The Photobucket is all bucked up merged threadfest .

[Calijackalbob]

I love looking at old (and not so old) posts to check out bike photos on this forum. The annoying thing is though, that there are so many "Photo not found(s)" and links to photos on ebay or craigslist that disappear after the bike is sold. There is a solution to this, to make the photos permanent. If you see something on ebay or craigslist thatyou want to share, download the photos and upload on photobucket or some other photo sharing website, then NEVER DELET the photo, so it's there for everyone to see forever!

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

For me, it's a matter of time. It takes much more time to do it as you suggest - Photobucket (and all of the others) are very slow loading on both of my computers. I don't have the time or patience to deal with that every time I want to post a photo.

Using the "Add image to post" here is much easier and quicker, but still not as fast as simply copying the image address and pasting it into a post.

[Lannis]

I love looking at old (and not so old) posts to check out bike photos on this forum. The annoying thing is though, that there are so many "Photo not found(s)" and links to photos on ebay or craigslist that disappear after the bike is sold. There is a solution to this, to make the photos permanent. If you see something on ebay or craigslist thatyou want to share, download the photos and upload on photobucket or some other photo sharing website, then NEVER DELET the photo, so it's there for everyone to see forever!

That's the theory .... but Photobucket appears to be slowly dying due to an overdose of 'improvements' and 'features', it takes a LOT of time to upload pics and sometimes I can't find my pictures later, which means someone somewhere is reading a post of mine with a block in the middle that says "Photo Not Found" .... I've quit using it, just left the photos there that are already there, and started using SmugMug.    No problems there so far. 

Lannis

[charlie b]

The only real solution is to make a post on that thread and see if the OP still has the photos.

I know quite a few of mine went away when a hosting site went down without warning.  Don't have those photos anymore either.

[John Ulrich]

I noticed today my Avatar was replaced.  So i replaced it with a laptop download thru this site's loader.  I'm on another forum and notice all my pictures are replaced with a photobucket invite to visit a link.  I visit and see it will cost $399.99 a year to use their service...   

[oldbike54]

 Kinda makes ya realize what a bargain WG is ...

 Dusty

[Lannis]

Yes, they've finally hosed all their users.   Originally, "third party links" were what they ADVERTISED as what PhotoBucket should and could be used for.   They were going to make their money on this "free" service by selling framing, printing, distribution, and other services.

But about two years ago (as documented right here on WG) the service started degrading.  Uploads got more difficult, an "upgrade" made linking less efficient, and it gradually got to where I couldn't even use it any more, so I left my existing photos there and went to SmugMug, where I don't have such problems.

But now, I don't even have access to my "own" photos any more.   All it means is that any photo on a forum I linked to over the years is just a blank space now, but that's life.   

I guess they figure that some people have so many pictures up, and trusted PB to keep them there, that they'll pay the ransom.   I'd pay something to erase PhotoBucket from the Internet, but it's not worth $400.

Should have expected it.   No contract, no commitment, just "GOTCHA, SUCKER!".

Lannis

[Triple Jim]

According to their site, the least expensive plan that allows linking is 10 bucks a month or 100 bucks a year.  It's still a crappy thing to do, to get you started and then essentially hold your links hostage for money.  I don't plan to pay them anything, I'll just start uploading photos to forum sites directly.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them either go back to the original deal or go out of business from all the negative publicity this is generating.

[tazio]

My photos work still, am I not understanding something, or has that which ya'll speak of not taken effect yet?

[Aaron D.]

Flickr still free.
Google Photos free too, with available unlimited photo storage.
I don't know why anyone still uses Photobucket. It has been lousy for years.

[jdgretz]

Yes, they've finally hosed all their users.   Originally, "third party links" were what they ADVERTISED as what PhotoBucket should and could be used for.   They were going to make their money on this "free" service by selling framing, printing, distribution, and other services.

{snip}

I guess they figure that some people have so many pictures up, and trusted PB to keep them there, that they'll pay the ransom.   I'd pay something to erase PhotoBucket from the Internet, but it's not worth $400.

Should have expected it.   No contract, no commitment, just "GOTCHA, SUCKER!".

Lannis

Makes the $45/yr I pay for Flickr.com Pro Account look more like a real bargain.  Not as flexible as SmugMug, and it is Yahoo, but for what I use it for, it's hard to beat unlimited storage for that price - and they don't compress or otherwise mess with the uploaded photos.

jdg

[leafman60]

I've been paying PhotoBucket (PB) 29.99 a year for 2-3 years for storage of a LOT of images.  I have received no notice that anything has changed and my last payment was as recent as May.

Having said that,  PB has turned out to be a pain to use.  They have rented their site out to so many pop-up ads that booting it up takes a while.  That, plus loading and notating images is not as easy as in the past.

I need to look at any possibility of transferring my images off of PB (if possible) and to another hosting site.

They start these internet companies and then sell out for a big price and the purchaser has to sabotage the original service to make caaaaaash.

[John Ulrich]

New rules went into effect on the Wednesday 28th for us freeloaders.

[fotoguzzi]

I need to look at any possibility of transferring my images off of PB (if possible) and to another hosting site.
 

I don't remember how i did it  (maybe search the smugmug site) but it was pretty easy to move all my pics off PB to Smugmug and it was the best thing I've done for hosting pics online. PB sucked since a few years ago..

[Chuck in Indiana]

I started using Photobucket many years ago. It increasingly became more of a PITA, but I thought, "What do you expect for free?" and kept using it for documenting things here.
I have 543 pictures in the Lario rehab thread and 319 in the Aero engine thread. Countless hours of documentation gone. $400 a year? They can kiss my rosy red patootie. 

[Triple Jim]

Countless hours of documentation gone. $400 a year? They can kiss my rosy red patootie. 

As I posted above, according to their web site, the number is $100, not $400.  Not that a hundred is much better, but $400 is for 3rd party hosting, not photo linking.

[Lannis]

I started using Photobucket many years ago. It increasingly became more of a PITA, but I thought, "What do you expect for free?" and kept using it for documenting things here.
I have 543 pictures in the Lario rehab thread and 319 in the Aero engine thread. Countless hours of documentation gone. $400 a year? They can kiss my rosy red patootie. 

Regardless of the number, it's classic unfettered capitalism at work.   Get someone "hooked" at a low or no price, then start turning the screws until they holler, then back off a quarter turn.

When I was on our school board, school bus leasing companies tried that.   We had our own buses, our own shop, bought our own fuel, and hired our own drivers.    The leasing company would come along and say "You should be in the education business, not hiring drivers and mechanics and owning buses and worrying about EPA regs on your underground fuel storage and buying diesel.   Let US handle all that - we'll provide the buses, drivers, fuel, everything, and you just pay us a fee that's LESS than your transportation budget now, two year contract ...."

Most of the surrounding counties did that - sold their buses, laid off their mechanics,  the leasing company hired the drivers, sold their shop equipment, got the undergrounds tanks out while they still could, big boost to the budget, that was.

Some board members wanted to go for it.   But I wanted to know how the leasing company would make money on this deal.   We didn't pay our drivers and mechanics all that much, they couldn't get local people any cheaper.   We bought fuel by the tanker truck load, and they were buying it from the same place; more volume but it was only a few cents a gallon cheaper.   Buses have to be replaced every few years regardless of mileage; that's driven by the new safety features everyone demands, so the leasing company had no advantage of us there.

So we kept our buses and watched.   In true Photobucket style, you can IMAGINE what the contract renegotiation looked like when the current contract was up.   The leasing company knew that no little rural county was going to be able to scrape up the capital to purchase 75 buses at $40K each, set up a shop again, bury more fuel tanks, and so they raised the price until the neighboring counties were screaming like a cut tomcat, but there was no place to go ....

Gotta watch out ... we all know that if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't ....

Lannis

[Scud]

Well, I started using it a few years ago. The ads got more and more invasive and annoying. At Chuck's suggestion just a week ago, I opened a free Flickr account.

As the saying goes - if you're not paying for the product, then you ARE the product.

Anyway, I like what WG has done with the IMGBB service that lets us upload directly in our posts. But I suppose there is risk and uncertainty in that hosting solution too.

I just logged into my PB account. There is an option to download entire albums at once.

I'll probably go back and update a few threads that might be useful to others in future with new photo links - like my continuation of Unkept's LeMans project.

[Chuck in Indiana]

So, I'd have to manually put up new links to the 862 pictures?

[Triple Jim]

So, I'd have to manually put up new links to the 862 pictures?

That's the trouble with relying on any external entity to store photos or data.  You always run the risk of losing the information, and then any links to it will fail.

I'm going to start taking advantage of the on-site photo storage that Luap has set up, and do the same for other forums I frequent if they have that feature.

[LowRyter]

I mentioned this in the other Guzzi forum.  I use DP for free hosting.

https://www.dpreview.com/

[hidn45]

There's another Guzzi forum?!?!    ;^)

[Lannis]

As I posted above, according to their web site, the number is $100, not $400.  Not that a hundred is much better, but $400 is for 3rd party hosting, not photo linking.

Actually, no.

Third party hosting IS photo linking in PB-speak.   If you want your Photobucket pictures to appear, for example, in a WG post, you pony up 4 Cs.

Nice photos you got there, pal.   Be a shame if sumfin happened to 'em .....

Lannis

[rodekyll]

I've preached for years that this is what the "cloud" would come to -- store your stuff for free until you're firmly vested, and then charge you to access it.  The other problem of course is that you become a more likely target of hacking when you're running in a herd.  It's more productive for a hacker to breach one cloud and have the information of a thousand accounts than it is to break into each of those thousand accounts individually.

I used PB for some years until it was apparent that they were "hazing" people into paid accounts by making the free side unusable.  Unfortunately, by the time I decided to remove my stuff, it was so unusable that I could only delete a couple of the hundreds of photos before the site would grind to a halt and I'd have to re-access it to continue.  I finally abandoned everything there and decided no more cloud.

[Triple Jim]

Actually, no.

Third party hosting IS photo linking in PB-speak.   If you want your Photobucket pictures to appear, for example, in a WG post, you pony up 4 Cs.

Yes, I reread their plan descriptions and I believe I was wrong before (sorry Chuck).  It looks like photo linking is just putting a link in your forum posts, not actually displaying the photo.  It doesn't matter in the long run though, since I can easily do without Photobucket.

[John in PA]

It's all over the web in these last several days, and almost every hobby/special interest forum and many businesses are affected. Photobucket, a very popular 3rd party image hosting service for the last 12-15 years, is now essentially a corporate ransome-ware site. That is, they are holding MILLIONS of users images hostage unless each person/business pays them $400 per year on what has always been a FREE site. You will see pictures all over your favorite forums stating that the image is not available unless the image-owner pays. Thus all those great how-to pics on repairs, mods, problems, solutions, etc will be absent from thousands of internet forums. I personally have 469 motorcycle and collector firearm pics hosted on the site that I now forum users cannot access due to this stunt.

There are still several free 3rd party image hosting sites available. Do your own research and take your pick. No telling whether Photobucket will relent or not, but they've screwed the pooch with this stunt, and their name and company are mud. Don't use Tinypic.com. Their terms of service indicate they're owned by Photobucket, so I'm guessing they're next to fall.

Here's an article to a number of sites that might be useful, but, note, it was written BEFORE the very recent policy change at Photobucket.  https://www.lifewire.com/free-image-hosting-sites-3486329  I'm going to give postimage.org a try, but thousands of forum posts of mine made over the last 15 years or so are now sans-pictures.   

[KiwiKev]

Well I guess there's no reason to give storage away for free forever. It's bound to bite you in the ass eventually.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[zebraranger]

Same here. Been using Photobucket for years and I have hundreds of images there. When I saw this happen a few days ago I switched over to Postimage. They should have at least given a notice, its not like they don't have your email.

[nc43bsa]

Same here. Been using Photobucket for years and I have hundreds of images there. When I saw this happen a few days ago I switched over to Postimage. They should have at least given a notice, its not like they don't have your email.

That would defeat their purpose:  holding your images hostage.

[zebraranger]

That would defeat their purpose:  holding your images hostage.

They're not holding your images hostage, you still have access to them, you just no longer the ability to link share them on a forum.