scratch using the latest methods, and not based on decades of development like vB/phpbb/alltheothershittyoldforums.

My other idea if an upgrade isn't feasible was to make a dedicated ASF image host. I've got various servers that could easily handle the load of ASF, and then it's not dependent on anyone else, it'd entirely be in-house. Hosting has gotten a lot lot cheaper than it used to be, but forums in general still see hosting images as taboo/scary due to the past.

Once new baby is settled, i'll absolutely help sort it all out. Until then, people should just get their images off photobucket/elsewhere so they're not lost.

[rod185651]

I like it, I would love to see the forum back to its hey days.

[CK 187]

That ~original trick wont work for long, but it'll give you time to rehost the images. It just tricks their URL detection into thinking it's not a direct link to a .jpg, but as soon as enough people do it and it shows up in their logs, they'll fix it.

Rehosting to imgur is your best bet for now, but they've also shown they're desperate for money and trying various user-hostile tactics lately.

Trusting some random company to look after your images forever for free was never going to last. The only truly future-proof way to protect forum images is for forums to host their own images. It's not expensive/hard anymore, it just requires customising the forums a bit.


Didn't expect it to be a permanent fix, but like you said it gives us time to recoup and rehost.

Agreed that hosting at the forum level is the way to go. We are working now and increasing server capacity to allow all permission levels of members to host different amounts

[Gix11]

I'm all ears...
We'll have to talk Sen as I was just about to try and migrate it to my new planned work servers, but you may have better ideas, and now Xenforo2 seems to have hit the shit your ideas sound interesting.

[sen]

I'm all ears...
We'll have to talk Sen as I was just about to try and migrate it to my new planned work servers, but you may have better ideas, and now Xenforo2 seems to have hit the shit your ideas sound interesting.

For sure mate. As soon as stuff settles down at home i'll give you a shout. Happy to help however I can as always.

[Gix11]

No problem mate. Just get in touch when you can. Cheers.

[Bob]

Cant seem to do the link images. Mite be the app

[Hagarr]

That ~original trick wont work for long, but it'll give you time to rehost the images. It just tricks their URL detection into thinking it's not a direct link to a .jpg, but as soon as enough people do it and it shows up in their logs, they'll fix it.

Rehosting to imgur is your best bet for now, but they've also shown they're desperate for money and trying various user-hostile tactics lately.

Trusting some random company to look after your images forever for free was never going to last. The only truly future-proof way to protect forum images is for forums to host their own images. It's not expensive/hard anymore, it just requires customising the forums a bit.

Please don't think I know anything but you'd have to have a mother fkn kick arse Server to host the forum pics surely ???

Every year I was scrambling with having to find more Server space just with damn Outlook (gone web based now!!)

Everyone is realising Data is worth $$$$$$ by the look of it, money for Jam if you have the gear.

[The Phantom]

Server space has actually gotten cheaper but yes there's a bit of a transition happening.

All the people who whinged about the NBN as a waste of taxpayer funds to allow people to watch movies and surf the net had no idea of the value of data, which increases exponentially by volume every year. Connectivity is an economic driver these days.