Photobucket Image Hosting

[ruby_sauce]

I just noticed that I too have been victimised by this new Photobucket tactic. I was considering paying to have my pics hosted still, but 400 dollars is just straight extortion. I don't have as many pics as Vuldacon, but I still don't feel like reuploading everything on another site. Especially now that it's not even sure which one of those WON'T follow suit and pull something similar.

 

[Balthasar]

I think I've found a way around the photobucket "third party hosting" ban.

You see, I've been a bit confused by this whole conversation, because many of the images I use on my Art Nouveau Interface thread are hosted at photobucket, and they're showing up just fine.

When I checked it out today, there were a few that had been blocked, and others that weren't, so I did a deep dive to find out why, and came up with this:

It's apparently all about the address, and how it's linked here.

For instance, under Era Splashes on post #2, the second Era Splash had been blocked. Its address looked like this:

[IMG]http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/b502/Balthasar2020/Art Nouveau Interface/EraTwo_th_zpsxj10g7uc.png?t=1475719506[/IMG]

but the one next to it (Era 3) wasn't blocked. Its address looked like this:

[IMG]http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/b502/Balthasar2020/Art Nouveau Interface/EraThree_th_zpsp1j8zkep.png~original[/IMG]

Notice the very end of the address, the part that goes "~original" So I tried changing the Era Two address to:

[IMG]http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/b502/Balthasar2020/Art Nouveau Interface/EraTwo_th_zpsxj10g7uc.png~original[/IMG]

Voila! It worked. For some reason. I think because the code "?t=1475719506" designates a photoshop-generated thumbnail, which is unnecessary, because my original is thumbnail-sized.

So that's the fix. And to do more..

But that wasn't the end of it, because I originally had set it up so that the thumbnails were linked to their full sized counterparts, also on photobucket.

And changing the address for them didn't work, because that's a direct link, rather than an IMG link, I think. Anyway, luckily I had another stash of full sized images attached on the Art Nouveau Interface Downloads page.
(granted, there are many more attachments on that page than are now allowed, because they migrated over from the original site)

Anyway, I opened the era two image at the downloads page, and right-clicked to choose 'View Image' to get its original address, then linked the photoshop-provided thumbnail to that one.

The final BB code for it looks like this:

[URL='https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/eratwo_s68-png.453895/'][IMG]http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/b502/Balthasar2020/Art%20Nouveau%20Interface/EraTwo_th_zpsxj10g7uc.png~original[/IMG][/URL]

And that's how the Era Two Splash is coded now. You can compare it to the others, which haven't been similarly linked to their larger counterparts yet.

So there are a couple of options for everyone to play with. Let me know whether or not it works for you, too.

(if CivFanatics or Photobucket asks about this, shhhhhhhh! )

 

[Balthasar]

Update: just learned that I can restore the images in the Jury Awards thread using that technique for links to images in Vuldacon's photobucket account. I think we have a winner.

Original address:

[IMG]http://i380.photobucket.com/albums/oo247/Vuldacon/JuryAwardTrophy.png[/IMG]

Fixed address:

[IMG]http://i380.photobucket.com/albums/oo247/Vuldacon/JuryAwardTrophy.png~original[/IMG]

So it's not just about thumbnails, it's everything linked from there with IMG brackets

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Interesting find @Balthasar . I checked several of my images on a couple different forums and found that they are all still up and functioning. None of them have "~original" at the end though. My code looks like this for example:

[IMG]http://i1152.photobucket.com/albums/p490/Laurana_Kanan/Civilization/Modern%20Armor%20Overlap_zpsxxfwzkah.jpg[/IMG]

 

[Balthasar]

Dunno, Laurana. Stumbled on this fix, myself. As they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Idk, either. I'm just glad all my stuff still works *fingers crossed*. Your find is still a great work-a-round for those affected!

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

Wish I knew about all this before I shut down my Photobucket account. Oh well.

 

[Balthasar]

P.S. Thanks, Laurana, for reminding me that I could show that code in its original format. Helped alot.

 

[Vuldacon]

I have managed to fix most of my Images here at Civfanatics by applying the ~original suffix after the .png, .jpeg, .gif, etc... to my Posted Images. This is accomplished without changing the original Photobucket address... simply add the ~original suffix before the last /IMG brackets. See post 43 above.
It takes a little time to go through and fix all of the Posted Images from Photobucket but Great to have them show now.

This should work for others.

 

[JimmyJump]

There seems to be a difference between "linking" and "third party host" that kind of escapes me. I've had a free account at PB for over ten years but have only around 0.5GB stored out of the 2.3GB available to me (2GB basic and 0.3GB for some or other re-/award).

Can't remember if I ever posted any pics on CFC through PhotoBucket, but I had quite a lot on different Nexus fora. Those are still there, both the ones linked and posted directly (the HTML and IMG options).

I also checked just now with older and newer uploaded pictures and they all still seem to have the possibility to link to sites through the four options available (Direct, HTML, IMG and IMG Thumb), so, maybe they forgot me?

 

[Synobun]

There seems to be a difference between "linking" and "third party host" that kind of escapes me. I've had a free account at PB for over ten years but have only around 0.5GB stored out of the 2.3GB available to me (2GB basic and 0.3GB for some or other re-/award).

Can't remember if I ever posted any pics on CFC through PhotoBucket, but I had quite a lot on different Nexus fora. Those are still there, both the ones linked and posted directly (the HTML and IMG options).

I also checked just now with older and newer uploaded pictures and they all still seem to have the possibility to link to sites through the four options available (Direct, HTML, IMG and IMG Thumb), so, maybe they forgot me?

From what I gather, they're rolling out the change bit by bit. I only got dinged with it three days ago myself.

 

[JimmyJump]

From what I gather, they're rolling out the change bit by bit. I only got dinged with it three days ago myself.

Cheers Vin. Seems like it.

Once I get hit I'll revert to Balthasar's work-around. Meanwhile, I'll check a few options of photo-hosting sites that allow linking/hosting for zilch.

 

[Serutan]

I just got hit with it today. Deleted my stuff before I saw this, but I suspect PB will twig onto the workaround and shut that down too.

 

[Balthasar]

I just got hit with it today. Deleted my stuff before I saw this, but I suspect PB will twig onto the workaround and shut that down too.

Optimist, eh?

 

[civvver]

400$ is just odd. Couldnt you just buy your own server and host your images there for even just 100$ or less?

Yes you can buy azure cloud storage for like $50 a month for 500gb. Of course there's per transaction fees so if you have like 1000 transaction that's another ~$20. And then you'd have to setup something to manage the links. Idk if you'd need to deploy a webservice to a vm or use their cloud stuff or how you would set it up.

For the price photobucket is charging though you could probably make a very profitable side business just hosting stuff on azure, making your own webportal for it and charging people to post stuff there, a lot less than photobucket is charging.

 

[Balthasar]

I just got hit with it today. Deleted my stuff before I saw this, but I suspect PB will twig onto the workaround and shut that down too.

Yeah, it finally did. Luckily, there are a few photo stashing opportunities here at the Civfanatics site: each download page in the database..er, Resources section, has space for up to ten images, which you can link to in your threads. For images not related to downloads, the Gallery section provides the opportunity for you to create Albums of images, and I think that each album can hold 10mg of images. Not sure about that. Anyway, just using these resources, I've managed to restore most of the image links on my threads so far, so it's probably worth considering. If I do have to end up paying for more space, I'd rather pay Thunderfall than someone else.

 

[Quintillus]

Well, this is a bummer. In a way I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. Even with bandwidth being relatively cheap, they have to have been hosting terabytes' worth of images per week on 3rd-party sites, with no ad revenue from that. So I get why free for 95% of their audience forever wasn't feasible.

But $399/year is awfully pricey. They did have a bandwidth cap before, which my e-mail history tells me was 10 GB/month. Back in the 2012 - 2014 era, you could upgrade that to unlimited for $2.99/month ($36/year, without a discount), which I did a few months when my stories had a lot of updates and views, and I hit the limit. $3/month seemed pretty reasonable. $40/month (or $33 if paid yearly) seems pretty pricey in comparison. That's more than I pay for my Internet connection currently.

What seems odd to me is that there's no middle tier option. Very few of their customers are likely to pay $40/month, but they've got a large existing customer base. This will reduce their costs, but if they were smart they'd figure out what a GB of bandwidth costs, and price it to cover their costs with a decent margin, but not so high that they destroy their current advantage - their large user base. I'd have been more than willing to pay $2/month for a typical month and $5/month for an unusually high month to keep everything humming along smoothly, but not $40/month. There are too many alternatives at that price.

In the meantime the ~original images I have from before seem to still be working, but it's only in the past 2-4 years that images linked have that by default; 80%+ of my images don't. And it doesn't seem worth it to add that when that gap will likely be closed in the near future.

I'll probably bump my e-mail plan (FastMail) up from $20/year to $50/year; I'm at around 92% storage there anyway. That'll give me 10 GB of file storage and 2 GB per day (not month) of bandwidth - more than I've ever needed on Photobucket and still at 1/8th the cost, while supporting a company whose product I like. And while it'll take a long time to redo all the broken links, at least I'll have the assurance that there will be a sustainable business model, with moderate price changes over time, behind it so I won't have to change it again.

 

[Blue Monkey]

... And while it'll take a long time to redo all the broken links, ...

I doubt i could even remember precisely what images i used in threads stretching back over 10 years. A lot of stuff from back then is still valid - discussion of historical units, mapping techniques, technical info on pcx & palettes, etc.

At latest count I've got 1620 images on Imageshack. I've had 2 hardrive crashes over the years. One resulted in recovery of thousands of images with only numeric strings for names. The other involved unrecoverable loss of image files. So some of those only exist on imageshack. After talking with their technical staff, the practical way to download all those images in an organized way in order to recover and sort through them is - there ain't none. Then there was the catastrophic crash of imageshack's servers. So 1620 is how many I've got left after all that. So I don't really know what only i've got, what only imageshack has ... Then, when CFC migrated even more links were broken. Good luck sorting through all that mess finely enough to upload & restore links. Most of the images linked at CFC I've only restored as I stumble across the need or someone specifically requests them. If I can find the images. If 1620 more were suddenly beyond my access I'd just forget about even trying to refer to my old stuff.

Not to mention that we can no longer see what people posted who used photobucket and aren't around to restore images.

 

[bladex]

what a colossal ripoff! just use IMGR

 

[Quintillus]

I doubt i could even remember precisely what images i used in threads stretching back over 10 years. A lot of stuff from back then is still valid - discussion of historical units, mapping techniques, technical info on pcx & palettes, etc.

At latest count I've got 1620 images on Imageshack. I've had 2 hardrive crashes over the years. One resulted in recovery of thousands of images with only numeric strings for names. The other involved unrecoverable loss of image files. So some of those only exist on imageshack. After talking with their technical staff, the practical way to download all those images in an organized way in order to recover and sort through them is - there ain't none. Then there was the catastrophic crash of imageshack's servers. So 1620 is how many I've got left after all that. So I don't really know what only i've got, what only imageshack has ... Then, when CFC migrated even more links were broken. Good luck sorting through all that mess finely enough to upload & restore links. Most of the images linked at CFC I've only restored as I stumble across the need or someone specifically requests them. If I can find the images. If 1620 more were suddenly beyond my access I'd just forget about even trying to refer to my old stuff.

Not to mention that we can no longer see what people posted who used photobucket and aren't around to restore images.

Yeah, it's a mess. The only reason I expect I can reasonably restore most of mine is that 90% or so are in a handful of threads in the Stories and Tales forum, and I know I still have them all. So I plan to go with those first, and then comb through the others by Photobucket album. But there will definitely be some where I either have no idea which post I used it in, can't find that post, or it's buried in the middle of a thread with 60 pages. Those will probably be the lowest-value ones, though.

And indeed, the big loss will be all the no-longer-active users who can't re-upload images at all. Between ImageShack, Photobucket, and various other small providers going out over the years, a decent chunk of the older images are probably missing by now.