Photobucket latest BS!

[Squatch]

It seems that in the last couple of days Photobucket has locked all mine and lot's of other folks pics. Anything from my Avatar to any pics I have ever put into a build thread now do not work. To make them work I have to buy a $400 a year membership to allow 3rd party hosting. I might have gone for $100 but not $400. After all these years it sure seems like planned extortion. They may be within their legal rights. It is their site. But I think this may do them in and it will surely change how many folks interact with the web from here on out.

 

[craig333]

Interesting. Still works for me. Its still annoying as heck too. If I didn't have so many pics there already I'd be using another service.

 

[Squatch]

The pics are still there. They just show up on forum pages with a sign that says update account. Click on the build threads in my signature and you will see. They have changed their terms of service.

 

[Happyjax]

I have been using Flickr with no problems. Maybe that would do better for you.... sorry you are having these issues.

 

[Squatch]

This is the problem with storing things on the web and in clouds. The owners of these services can change their terms of service at any time. I have many long build threads and tutorials that took years to do that are now useless without pics. I suspect many thousands of others are in the same boat.

I'm thinking that Photobucket is either failing as a business, Has new owners, Or has plans to fail. Because I'm thinking lots of other folks are like me and are already working on the slow process of deleting all our pics from their site and will then leave forever.

 

[takesiteasy]

I pay Google $25 a year to host photos. Not sure how many photos that allows, but it is working for me so far. I do have the same fear of losing control of the images at some point so I have them backed up elsewhere. But it works great for hosting them for now.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Here's a link from PC Magazine on about the new fees.

 

[PaulT]

Here's a link from PC Magazine on about the new fees.

I get an error on that link, then a flash image of the content, and finally, a page to subscribe where the "x" to close fails.

Paul

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Paul, it works on my iMac and iPad... Using Safari...

Here's another try at it...

https://www.pcmag.com/news/354711/photobucket-breaks-image-links-across-the-internet

 

[craig333]

Oh, I see whats going on. Time for a new service if they keep this up. Going to be a lot of work

 

[PaulT]

That link worked for me on Chrome on my iPad, although the page never completed loading.

Paul

 

[Alley-Kat]

For the forums that I own, I have advised my forum members as follows;

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

If you are a PhotoBucket user and you are currently experiencing this situation, here is a submit a request web page for contacting PhotoBucket and telling them what is on your mind.

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

Let's see if we can get their attention and do a reverse course on this new business model.

 

[Squatch]

Alley-Kat I agree except I took it a step further. All my past build threads and instructional posts on several forums are garbage without pics. I have deleted all my thousands of pics from Photobucket and advised them to close my account forever. May everyone else do the same and see them go down in flames!

 

[Happyjax]

Squatch,

Sorry you had this happen and frustrated also because I love your posts and pics and often go back to them for reference!

This hurts us too!

Arggh.....

 

[ntsqd]

I started migrating my pics from PB some time ago as I didn't like where PB was heading. Now I'm glad that I did. I keep some pics there still, mostly back-ups of back-ups, and never expected to want to link them.

For what it's worth I use smugmug for hosting pics. It isn't free, but it is very much worth the cost. Suggest that y'all have a look at what they offer. Their ability to control picture access, the file manipulation software, and their picture organization tools work great for us. They even have a files importation tool for migrating pics from other sites. That is the only tool of theirs that I've tried that didn't work 100%

 

[Squatch]

Squatch,

Sorry you had this happen and frustrated also because I love your posts and pics and often go back to them for reference!

This hurts us too!

Arggh.....

Not just me. They are going to do it to everyone on there that hosts pics from there.

 

[ntsqd]

Was just pulling some more pics down from there & moving them to smugmug. I would guess there's a lot of that going on as their page was slow and wonky. Had to reload it several times to get it to load correctly.

 

[PaulT]

Judging from responses here, Could it be that they may be failing and are trying to bring in a last influx of revenue before calling it quits?

Something as significant as their site as a cloud content host doing this could cause many users to reexamine the safety & reliabilty of 3rd party hosting of images. Perhaps, it is better to host images on the forum where the messages/blogs are posted? Or does use of 3rd party hosting just not provide the host with sufficient revenue?

Paul

 

[Happyjax]

I really only use Flickr to share. Everything there is 72 DPI and not really printable. Just good for viewing. I back my own stuff up, I do not rely on the "cloud" to do it......

 

[PackRat]

Can you try to email yourself with the PB photos as an attachment to recover them?