MikeOK

Just a test to see if they still work

MikeOK

Yep, I can see it. No speedometer for me, I wonder why?

Marcus_Ti

How much money do you pay Photobucket? It may also be the link format.

CliffordK

Do you have a paid account or free account? New or old account?

There are a couple of reasons some seem to be affected before others.

Perhaps Photobucket has a slow incremental process they're implementing.

Perhaps they're targeting people by server load. So those people who have shared 1 or 2 images that almost never get viewed are ignored. Who would pay $400 to share 2 rarely viewed images? Plus, might as well wait until they get a bigger web of photo sharing before hammering them with the big bill.

Bait & Switch tactics?

I'd be careful if you have an account that seems to be sliding under the radar.

MikeOK

I have the free account. Have probably been a member for 15 years or more. And maybe it's how I got the link, I use an iPad and the only way I can get a link is to click on the library link, then click on the image I want, then click download, the image then opens a window by itself. Then I go to the top of safari, click select all, then copy. That's the only way I can do it.

Rollfast

Perhaps you should just consult PB or Goggle that? Saves the possibility of the Oh Crap moment later on.

Doug64

The real issue is that PB will also not let you download the pictures off their site. Back up your photos; I'm glad I did.

MikeOK

I think I'll just stay on the sly. I'm a member of several forums, and God only knows how many times I've posted pics over the years. I think it really looks bad for pb seeing all these speedometers in place of pics.

MikeOK

Doug64- all I see is a blank post, did you try to post a pic?

Edit- I just looked at your email notification and it looks like you posted your url without the [IMG] tag. I always click on the little mountain button then paste the url and it does it for you.

katsup

If a photobucket image gets too many views, it will turn into the speedometer. It will be fine when you first post an image, you need to look at your older images.

wipekitty

I've checked to see if my Photobucket images posted to BF are still intact...and they are. Here are a couple of theories:
1. I have not logged in to my account since I learned of the change.
2. I do not have a ton of photos stored/linked - I'm not a high priority for them.

Maybe they're hitting those of us with less data usage later on, or maybe one has to log in and be officially informed of the change in order for them to break the links. Does anyone have further evidence or support for these theories, or another explanation?

MikeOK

I've been logged in for at least a couple weeks. If I try to move pics to another folder I get a warning message that if I move it will break links that I have posted.

JanMM

I too have been using Photobucket for 10-12 (?) years for free. I only upload what I intend to post in forums or sometimes send in an email. Not a heavy user. Still way below my storage limit.
Someone on another forum recommend Flickr - that seems to work - not difficult to use.

MikeOK

Flickr test;

JanMM

Flickr image. (share> BBC code > choose the picture size > copy the link > paste. I then removed link info after the [/img] and before [/url] so that my name does not appear.)
UPDATE - For maximum privacy, delete everything except what begins and ends with img.

MikeOK

del

MikeOK

This works. It's not as intuitive as pb but with yahoo backing it should always be there. I'm on an iPad too that may be part of the problem. I didn't see my username in the url though.

CliffordK

Perhaps one difference between accounts is multi-use accounts vs those that post exclusively on external forums. See speedo,100% external hosting.

So, if a user periodically sends a link to their albums to friends and family, then some positive percent of the views is through Photobucket. Half?

Also general interest photos might show up in Google searches more often, and lead a person back to Photobucket. The graphic indicates Photobuck's claim that essientially 100% of the photos were coming through 3rd party hosting.

Hardrock23

I've been using photobucket since high school... 10-15 years, always a free account. I made a new account about two years ago though and still have my original account though I haven't checked it yet. My new account has about 42 images or so and I haven't shared them much at all. I posted an image in the other PB thread in C&V and it worked until I refreshed the thread...I checked my account again after that and it wouldn't let me access my photos for viewing or linking.

Hardrock23

I think eventually everyone will get the message to update their accounts, regardless of how many photos they have or have shared. I thought they said they wont allow 3rd party hosting unless you paid the $400, regardless if you paid for an account previously.

JohnDThompson 

The speedometer graphic on the blocked pictures suggests to me that they have a per-account bandwidth limit that kicks in at some arbitrary point. If you only have a few pictures, and/or they are not heavily linked to other sites, you simply may not have hit that limit yet. But if you have a lot of pictures, and/or heavily linked, and/or heavily trafficed, you may hit that limit and get blocked until you cough up the ransom money.

Doug64

That may be the problem. I have about 1,000 photos that are used exclusively for 3rd party posting.

MikeOK

I think this is probably it. I may have~100 pics there but I've only used it for forum posts. I'm not going to wait around for the graphic to show, I'm going to flickr. I tried to sign up for a new account there but it told me I already had an account so I must have signed up in the past and forgot.

KOTA

I was only using 28% of total storage. Most of my pics are viewed on other forums or here. I tried to download my albums, but couldn't do it. You can do individual downloads. So after two days of downloading what's important to me (hundreds), I deleted everything and then deleted my account. Who knows what the next move for PB is. I decided to grab my pics. They ask why you're deleting your account. I simply said I can't afford $399 a year, and thanked them for ten years of FREE service. I know there's a number of free hosts out there, but this may be the beginning of the end of FREE. Do the math. PB has over 100,000,000 members (low estimate). Even if 99% close their accounts, it still leaves over 1,000,000 accounts that will pay the $399. That totals $399,000,000, plus what ever they take in on other services...It's a business, and it's all about the money.

Doug64

I got some to download. It takes a long time/ album, but you can download the albums. However the files size is really reduced. I reduced my files size to about 1-1.3 Mb per picture, but they download at about 200 Kb/ picture.

Probably OK for the web.