Hostage of Photobucket

[Laser Dude]

Someone might check to see what the forum settings are here. Many forums are set to stop you from editing your own posts after a predetermined period of time, i.e. 24 hours. If the forum settings are set for 24 hours or 24 days, you will not be able to edit old ride reports with the new addresses.

I have no idea what the settings are on this forum. They may be turned off and you might be able to edit any post, any time, but as a general rule, that put a limit on it because it keeps people from changing what they said which can get quite confusing when people go and remove things and add things, and others have already commented on it. Or, people getting mad and deleting every single post they ever posted, leaving a heck of a mess on the forum, when people have responded to posts that aren't there any more, etc.

Maybe one of the moderators can tell us what the settings are, and if people will be able to fix old ride reports using the methods outlined a few posts up by others.

 

[puppychow]

Smugglr is working. Although, it wasn't as smooth sailing as I hoped and I had to disable ad blocking, enable cookies, and try out at least 3 times whilst uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin. YMMV as to what you may have to do to make it work.

The utility is now working on moving all of my 130 albums, so I don't have to do it manually.

Of course, it won't preserve the link, and I will have to repair the broken photobucket links on my blog with new smugmug links.

To get the smugglr utility:

1. First you need firefox.

2. go to smugglr.com

3. Install smugglr -> Firefox will need to restart before smugglr is installed.

4. Tools-> Smugglr-> A new window will open.

5. Follow the prompts to authorize smugglr to access your photobucket account, you will need to enter your photobucket username/password etc. Be patient, Photobucket is a piece of shit and it might take a while for the steps to progress.

6. If all goes well, you will get an option to move ALL albums from Photobucket to smugmug (if you don't have a smugmug account, you will be given the option to create one).

7. Once the file transfer starts - it will take a LONG time, so once again be patient, it might take hours, but at least you won't have to do it manually.

 

[dcarver]

PITA no matter which way one goes...

 

[mcatrophy]

Someone might check to see what the forum settings are here. Many forums are set to stop you from editing your own posts after a predetermined period of time, i.e. 24 hours. If the forum settings are set for 24 hours or 24 days, you will not be able to edit old ride reports with the new addresses.
I have no idea what the settings are on this forum. They may be turned off and you might be able to edit any post, any time, but as a general rule, that put a limit on it because it keeps people from changing what they said which can get quite confusing when people go and remove things and add things, and others have already commented on it. Or, people getting mad and deleting every single post they ever posted, leaving a heck of a mess on the forum, when people have responded to posts that aren't there any more, etc.

Maybe one of the moderators can tell us what the settings are, and if people will be able to fix old ride reports using the methods outlined a few posts up by others.

I have no problem editing any of my posts since my first back in August 2006, so I don't think there is any such restriction. I believe there is a restriction for new posters (fewer than 5 posts???), but none after that.

 

[hppants]

Excellent work, Puppychow. Thanks for posting your progress, this is really helpful. It would appear that there is no advantage of moving my pics from P/B to S/M when I have the same images already saved in my personal HD. It might be faster to just re-load them to S/M directly from my home PC. Gives me a chance to organize things a bit more.

It's a big pile of rocks for me. I'll save it for a rainy weekend.

 

[Knifemaker]

Sadly I believe any photo posting site has the potential to change or simply die. Moving from one to another (twice so far) I have no faith in anyone's longevity. I'm using Postimage right now, but wouldn't be surprised if they too start charging for service or just die off at some future point.

But again, can't complain here over something that's free.....

 

[Bounce]

Get a true web hosting site. Custom domain with a name of your choice, e-mails with your domain that you can define (and redefine) on a whim, with use local web tools on your computer and ftp them up or use the company's WYSIWYG interface and let it design it for you.

Post a link to the report/tip/process and know that your web site remains there as long as you pay the (minimal fees).

https://www.fjr-tips.org/

 

[Ignacio]

Thanks Bounce. Pretty much the same advice as when this subject came up before. If something (like a ride report) is important to you...link to something you own or control.

 

[rbentnail]

Get a true web hosting site. Custom domain with a name of your choice, e-mails with your domain that you can define (and redefine) on a whim, with use local web tools on your computer and ftp them up or use the company's WYSIWYG interface and let it design it for you.
Post a link to the report/tip/process and know that your web site remains there as long as you pay the (minimal fees).

https://www.fjr-tips.org/

Thanks bounce but realize even the little blurb here is way beyond my (and apparently many others') technological understanding. When you say, "get a true web hosting site", isn't that what smugmug provides? https://www.smugmug.com/plans

 

[Ignacio]

Smugmug is for pictures only. Bounce is talking about the whole enchilada. Not necessarily the easiestbut as much hand-wringing and posts as there are in this thread...his suggestion isn't that hard either. Just a bit of effort..and he's even provided a link to read.

 

[Tyler]

Oh I also use iFranView to make pic borders, resize, and rename automagically. Wonderful program.

Irfanview is the correct spelling.

 

[dcarver]

Oh I also use iFranView to make pic borders, resize, and rename automagically. Wonderful program.

Irfanview is the correct spelling.

iRwrong! ...and some nice beautiful lady gave me tip!

sooo then, just finished downloading all my PB files. Used two operating systems, mac and virtual windows, and FF, Safari, Chrome...

what a way to spend hours...

 

[FJR Flyer]

This topic also popped up on another non-motorcycle forum I'm on. Folks there are also getting PhotoPhucked. The masses are getting pissed, FWIW.

 

[Bounce]

Smugmug is for pictures only. Bounce is talking about the whole enchilada. Not necessarily the easiestbut as much hand-wringing and posts as there are in this thread...his suggestion isn't that hard either. Just a bit of effort..and he's even provided a link to read.

And, like I first posted in this thread, the details of one example are here:

https://bit.ly/2tF7eR5

I would suggest avoiding the use of GoDaddy. They have a lot of issues with stonewalling people who choose to transfer their domains elsewhere. They have frequently squatted on the domain until the name expires, squatted some additional time, then allowed former employees to buy up that domain and hold it hostage for elevated prices to the original owner.

 

[eflyguy]

It's also hit users on eBay, etsy, Amazon...

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40492668

 

[mcatrophy]

Photobucket doesn't allow ad blocking.

Did what garyahouse suggested in his test post (quoted below), I right-clicked his image, copied the image address, then pasted the copied URL into a browser address bar. Got a brief glimpse of the picture on a photobucket page, then just this:



I find it somewhat ironic that the first line reads "Welcome to Photobucket" (my italics).

garyhouse's post:

picture test

right click and copy image address

 

[RossKean]

I understand that a website that lives or dies as a function of advertising revenue would require that users do not use an ad blocker. I disable ad blocking program for a few sites, including Photobucket. I have to say, however, that Photobucket's ads are particularly annoying and intrusive.

I think that Photobucket is underestimating the backlash that will result from their recent move. Either that or they expect a few million in revenue from people buying their images back in advance of allowing the site to die. Perhaps they are trying to position the site to be sold to one of the big boys??

Anyone who pays the ransom should take steps to come up with a more permanent solution because, one way or another, I don't expect Photobucket will be around for a lot longer.

 

[dcarver]

pb is dead. sell your stock now..

 

[eflyguy]

PB never stopped any user from accessing their images. No users are being "held ransom".

They stopped allowing them to be embedded into sites like this, where they receive no revenue from the bandwidth. For most users, the fact that their images will no longer appear on other sites is not going to be a good enough reason to pay for their service.

 

[RossKean]

"Ransom" in that people are being required to pay or else have the images in all their internet forum posts or blogs disappear. In terms of the images themselves, they can still access them (unless they have gone over a re-defined limit for their account) but this is not the issue - I assume most people would not rely upon a "free" web hosting site as the ONLY place their photos are stored. If so, they perhaps deserve what they get; especially with the low cost of large capacity backup devices.

Ransom is a perfectly good description as far as I am concerned. If you don't pay, you are going to lose something that may be of great value to you. For people with hundreds or even thousands of images in postings of various sorts, the effort of going back and editing all of those web documents would be daunting - even after having the photos re-uploaded and hosted to a different service. You are paying to restore your postings, not to "save" the images.