# PHOTO bucket



## bazmak (Jun 30, 2017)

Photo bucket has taken all my photos down until
i take out a subscription account.I did not even know
is this a new policy,has anyone else got this problem
Please suggest alternatives,i feel as though i have been blackmailed


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## goldstar31 (Jun 30, 2017)

bazmak said:


> Photo bucket has taken all my photos down until
> i take out a subscription account.I did not even know
> is this a new policy,has anyone else got this problem
> Please suggest alternatives,i feel as though i have been blackmailed


 
Barry,
            I keep up to date with Model Engineering Clearing House and they are in the same situation.

I've never had the so called joys of posting pictures but might I suggest you have a look there.

Nice crowd, incidentally

Regards

Norman


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## Cogsy (Jun 30, 2017)

According to their terms of service, if you upload more than 2GB of files they will suspend your account until you pay a subscription. I'd guess this is what has happened to you. I'd say their business strategy suggests a user that needs more than 2GB of space is more than a casual user and deserves to pay for the hosting. I'm not saying their policy is right or wrong, but it is clearly stated in the terms of service - the trouble is, none of us read the TOS until we have a problem (me included).
If it's any consolation, I lost all access to my pictures in similar fashion on imageshack a few years ago, but I had no way to get them back. It's always a gamble with free products.


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## gbritnell (Jun 30, 2017)

The worst part about it is if you want to 3rd party link your photos to a site that doesn't have direct photo linking then the cost of the annual subscription is (drum roll) $399.00 per year. You read that right, $399.00 per year. 
I guess it's all about the money!
gbritnell


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## Blogwitch (Jun 30, 2017)

I had major problems with PB a few years ago, even though I pay for the use of it. 
This was where they continually change the way their site operates, and just one bad button press lost me many years of photos, luckily, I had already backed them up to my computer, but re-uploading them doesn't cure the problem as they have a different URL to the original ones, so unless you can get access to your old posts, there is no way to get the pictures back into them.

The main advantage of using PB is that you can load the picture into your text directly where you want them, plus if anyone is just surfing without membership, they can still see the pictures, and so it will maybe lure them into becoming members. If you upload directly to the site, the text will be there but no piccies.

The only other way to get it free is to upload them directly to the site, which costs you nothing, but because of the way this site is run, I suspect it leaves you open to losing the copyright of your photos and you have no control over them, plus if everyone did it, the site would maybe start to slow down.

John


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## Wizard69 (Jul 1, 2017)

bazmak said:


> Photo bucket has taken all my photos down until
> i take out a subscription account.I did not even know
> is this a new policy,has anyone else got this problem
> Please suggest alternatives,i feel as though i have been blackmailed



I really don't know what to say here, I never really like the majority of the photo sharing services out there.    The problem is you can't really have a free service these days without heavy advertising or other ways to bank roll the web site.   So the services try to rope you in by offering a free "beginners account" an then force you into exactly the situation you are in now.  You either pay or get suspended.

You might be better off looking into services like iCloud, Box, DropBox, iDrive, Google Drive and others.   The problem is these aren't really designed to serve just photos and you likely will still end up having to pay a service fee.   Each though can be setup to share files in one form or another.

Another option would be to setup up your own web server but you really need a desire and background to pull this off well.

In a nut shell the photo sharing services out there suck from my standpoint.


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## burkLane (Jul 1, 2017)

gbritnell said:


> The worst part about it is if you want to 3rd party link your photos to a site that doesn't have direct photo linking then the cost of the annual subscription is (drum roll) $399.00 per year. You read that right, $399.00 per year.
> I guess it's all about the money!
> gbritnell





I was shocked when I was notified of this also!  IMHO PB is a pretty expensive cloud service.

For 15 years I used my Comcast web page account for picture posting. 2 years ago they took those accounts away and over night a couple of forums lost all the picture links. Comcast notified me in advance and I was able to backup those files. A couple of forums I posted on also downloaded the pictures to their site on a couple of my DIY threads I posted they considered the best on their site  other wise all other links were lost.  

  I also started to use photo bucket to post pics and dreaded every time I was on that site. Its so slow and at times useless. One reason I dont post here or other forums as much.


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## rodw (Jul 2, 2017)

Photobucket for years has had a bandwidth limit and if you go  over it, you have to pay. About 5 years ago, I went over that limit and signed up to pay about $30 a year. I now have over 5000 photos up there and every photo I take on my phone is synced to photobucket. I still only have consumed 16% of my storage. I've always downsampled my images (except phone photos) to save storage. 

Guys, I willingly pay that each year so that you guys and many others on other forums see my photos. I am at a bit of a loss to see where your $400 comes from when their current plans  are $6, $10 and $40 a month. Surely there is a lower cost plan that will work for you, just look in the fine print for it.

Honestly, everybody seems to want to get my phone photos, Google and Samsung but no-one does a good a job as Photobucket.


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## bazmak (Jul 2, 2017)

Maybe they have not got to you get.I never went over my limit
that is not the problem.All the smaller subscription packages
they say will not let you host your images to a forum type site
unless you pay the full package of $400.I would gladly pay $30 per year
but that is not what photobucket tell me i can do.No doubt this issue
will become more prevalent,if anyone has the same issues please post
I personally think the images posted will gradually dry up.I will keep an eye
on others ,and those that keep posting images i will ask the question
Meanwhile only texts posts from me which is a shame.The old saying
a picture speaks a thousand words


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## ozzie46 (Jul 2, 2017)

I have downloaded my photos to my computer in preparation to close my PB account. No problem there but when I try to retrieve my videos PB says I have to upgrade to download my videos back to my computer. To me they are holding my videos for ransom. I may end up loosing my videos as there is no way I'm going to pay $400 a year.

Ron


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## Blogwitch (Jul 2, 2017)

I have the cheapest rate on PB, and I can still link my piccies to sites without any problems.

Ron, stick your vids on Youtube from now on, it is a minefield to get around and do anything with them, but eventually when you get the hang of it, it is rather easy.

John


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## bazmak (Jul 2, 2017)

Fortunately i always put my photos into the computer first and put them
thru software to improve them.I then the select the ones i want to post
and upload them to PB.So losing them is not a problem.As my allowance is reduced i delete earlier ones to make more room.According to PB i cannot
put any photos to a host site unless i buy the $400 package.How many others 
have met this restriction and how many others are still posting to HMEM
with out being in the top package


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## toolznthings (Jul 2, 2017)

Not getting one red cent form me, period !

Brian


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## Cogsy (Jul 2, 2017)

I use photobucket and so far my pics are still up on the forum. Soon I may post a few more and see what happens then,.


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## Crisptrans (Jul 3, 2017)

I have no photos loaded to photobucket. I receive a block where a photo should be that says I need to upgrade my account, something about 3rd party sharing. I browsed thru and the first choice was insane. I love to look at the artistry you gentlemen preform, but that's a lot more than my allowance can support . I don't know what account or who they think I'm sharing all of the photos I don't have loaded on their site with, but it seems like a not to savory business practice to me


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## Cogsy (Jul 3, 2017)

rodw said:


> Guys, I willingly pay that each year so that you guys and many others on other forums see my photos. I am at a bit of a loss to see where your $400 comes from when their current plans are $6, $10 and $40 a month. Surely there is a lower cost plan that will work for you, just look in the fine print for it.


 
It looks like Photobucket made a BIG change to their TOS on the 28th June and now the only pricing tier that allows 3rd party hosting (posting pics to a forum) is the $399 per year plan. As yet my account hasn't been flagged, probably as I don't have many pictures or much traffic but I'm sure it will be soon.

Photobucket has clearly made the decision that free accounts don't pay the bills and are essentially charging for cloud storage below the top tier plan, which actually provides 'normal' picture hosting options. I wouldn't be surprised to see a newcomer to the market gain a foothold in the void of photobuckets' departure as a viable free hosting option. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Photobucket to reverse their decision though.

For me, I guess the easiest (or rather cheapest) thing to do is host my pics on some of the hosting space I already pay for, for other reasons. I'd suggest maybe looking into a similar thing, either a free hosting site with a couple of gig of space, or a reasonably priced hosting plan and your own domain. Owning your own domain has the added advantage of guaranteeing permanent access to your email address even if you change employers, or ISP's.


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## Wizard69 (Jul 3, 2017)

ozzie46 said:


> I have downloaded my photos to my computer in preparation to close my PB account. No problem there but when I try to retrieve my videos PB says I have to upgrade to download my videos back to my computer. To me they are holding my videos for ransom. I may end up loosing my videos as there is no way I'm going to pay $400 a year.
> 
> 
> 
> Ron




Always backup locally!!!!!

I can't stress this enough.    A lot of people i know seem to think that these could based services can never fail nor do something unethical.  Reality is a different thing as they have lost data and have done questionable things as you have described.  

For anything important you really want that file stored in at least 3 places.   A cloud service for sharing, locally on your hard disk for quick access.   And a third place that is not colocated with you computer.  


For the most part there is no reason to believe files are safe online.  

Now all of that being said, these services have to pay for the hardware and access so I'm not one to complain too loudly about the charges they apply.  The best thing to do here is to shop around.  Just realize other approaches often cost more per year.   Also something like setting up your own web server is very involved and requires constant attention.  

In the end there us no good solution to photo sharing.   One way or the other it will cost you money and leave you with shortcomings.


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## Wizard69 (Jul 3, 2017)

Crisptrans said:


> I have no photos loaded to photobucket. I receive a block where a photo should be that says I need to upgrade my account, something about 3rd party sharing. I browsed thru and the first choice was insane. I love to look at the artistry you gentlemen preform, but that's a lot more than my allowance can support . I don't know what account or who they think I'm sharing all of the photos I don't have loaded on their site with, but it seems like a not to savory business practice to me




The problem is that every bit they push over their network connection costs them money.   When the picture gets posted to a forum such as this, that picture gets downloaded many times costing PB a lot of money and maybe more importantly a lot of bandwidth.  

$400 bucks a year is actually pretty cheap.   If you try to run your own server, paying $400 a year, you might hit bandwidth limits that make your pictures unavailable from time to time.  

In a nut shell sharing to forums results in very heavy traffic for sites like PB thus increasing their expenses.   Think about it a bit, every time you visit a page on this forum your browser re downloads all the pictures it doesn't have cached.  Since people are in the habit of revisiting threads one user can generate many extra downloads of a picture.   Multiply that by thousands if users.  

Frankly one way around this is for the forums to provide image storage and download capability.   However you end up with the same economic issue in that many online forums such as this can't afford the bandwidth.   It all comes back to getting what you paid for.


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## Wizard69 (Jul 3, 2017)

Cogsy said:


> It looks like Photobucket made a BIG change to their TOS on the 28th June and now the only pricing tier that allows 3rd party hosting (posting pics to a forum) is the $399 per year plan. As yet my account hasn't been flagged, probably as I don't have many pictures or much traffic but I'm sure it will be soon.
> 
> Photobucket has clearly made the decision that free accounts don't pay the bills and are essentially charging for cloud storage below the top tier plan, which actually provides 'normal' picture hosting options. I wouldn't be surprised to see a newcomer to the market gain a foothold in the void of photobuckets' departure as a viable free hosting option. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Photobucket to reverse their decision though.
> 
> For me, I guess the easiest (or rather cheapest) thing to do is host my pics on some of the hosting space I already pay for, for other reasons. I'd suggest maybe looking into a similar thing, either a free hosting site with a couple of gig of space, or a reasonably priced hosting plan and your own domain. Owning your own domain has the added advantage of guaranteeing permanent access to your email address even if you change employers, or ISP's.




Owning your own host isn't cost free either, especially if you sign up with a provider and an account that doesn't have bandwidth limitations.   In many cases it would be cheaper to pay PB $400 a month.   The so called free hosting sites can be extremely limited.  

Beyond all of that managing your own domain and host isn't a trivial activity.  Especially when you consider hackers and other concerns with server management.  

Im not saying it cant be done just that the economics is debatable.  One retired tool and die maker i know did set up such a server so it isn't impossible but he also wasn't sharing photos with forums.  The thing here he was retired and had a part time computer based business.  Thus he had the time and skills.   Now i forget what he was paying at the time but it was around $25 a month.


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## TonyM (Jul 3, 2017)

I have visited various forums recently and its not unusual to find photos and videos are not available in many threads. So I guess PB's rules are affecting a lot of people.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jul 3, 2017)

I've been using Photobucket for 7 years now, and paying about $40 a year for my account. If they jack the price to $400 a year, about 8000 of my pictures are going to disappear of all of the forums.----Brian


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## ozzie46 (Jul 3, 2017)

Brian I was able to get all of my pics off of PB, but have not been able to retrieve my Videos. All my pics are on my computer now.

Of course I only had about 300 pics there, not thousands.

Ron


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## Cogsy (Jul 3, 2017)

Wizard69 said:


> Owning your own host isn't cost free either, especially if you sign up with a provider and an account that doesn't have bandwidth limitations. In many cases it would be cheaper to pay PB $400 a month. The so called free hosting sites can be extremely limited.
> 
> Beyond all of that managing your own domain and host isn't a trivial activity. Especially when you consider hackers and other concerns with server management.


 
I'm not sure when the last time you checked pricing was, but I have 100GB of server space with unlimited bandwidth costing me around $10 US per month. Of course I also have domain registration charges in the region of $10 per year, per domain as well, but it's a relatively small price to pay just for email address continuity alone. 

Putting aside a chunk of space for picture hosting won't hurt me and I'll just use one of my existing domains rather than register a new one as domain name for purely hosting is irrelevant. Hacking is virtually a non-issue with a small domain as well - they don't come up on hackers' radar and even if they somehow do, it's relatively trivial to pull the entire site down and upload a fresh copy.

I'm not against entities making money, it's what keeps the world turning after all, but for a company like photobucket to suddenly and without warning, modify it's core functions from free/cheap to $400 per year seems unscrupulous. It seems they figure there's enough people dependent on them now, and for most (like Brian and his 8000 forum pics for example) it's virtually impossible for them to switch services and maintain their existing content. I'm hugely speculating here, but I'm thinking it's a quick money grab, followed by a quick sale of the entire business while the figures look good, and ending with photobucket becoming largely irrelevant within a year or two.

I agree that normal users should never erase original content because they've uploaded to an external host. I use 3 point retention - my PC's hard disk, an external hard drive permanently hooked up to my PC for quick access (very important or I never get around to backing up) and external hosting (like youtube, photobucket, cloud, etc. and soon to be my own server). The two hard disks guard against physical hardware failure and nasty malware attacks, while the external hosting guards against fire, theft, etc.


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## bazmak (Jul 4, 2017)

I only put photos up that i want to show on a host site.I will just have to be more descriptive in future. Nuf said


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## crankshafter (Jul 4, 2017)

Hello all.
So PB is on its way to the scrappy?

How about start using Tapatalk? 

CS


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## deverett (Jul 4, 2017)

I see Neils Abilgaard uses Imgur.  Perhaps he would like to comment on its use.  
I've had a _quick_ look through the Terms and Conditions and considering the usage is 'free', with all the usual advertising, I can't see anything onerous in them.

Dave
The Emerald Isle


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## Blogwitch (Jul 7, 2017)

If you already have a subscription, even the cheapest one, like I have,  I have just read in their terms and conditions that they have given us a bit of breathing space so we can find somewhere else to host our pictures..

*If you were a Plus Account subscriber in good standing as of June 1, 2017,*
* you will continue to have all the privileges you have enjoyed including 3rd*
* Party Hosting until December 31, 2018 as long as you maintain your*
* subscription.*

*But remember, after that time, your piccies will disappear from this website*


*I hope this helps.*

*John
*


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## deeferdog (Jul 7, 2017)

This is from Wiki "As of June 30, 2017, Photobucket requires a $99 annual subscription to allow external linking to hosted images and a $399 annual subscription to allow the embedding of images on third-party websites, such as personal blogs and forums. This policy change, enacted with no advance warning, has been highly controversial."


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## Jasonb (Jul 8, 2017)

Thanks for digging that out John. I had a feeling they were hitting the free users first as my photos are still all fine.

Gives me a chance to decide what to do at a relaxed pace rather than be forced into a rush decision. Who knows by 1st jan 2019 they may have restructured their costings


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## abby (Jul 8, 2017)

Sounds very much like the death knell to forums that need pictures , I think the other free hosting servers will follow Photobucket's lead eventually.
I cannot see many people being willing to pay $40 per month for the privilege of entertaining the non-contributers to this and similar forums.
It may be that the forum owners , who incidentally charge for premium membership and make money from advertising , will cover the costs for their biggest contributers ( tongue in cheek).
Of-course this doesn't prevent the attachment of pictures to posts but most forums don't have enough space , and it is not the most convenient method.
Dan.


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## TonyM (Jul 8, 2017)

I imagine that if forums like this have limited space then they could limit the size of attached pics because for general on screen viewing the quality does not have to be that great.


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## Blogwitch (Jul 8, 2017)

The main advantage of using an offsite hoster is that you can put your images anywhere within your post, whereas with onsite hosting you are usually limited to a line of pictures with no text to describe what you are doing. Plus, if everyone started to upload pictures to the site, it would soon become bloated and start to get unwieldy and slow.

I know I can now continue using PB for another 18 Months without losing any of my posted pictures until then, giving time for me to find somewhere else to host, but after that time, most, if not all pictures will have disappeared from every post on here that relied on PB.

This is a major problem with this site, you cannot go back and edit your old posts to put the pictures back if you do find somewhere else to host them, and unless that issue gets addressed quickly, this site will be an empty shell with plenty of words, but little or no pictures within the next year or so, with no way for us to resurrect it.

Survival rests with admin allowing us access and us 'fixing things' in our old posts.

Has anyone got a better solution to this disaster?


John


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## RonGinger (Jul 8, 2017)

I have always been troubled by a forum that encourages, or requires, photos to be posted off the forum site. A forum is useless without photos, they are as much, or more use as the text. We now have a forum here that is mostly useless. All of the great build logs are just trash.

Sure, photos take space, but it should be part of the cost of running the forum. To  late to go back now, this forum and others might as well delete all their past threads. It is a damn shame that forum owners tried to take the cheap way out and have now lost most of their content.


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## Jasonb (Jul 8, 2017)

Ron

I said it before all the images can still be viewed, it is just a pain to do so so why delete all the threads when it is still possible for someone who really wants to follow a thread eg if they are making the same engine to see the images. And you don't need to be a computer wizz to find the album that a set of photos are in so even easier than right clicking each blanked out image.

Same applies to threads by people like bogs and myself our threads are still showing all the images so deleting them now would be stupid.

John

I think the only way old threads could be updated without teh ability to go back and edit would be for the author to go back and copy their text and paste it into a new thread or document and add the newly rehosted images. Might even be an easier option than trying to edit numerous posts. Maybe produce it as a single PDF which would keep teh size down and host teh pdf somewhere free liek dropbox (well until they start charging for it)


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## ShopShoe (Jul 8, 2017)

So the first time I heard of this I checked and my photos were still working. Yesterday I got two emails from Photobucket that only provided a "Upgrade Now" option without the pricing being provided. This type of "pig-in-a-poke" sales technique never makes me happy and I am less likely to trust them now.

Where I am in life right now I hardly have any time in the shop and the last thing I want to do is spend time fixing this issue.

This whole thing is a hobby for me and $400.00 would buy some nice tooling or a few years of that would get me a new lathe.

I will be making a decision, but for now I am not putting in all-nighters (as we used to say) to fix my old posts.

For the time being, I will be following others and trying to write detailed descriptions  in new posts.

I may follow those who only post videos using YouTube and link to those, but I prefer the text-and-photos medium for viewing and guess others do too. Of course, I might have to upgrade my video equipment for that and more money would go there.

You may also find me on "the other" forum, where some options are being discussed as well.

(Stop Here or go on for philosophy)

What I think may be involved here, beyond greed, is that there is a possibility that so many new cloud options are developing that Photobucket's original business is going down at the same time they are trying to compete with some of the other services out there and wanting to add features for that market ( which seems to be borne out by their frequent emails telling me I can order things from them or do such and such with my photos.) I also think they are losing market to those who now share photos directly from their smartphones instead of using web hosting.

Whatever the reason, I feel they could have provided some other options.

--ShopShoe


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## Blogwitch (Jul 8, 2017)

Jason,

Over the last few months, while trying to get my shop resurrected I have been trying to do just that.

I thought of bringing back to life my Scott flamelicker thread which I was half way through when my mind got played with. That is a very long post, and I managed to get what was there completed, and I was starting to put in my PB piccies into the text, but now it is useless if the post will only be valid for 18 months.

I have over 6,000 pictures that I need to host (2.5K of them not on PB but stored on my computer) so that I can carry on the way I used to, a bit of text explaining the following picture.

My surface grinder is almost there, just the DRO to fit (and finish off the post about it) and then my lathe will be converted to VFD control as soon as a couple of bits get in from China, namely a wire wound pot and scale knob. That was another post that would have shown how to connect all the controls of the VFD to your standard buttons and levers on your lathe rather than having to to use a pendant with limited functionality.
So say 2 months max and I will be ready to start posting again in anger, (I have enough just tooling projects to keep going for two or three years and double that time for engine builds, if I last that long) but won't be doing anything until this issue of picture hosting can be sorted.


John


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## Lakc (Jul 8, 2017)

From a Photobucket TOS it may be possible to just link rather than embed the images? Posts wont be as pretty but the information will still be there.


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## TonyM (Jul 8, 2017)

I guess some people have an even bigger problem. http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...ing-your-amazon-ebay-listings-pricier-n779781


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## bazmak (Jul 10, 2017)

Just trying out image shack as per Brians suggestionhttps://imageshack.com/i/pm7Bhttp://imageshack.com/a/img922/7930/7B4Bzv.jpg4Bzvj
How do paste the image rather than the link. Please Brian


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## Cogsy (Jul 10, 2017)

Baz - when you're typing a post, look at the menu above where you're typing. See the button that looks like a picture of a mountain - click that and a little window will open. Paste the address of your image in that box and it *should* insert the image. I tried it with the address you posted but it's not the right one. Your need the link that is titled something like 'direct' or 'embed'. 

As I posted in Brian's thread, Imageshack has previously done pretty much exactly what Photobucket has now done and I wouldn't trust them not to do it again. I'll be looking elsewhere myself.


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## TonyM (Jul 10, 2017)

Just a thought and I know it means some duplication of effort but there are options for unlimited free storage without sharing. There are also sites that offer limited/relatively cheap or free storage and sharing.  Is it viable for people to store all of their pics in one place and just use the sharing option for the actual photos they want to share.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jul 10, 2017)

Cogsy--nearly all of the picture hosting sites have a free 30 day try-out option to suck you in. Then when the 30 days are up they say you have to have a paid subscription or you lose what you posted during the 'free" month. I paid my money up front before I posted anything to Imageshack.


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## Cogsy (Jul 10, 2017)

Brian - this was about 4-5 years ago and I used them for about a year, then overnight they blocked access to all the 'free' account users and demanded a subscription fee to continue, very similar to how Photobucket suddenly changed their service. I'm not saying they're offering a bad deal now, it's just I don't trust them not to do a similar thing in the future and alter the properties of their accounts overnight and effectively going on another 'cash grab'.

Tony - That sounds like a reasonable plan if you've got the time to do the extra work, just make sure you keep a copy of your content offline as well (on a hard drive) in case the free hosting suddenly disappears and you lose access.


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## bruedney (Jul 10, 2017)

TonyM said:


> Just a thought and I know it means some duplication of effort but there are options for unlimited free storage without sharing. There are also sites that offer limited/relatively cheap or free storage and sharing.  Is it viable for people to store all of their pics in one place and just use the sharing option for the actual photos they want to share.



Like Google (not unlimited but you get 15Gb - that is still a lot of photos)

Which is what I use!







Bruce


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## abby (Jul 10, 2017)

I have been using postimage for a few years now and find it better than Photobucket as it loads and opens much quicker, nothing says they won't eventually go the same way though.
Lets face it the days of free stuff are rapidly coming to a close.
Dan.


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## rodw (Jul 11, 2017)

bruedney said:


> Like Google (not unlimited but you get 15Gb - that is still a lot of photos)
> 
> Which is what I use!
> 
> Bruce



Bruce, I'd really appreciate it if you could outline how you manage your photos on Google and how you embed them in forum posts. I tried last night with no luck.

I've been using a paid version of Google Apps for years but it has never been as good as Photobucket. It seems everybody is vying for my phone photos these days. If I want to send a quick photo in an email, I take the photo on my phone and by the time I get back to my PC it is stored on Photobucket and I can paste it into an email. LUcky I've been on a paid plan with Photobucket so I still have the service.


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## Wizard69 (Jul 11, 2017)

This is a disaster in so many ways but it isn't just Home Model Engine Machinist that is having problems, I'm seeing many of the forums I visit going to hell because of photo bucket.




RonGinger said:


> I have always been troubled by a forum that encourages, or requires, photos to be posted off the forum site. A forum is useless without photos, they are as much, or more use as the text. We now have a forum here that is mostly useless. All of the great build logs are just trash.


The old adage that a photo is worth a thousands words is still true today.


> Sure, photos take space, but it should be part of the cost of running the forum. To  late to go back now, this forum and others might as well delete all their past threads.


This gets complicated quick but the overriding factor is the cost to support a massive increase in bandwidth.   A thread that is all text might require a 10kB download per thread while once serving up pictures with that text may be will into the multiple mega bytes of data.

The only good thing here is that modern hosting services are offering a lot more capacity for a given price.   Still you can quickly get into requiring Terra Bytes of storage space to host more than a years worth of pictures.   Plus you need a backup plan for all of that data.


> It is a damn shame that forum owners tried to take the cheap way out and have now lost most of their content.



I really don't blame the forum owners here, everybody that uses the internet expects everything to be free.   Frankly that makes no sense at all but it does cause forum owners to minimize expenses.    Frankly advertising isn't the answer either as that leads to the user paying huge bandwidth fees due to all the advertising on a site.   In the end the mind set of the user community has to change, that means paying a membership or subscription fee to access the forum.

A subscription fee would certainly work for larger sites, but I'm not sure if Home Model Engine Machinist has enough users to cover the expenses of running the site.   I know there are some out here that will reject the paying of a subscription fee but we need to look to the past before the internet.    The only way to be part of this community back then would have been to purchase a magazine subscription or two.   That would leave you with what amounted to one way communications.    Frankly I'm not sure what people are willing to pay but a decent magazine subscription can easily be $40 a year.

Like I said at the beginning Photo Bucket has made a mess of many forums covering a wide array of interests.    I don't think anybody in their right mind will be paying them $400 bucks a year so a lot of these old forums will end up useless as people here are describing.   Because of the lack of ethical behavior on the part of Photo Bucket, I can't see anybody wanting to do business with them even if they only charged $40 bucks a year.    Sometimes you just have to put your foot down and look to the alternatives.

Right now the only real alternative I can advocate is to have the forums store data locally.    That means a massive increase in storage space, backup space and manage meant time.   In the end the problem is this, you can't trust these photo management services.   Even if you could "trust them" you still have the reality that running these businesses isn't cost free.


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## Wizard69 (Jul 11, 2017)

Blogwitch said:


> The main advantage of using an offsite hoster is that you can put your images anywhere within your post, whereas with onsite hosting you are usually limited to a line of pictures with no text to describe what you are doing. Plus, if everyone started to upload pictures to the site, it would soon become bloated and start to get unwieldy and slow.


The way a forum behaves with onsite hosting is a function of software and how the user configures that software.    The software issues can be addressed that I'm confident in.   

As far as performance goes that is a hardware and software issue.   These days one can buy a sever with a massive number of cores and extremely fast storage subsystems so hardware isn't the big issue it use to be.   I'm not sure how many are logged in at the moment but lets face it this isn't a site that gets real heavy with many users logged in all at once.    Remember there are more than a few people out there that think we are nuts to be Turing chinks of metal into machine and engines.  

Frankly in some cases the site might even run faster instead of linking to PB which can be slow and serves up its own ads.


> I know I can now continue using PB for another 18 Months without losing any of my posted pictures until then, giving time for me to find somewhere else to host, but after that time, most, if not all pictures will have disappeared from every post on here that relied on PB.


Yes this is what sucks more than anything, I'm already seeing many sites that frankly look like hell with PB obnoxious standing photo.    In the end though we really need to reject this move by PB.   For me it isn't the annual cost even if the tis grossly expensive, but rather it is the sleazy way they went about implementing this non-sense.  


> This is a major problem with this site, you cannot go back and edit your old posts to put the pictures back if you do find somewhere else to host them, and unless that issue gets addressed quickly, this site will be an empty shell with plenty of words, but little or no pictures within the next year or so, with no way for us to resurrect it.


I would imagine that is a parameter that can be set easily.  That is they could configure to allow updating for an arbitrary number of years.    The question is how many people would be willing to go back 3, 5 or even ten years to update a bunch of photo links.


> Survival rests with admin allowing us access and us 'fixing things' in our old posts.


That bings up an interesting question, have the forum owners said anything yet with respect to this problem?    In the end the forum owners are the only ones that can offer up a real solution.


> Has anyone got a better solution to this disaster?


Yes, the forum should host pictures itself.   If need be they will have to update or change the forums software to clean up how pictures are handled onsite.   

Ultimately they will have to start charging a subscription fee to cover the additional expense of hosting the pictures themselves.   If they can keep that fee in line with a decent magazine fee I think they will get enough buy in to remain viable.    A lot of hedging with the "think" there because it really depends upon how many active users the site can maintain.

Notably many sites have split access.   That is one level, the free one, gets you access to text.   If you want the photos you end up having to subscribe.    Sure it sucks to have to pay to see a picture but the idea that everything on the net is free needs to die.

There is a second option, that likely won't work, but that is to plaster every single page of the site with advertisements.   I'm already running an ad blocker due to the high frustration some sites create, so I don't believe it is a successful path.  Frankly many sites have been ruined via heavy advertising so I don't want to see Home Model Engine Machinist going the same way.


> John


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## Wizard69 (Jul 11, 2017)

abby said:


> I have been using postimage for a few years now and find it better than Photobucket as it loads and opens much quicker, nothing says they won't eventually go the same way though.
> Lets face it the days of free stuff are rapidly coming to a close.
> Dan.




Abby that is exactly what is happening.   The unfortunate thing here is the way PB handled this change.

Ultimately I see all of these services going the same way, maybe not to the extent of PB with the massive gouging but somebody has to pay for the plant and utilities.


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## Cogsy (Jul 11, 2017)

Wizard69 said:


> Abby that is exactly what is happening. The unfortunate thing here is the way PB handled this change.
> 
> Ultimately I see all of these services going the same way, maybe not to the extent of PB with the massive gouging but somebody has to pay for the plant and utilities.


 
This is exactly what you yourself are advocating for this very site. You suggest that all the 'users' pay a subscription for the site to continue to function and liken it to a magazine subscription. However, the difference is that a core of users is generating the very content being delivered which is completely unlike a conventional magazine. The users generating content are not likely to want to pay for the sole privilege of sharing their knowledge, while at the same time giving up ownership of copyrighted photos for the forum owners to generate income from. 

The vast majority of all internet income is generated from ad-serving on popular sites and very few subscription-only based forums are viable - I'd hazard a guess that the only ones truly viable are likely shady places with highly illegal content. Without free, or realistically cheap, photo hosting sites then enforced ad-serving is likely the price us users will have to pay to continue to enjoy forums like this. Unfortunately, the increasing prevalence of ad blocking software is ever decreasing revenues from ad-serving and proportionally reducing the viability of less popular sites. I fear without services like Photoboucket used to offer, forums like this one are likely to disappear.


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## Blogwitch (Jul 11, 2017)

Al,

I don't like forum hosting one bit, for one, it makes posting very difficult. I was going to resurrect one of my posts, which half way through contains over 200 pictures, all used to describe the techniques and why it was done that way, some of the individual posts contain over 30 pictures, imagine a bit of text followed by a load of non indexed pictures, as some people are doing already ??????? You just wouldn't know where to look next.

I even thought of numbering my pictures so at the very beginning of the post I could write some words and index it to a picture half a mile below, but again, people would feel sick going up and down the post like a roller coaster trying to keep in synch between text and picture.

I personally will not go down that route..

With regards to people not posting but still able to look at complete posts, other sites use a posting rule (useful posts or genuine questions, not 'this is where I come from" or 'what lathe should I buy' types) before they have full access to the sites posts, so anyone not contributing gets nowhere and nothing, except access to their own posts and the replies to them, until they qualify..

I don't know about this site as I have been a member since the very beginning and have been able to always see the images on here, but you only have to look at MEM, where if you are not a member or not signed in, the only posts you can see pictures in are the ones where people link to an external host.

The only way a site would satisfy my personal needs would be to allow site hosted pictures to be placed within text, and the copyright to remain mine. For at least a couple of thousand pictures.

John


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## John S (Jul 11, 2017)

Another problem with forum hosted pics is when some twonk decides to copy / paste a post with say 20 embedded pictures just to ad "nice job" at the end.

One forum I moderate on, if I see this type of post I just delete it with no reason given.

Same with the Google Goons who do noting but post endless Google links to pages they don't have a clue on


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## bruedney (Jul 11, 2017)

rodw said:


> Bruce, I'd really appreciate it if you could outline how you manage your photos on Google and how you embed them in forum posts. I tried last night with no luck.



Hi Rod

I'll do a post with screen shots tonight or tomorrow - But basically I just open the photo in Google Photos and resize the browser to nice size and use the "copy image address from the right click menu. 

I do have some problems with my phone pics though and I think that is because they are uploaded directly to Google photos as opposed to my camera files being uploaded via Google drive sync

Bruce


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## doubletop (Jul 11, 2017)

Blogwitch said:


> This is a major problem with this site, you cannot go back and edit your old posts to put the pictures back if you do find somewhere else to host them, and unless that issue gets addressed quickly, this site will be an empty shell with plenty of words, but little or no pictures within the next year or so, with no way for us to resurrect it.
> 
> Survival rests with admin allowing us access and us 'fixing things' in our old posts.
> 
> ...



I've copied all my pics from Photobucket to  Imgur and updated all my pictures on the MECH forum as it allows editing of your own posts. Moderators can you investigate the fesibility of doing that here please?

On the subject of image loading times, there is no need to load pictures of 5Mb to these hosting platforms. preprocess them with the Fastone image re-sizer to 1024 x 768 or even 800 x 600 and they are perfectly adequate for the forums (5Mb becomes 100kb). Plus you can add a watermark. 

Example.






The other nice thing about Imgur is the direct access to BBCode. The copied URL can be pasted directly into your post. without any further action

["img]http://i.imgur.com/DIct2x4.jpg[/img"] (" quotes added to demo the code")

Pete


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## rodw (Jul 12, 2017)

bruedney said:


> Hi Rod
> 
> I do have some problems with my phone pics though and I think that is because they are uploaded directly to Google photos as opposed to my camera files being uploaded via Google drive sync
> 
> Bruce



Bruce, Thanks. I think phone photos has been Photobuckets undoing. I use it all the time becasue I can take a photo and then go back in the office and email it to somebody using gmail from my PC as its already in Photobucket. Pre mobile phone photos, I would always down sample all my photos using the batch mode processing in the free tool Irfanview. So they allowed their storage requirements go out the window with their mobile app!

I've got over 5000 photos on Photobucket and they are posted on many forums around the web. When my subscription expires and they take them off line, there is no way I'm going to revise my postings so they will be gone forever!

I am a big Google apps user so having the ability to use their ecosystem would be great. But I do see that even Samsung are trying to get me to sync my phone photos to them.


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## doubletop (Jul 16, 2017)

doubletop said:


> I've copied all my pics from Photobucket to  Imgur and updated all my pictures on the MECH forum as it allows editing of your own posts. Moderators can you investigate the fesibility of doing that here please?
> 
> Pete



I've now fixed all my posts on the MECH and MEM forums but for some reason can't do it here. I can edit recent posts but don't get that option on any older posts.

*If you want this forum updated  can the moderators/admins investigate please and come back with a fix or reason why it can't be done*?

Pete


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## Blogwitch (Jul 16, 2017)

Pete,

I have been trying for ages to get posts unlocked so that I can change the pictures, but it seems that admin is both deaf, dumb AND blind to what the members want. We haven't heard a peep out of them despite us asking.

Because of their inaction, this site will soon disappear when member pics get removed by PB. I won't be paying a new small subscription for next year to take me to the end of 2018, mine will all be gone at the end of this year, or even sooner if my subscription runs out. If they can't be bothered to take action to save this site, why should we?

The only other way is to get admin to pay the $399 subscription for all of us on PB each year, (pigs might also fly) then they can still have our pictures in our posts. Why should we have to pay out to keep this site running as it has been.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have also just picked this up from another site where they are discussing the same thing about where to go.
Supposedly thia is in the terms and conditions of this hoster.

... *Also,  don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere,  content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that  turns us into your content delivery network.* If you do &#8211; and we will be the judge &#8211; or if you do anything illegal, in addition to any other legal rights we may have, *we will ban you along with the site you're hotlinking from, delete all your images,* report you to the authorities if necessary, and prevent you from viewing any images hosted on Imgur.com. We mean it.

 John


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## ned100 (Jul 17, 2017)

After receiving a less than pleasing email today from photobucket calling me a "naughty boy" for posting pics to a forum over a year ago,  I will throw this into the ring.

I was a subscriber to RCScalebuilder in the US for a number of years and it worked extremely well.  To actively participate and post photos, they asked for a subscription of US$20 per year, which I gladly paid for the many bits of advice, and shared experiences I got from the site.

I for one would happily do the same for this site.  Moderators, over to you.  It must be possible because this is one successful example of the system working.

The one thing I WILL NOT DO, is pay these parasitic hosting sites a ransom.

Cheers,

Ned


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## doubletop (Jul 17, 2017)

John

Thats buried in the T&C's about illegal activity and is easily overlooked, thanks for pointing it out. As you say moderators/admins can't be bothered to manage their forums then it their forum thats going to wither and die.

I also agree that you don't get owt for nowt so probably what is happening is inevitable, forums really should have their own storage capability . We'll see what eventuates

Pete


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## doubletop (Jul 17, 2017)

It has occurred to me why moderators won't unlock posts. Its not practical,  I'm guessing it&#8217;s about moderation, once a post has been  moderated for content it then gets locked so the moderators don't need  to go back to it. Otherwise, they'd have to re-moderate all the re-edited  posts.

 It&#8217;s up to the forum owners. If they want the forum to be a long-term reference source they need to give people the chance to fix this problem for them. 

In order to ensure a reference source, the long-term solution should be that the forums invest in their own storage capacity rather than expect everybody to trump up $399/year to some third party who may or not be in business in 20years time. They need to take the lead and start on the business case, owning your own capacity would be less risk and far more cost effective for everybody. OK we may end up with some useless advertising but everybody is getting used to tuning out from that anyway.

Pete


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## pp2076 (Jul 17, 2017)

Cogsy said:


> I agree that normal users should never erase original content because they've uploaded to an external host. I use 3 point retention - my PC's hard disk, an external hard drive permanently hooked up to my PC for quick access (very important or I never get around to backing up) and external hosting (like youtube, photobucket, cloud, etc. and soon to be my own server). The two hard disks guard against physical hardware failure and nasty malware attacks, while the external hosting guards against fire, theft, etc.


Be careful here: Having an attached external hard disk will NOT protect you from malware, especially ransomware, where the hard drives are encrypted. 
If you want to protect your data, perform a backup then disconnect the external disk drive.


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## Cogsy (Jul 18, 2017)

pp2076 said:


> Be careful here: Having an attached external hard disk will NOT protect you from malware, especially ransomware, where the hard drives are encrypted.
> If you want to protect your data, perform a backup then disconnect the external disk drive.


 
You're absolutely right and you've now made me paranoid :hDe: as not everything is backed up on the cloud (for security reasons my critically private stuff will never be uploaded). I'll be doing a proper backup and disconnect very shortly so I can sleep tonight...


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## bazmak (Jul 18, 2017)

Only way to go .Backup on a separate hard drive and disconnect then store away


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## Shelton (Jul 18, 2017)

I have read the first 3 pages of this thread and see that you need it show images in text.

Here is a thread telling how to do it, and inviting you to give it a try.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=26935


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## Shelton (Jul 18, 2017)

Blogwitch said:


> The main advantage of using an offsite hoster is that you can put your images anywhere within your post, whereas with onsite hosting you are usually limited to a line of pictures with no text to describe what you are doing. Plus, if everyone started to upload pictures to the site, it would soon become bloated and start to get unwieldy and slow.
> 
> I know I can now continue using PB for another 18 Months without losing any of my posted pictures until then, giving time for me to find somewhere else to host, but after that time, most, if not all pictures will have disappeared from every post on here that relied on PB.
> 
> ...



Please see the thread I started showing how to have text with photos in between, then test it.   It is very easy with this software.  

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=26935


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## Shelton (Jul 18, 2017)

> This is a major problem with this site, you cannot go back and edit your old posts to put the pictures back if you do find somewhere else to host them, and unless that issue gets addressed quickly, this site will be an empty shell with plenty of words, but little or no pictures within the next year or so, with no way for us to resurrect it.



I saw this thread in the Announcement and Support forum:  http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=26922

But that does not mention anyone wanting any of the things mentioned in this thread.   How many would want permission to edit old threads to fix their posts with the images from your computer and not Photobucket.

I really am sorry I did not read this earlier as I just thought the title was basic fussing, and did not have hidden requests for HMEM within it.   And you are correct, this effects every forum I've been on since they started this.  And even blogs, etc.

How many would want to edit their old threads to fix the image problem?


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## Shelton (Jul 18, 2017)

PS:  I understand the problem, I lost 3000 photos when Webshots died a few years ago.


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## Blogwitch (Jul 18, 2017)

Thank you very much Angie, I am sorry I had to push rather nastily sometimes, but until everyone pushes, and people listen, only then do things get resolved.

It now looks like the dream is starting to get slowly sorted for the contributors on here, and I am sure that with admins helps, most problems can be overcome.


John


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## doubletop (Jul 18, 2017)

Angie said:


> How many would want to edit their old threads to fix the image problem?



Angie

Some will some won't, a number won't be aware they could and no doubt there will be a number who wouldn't know how to do it. It takes a bit of discipline but once you get into the swing of it its not that hard. It also depends on the nature of your new host and your ability to match the original reference to the image to any new reference the new host may give it.

If there are any long threads that would benefit from being updated then giving the owner a nudge would be an option. I've got a couple with 1000's of views which I guess people must be using as a point of reference.

Lets just do it please and see what happens.

Pete


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## ShopShoe (Jul 19, 2017)

Angie,

I would think allowing posters to edit old posts would be desirable, not just because of the current photo problem, but because sometimes errors get noticed much later than one would think, including errors by the original poster, and it would be good to be able to fix them and more efficient to do so than to continually add posts to threads to explain that there was an error.

Realistically, would I edit all my old posts? Probably not. But this feature would seem to be something that should exist.

--ShopShoe


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## Longboy (Jul 19, 2017)

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/16/photobucket-fee-hike/


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## pp2076 (Jul 19, 2017)

Longboy said:


> http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/16/photobucket-fee-hike/


Was the customer backlash expected?
 Corpus paused. For 12 seconds.
 No, he finally said. 



The man is quite obviously deluded.


It's a blatant grab for cash. Presumably he is hoping to get the money rolling in, then sell the company and stuff his pockets on the proceeds.
It ain't gonna happen.


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## bazmak (Jul 20, 2017)

If anyone can post photos and text to this forum as easily as Angie says
why would anyone want to use a 3rd party host.
OK i understand some people will want to store all their photos on a cloud
somewhere for safety but i imagine that most of us (OLDER) folk would be happy to save our files the old fashion way on a separate hard drive or Even a cheap USB memory stick and put away in a drawer.I for one will have no need
for photobucket or any other cloud. Once i get into it i will also pay for a subscription to HMEM and get rid of the annoying adds


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## rodw (Jul 20, 2017)

bazmak said:


> why would anyone want to use a 3rd party host.



Why would I want to? My phone pushes images to photobucket automatically and Adobe Lightroom pushes my camera photos to Photobucket with the push of a button.n Once they are there, I can embed them in an email or post them on a forum.

I'm sorry guys,  when photobucket finally locks me out, thats it, I won't be updating any links or copying to a forum server. THousands of informative posts I've made in countless forums ove r the years will be consigned to the scrap bin.

And remember





Let me translate that for the future when Photobucket switches me off "This thread is worthless without pics"


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## Ken I (Jul 20, 2017)

I understand that PB would want to charge for hosting to commercial sites such as Amazon, E-Bay etc.

However I think they have totally missed that a great deal of its popularity is through turnover in non-profit or low-profit / service sites such as this.

I also can't see how they can unscramble this ommlette. I can't see anyone wanting to sell a DooHicky on E-Bay for $30 forking out $400 for his PB subscription first.

I don't have a lot of images or a lot of traffic on them and now they want me to pay $400.

Even if it was $1 it is still extortion my answer to PB was and will remain "Goodbye" !

Fortunately I have never trusted anything to a "free" site and have backups so they can go .... themselves.:fan:

Its just sad the amount of damage they are going to do to sites like this.

Quite frankly I think they have doomed themselves

In the early HMEM posts we used to do direct posting of the images to site but were size limited so you had to resize them before posting.

I suppose we can just go back to that method.

Its no use changing the provider as they will all succumb to screwing you eventually therefore there is never going to be any long term prospects.

Regards,  Ken


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## bazmak (Jul 20, 2017)

As far as i am concerned ,and probably many others,all future thread posts
can be carried on as normal thru HMEM.If anyone wants any of my threads
revitalized then please request and i for one will repost images as required
I understand that newbies will miss out on a lot of good and interesting threads


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## Cogsy (Jul 20, 2017)

bazmak said:


> why would anyone want to use a 3rd party host.


 
It's a big issue for many, especially those that post to multiple forums. With a hosted image, it's virtually copy and paste posts (with pictures) to each forum, but uploading every image to each forum would be very time consuming. With photos automatically synced to the cloud, then exported to a 3rd party with one or two clicks, 3rd party hosting is simpler and immensely faster.

Having said all that, at least we have an alternative available to us now via forum hosted pictures. For me though, I'll likely take a chance on whichever hosting site steps up to catch the outflow from Photobucket, then probably get caught in the same dilemma sometime in the future .


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## ozzie46 (Jul 21, 2017)

PB finally sent me an e-mail notifying me of the change. Days late of course.:wall::wall:

Ron


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## Cogsy (Jul 21, 2017)

Weirdly, Photobucket has been sending me the dreaded emails (4 of them I think) for about the last week, but so far my photos are still showing on the forum. I'm sure not for much longer though.


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## doubletop (Jul 22, 2017)

All

You may not have realised it but Angie has now enabled editing posts. Choose your new service provider and get editing!!

Pete


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## Wizard69 (Jul 22, 2017)

bazmak said:


> If anyone can post photos and text to this forum as easily as Angie says
> 
> why would anyone want to use a 3rd party host.
> 
> ...




Lets not forget old tech like writeable CD's and DVD's.     In any event getting in the habit of backing up important stuff is something every computer user must adjust to.   Frankly multiple back up to different devices is a good idea, as is checking that the backups actually work.


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## Wizard69 (Jul 22, 2017)

rodw said:


> Why would I want to? My phone pushes images to photobucket automatically and Adobe Lightroom pushes my camera photos to Photobucket with the push of a button.n Once they are there, I can embed them in an email or post them on a forum.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think the lesson here is that you cant rely upon one storage location for file security.   Data loss, intentional or not, happens!


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## ShopShoe (Jul 22, 2017)

I read somewhere that: "It's not backed up until it's in three places, with one of those off-site."

--ShopShoe


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## rodw (Jul 23, 2017)

Wizard69 said:


> I think the lesson here is that you cant rely upon one storage location for file security.   Data loss, intentional or not, happens!



Yup, Photobucket, my 12 Tb NAS and more recently my phone is pushing them to Google as well. The all of a sudden Samsung wants to make a copy too!


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