Photbucket 3rd party hosting

Just received these message from Photobucket.

I have used Photobucket for most of my project entries and other topics since |I have joined the club website since 2009 ish.

Sometime ago I subscribed at £2,99 per month because of a storage limit and was able to maintain 3rd party hosting. Now they want $399.00 per month!! to continue 3rd party hosting.

Whilst I can edit all my entries to replace each photo for my 29 pages of project and other topics, is there any other method of changing the photos?

I hate to see the website with the PB 3rd party logo on members entries.

I have 30 days to do something. Help.

 


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Have a chat with Ade lhasadreams he may be able to help you with that!

Sent from my Smartphone 📱

If you are talking about photos in the threads on this site then I have already written a small utility that pulled all the photos down to our server from Photobucket.

There was a backdoor way of still seeing the photos that allowed this.

All the threads where the photos were still available on Photobucket have had their URL's changed to point to the local copies on our server already!

Death to Photobucket - I hope then burn for such a nasty manoeuvre!

lhasadreams said

If you are talking about photos in the threads on this site then I have already written a small utility that pulled all the photos down to our server from Photobucket.

There was a backdoor way of still seeing the photos that allowed this.

All the threads where the photos were still available on Photobucket have had their URL's changed to point to the local copies on our server already!

Death to Photobucket - I hope then burn for such a nasty manoeuvre!

Brill. Nothing to do then.

However, was this a one shot or is it a continuous activity?. I know I have recently used PB to add some photos.

Can I see the address of a photo to see if it has been converted?.

I won't be using PB again. I also have an aversion to cloud storage, I'd rather keep data on my hard drives.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

One off mate.
For several years now we have hosted our own images on the Cloudinary CDN (content data network). The club pays for the hosting and has made it very easy to add your images to posts.
The reason we use a CDN is that their servers are distributed around the world, to serve the images fast, from your nearest location. They are also all backed up and several copies exist for safety.
Cloud is a misunderstood technology, IBM had the first "cloud" back in the fifties on Mainframes - they are just Servers in someone else's data centre! Keeping stuff on your hard drives is just your version of the cloud in your own data centre in your cloud, ie your house! But you are responsible for hardware failures, backup etc.

Yea, you should be able to see from the links whether it is PB hosted or from our CDN

lhasadreams said

One off mate.
For several years now we have hosted our own images on the Cloudinary CDN (content data network). The club pays for the hosting and has made it very easy to add your images to posts.
The reason we use a CDN is that their servers are distributed around the world, to serve the images fast, from your nearest location. They are also all backed up and several copies exist for safety.
Cloud is a misunderstood technology, IBM had the first "cloud" back in the fifties on Mainframes - they are just Servers in someone else's data centre! Keeping stuff on your hard drives is just your version of the cloud in your own data centre in your cloud, ie your house! But you are responsible for hardware failures, backup etc.

Yea, you should be able to see from the links whether it is PB hosted or from our CDN

Thanks, I will have a look, hopefully this will keep my editing to a minimum.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

Just a sample of photo addresses from my project. Do you see any issues when PB remove my 3rd party hosting?

Taken / copied from the start of my Project




Taken / copied from the middle of my Project:

.






Taken / copied from the end of my Project



 

Hi,

I use Safari as a browser, that allows you to right click on an image and "Inspect Element".

When you do that you will see that your three images have urls that determine where they are coming from:
The first one is from the fix I did to get all the working images off PB
The second one still links to PhotoBucket
The third one was uploaded using the sites "Add Image" button and is stored on our CDN - Cloudinary.

lhasadreams said

Hi,

I use Safari as a browser, that allows you to right click on an image and "Inspect Element".

When you do that you will see that your three images have urls that determine where they are coming from:
The first one is from the fix I did to get all the working images off PB

Code

https://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/uploads/pbextract/852249/GolfMk1016.jpg

The second one still links to PhotoBucket

Code

http://s436.photobucket.com/user/MRAE1795/media/P1020163.jpg.html

The third one was uploaded using the sites "Add Image" button and is stored on our CDN - Cloudinary.

Code

https://res.cloudinary.com/mk1-golf-owners-club/image/upload/c_limit,w_768,f_auto,q_auto/v1493123363/uploads/attachments/58ff41217a3f2.jpg

Thanks very much.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

Well I decided to see how many photos that I would need to replace that Photobucket would not allow me to see or post on my blog anymore without paying them lots of money.

Despite giving me 30 days from their email, I was concerned that on my last page that there were half a dozen pictures or so that needed replacing.

So I decided to start from page 1 to view the rest of my 29 page blog. Imagine my delight that all 28 previous pages had no crosses on!.

Apart from one on the last page, all other contributors to my blog on previous pages have no crosses either.

I have replaced the photos on my last page and everything is now hunky-dory.

Also, I even managed to download a picture from PB and edited a following post of mine to replace the contributors missing picture.

Ade, all I can say is thanks very much for your efforts in providing a solution to the changes with PBs 3rd party hosting.

You're welcome!
PB got their business model badly wrong and are now trying to monitise what was once free - not on this forum!

OK, I have had another issue with Photobucket (PB) since my last post, which I think members should be aware of.

Not wishing to use PB anymore, I decided to cancel my $2.99 monthly payment to PB for extra storage. I did this because PB and their new third party hosting fee demand of a staggering $399 a year.

Unfortunately and with hindsight this was an error on my part. Unfortunately I was over their 2mb free storage (2.31mb). I found that most of my pictures had gone from my posts on my projects when informed by another member trying to view my project.

I also discovered later that PB Froze my account and I could not get access to my pictures to download them.

PB wanted $55 for a year subs to access them via their website. They don't do monthly subs anymore.

I contacted PB and complained. They suggested I use their Mobile App which has a free 8mb storage to access them. (you still cant access them by your PC without upgrading your account).

I did manage to download the photos via their new Mobile App and then deleted the pictures from PB. I think this was another error of mine.

Unfortunately again, despite the earlier website fix to recover pictures deleted by PB, it seems that we still need to store the pictures in PB. That's my perception anyway.

I am now in the process re-editing my posts to put them back in using the new website attachment process. This is working, I am currently on Page 3 of 29!!

This is an email that I wrote to PhotoBucket expressing my disappointment:

Hello,

OK, It seems that I had an issue with my PB password, so I reset it and was finally able to get into the Photobucket mobile app.

I have downloaded and deleted all my photos and albums from my account.

As previously stated, I only ever used PhotoBucket to 3rd Party Hoist my photos onto my Car Club website which I have done since my PB membership opened (approx. 9-10 years).

I did subscribe on a monthly basis of $2.99 in the latter years because my storage went over the Free 2mb.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
When Photobucket stopped the free 3rd party hosting, blanked out photos on the Car Club website, I stopped the subscription, with hindsight a mistake on my part, resulting in my account being blocked.

The Car Club website is a private club website, it does sell club merchandise and allow members to advertise private sales to take place.

PB stipulated a $399 annual fee to 3rd party host, I found this beyond my budget and decided not to use Photobucket.

My car club website has since facilitated other methods for members to maintain their existing photos on the website and allow new photos to be added with their posts. I no longer have a reason now to use Photobucket.

In the process of accessing and removing my photos, I found that I was being forced to upgrade my account for another year before I could access my photos to download them.

Your prompt about the recent mobile app with increased storage of 8mb has allowed me to complete this activity. I have now transferred them to my computer.

I hope that PB accepts this as constructive criticism, I was a loyal user of PB for many years prompting others on my car club website to use PB to post pictures.

Whilst I understand your charge for commercial users of your product, I do not understand the increased charge from some $36 to $399 annually for me a private user to complete the same task.

It was very good for a time, but PB have changed the rules, I am sure PB are loosing many customers in the process.

I am 63+ years old who has refurbished a car for the last ten years and posted my pictures on a Car Club website, which I do not make money from.

Regards

Malcolm Rae

Hi Malcolm,
There are a few things going on here:
(1) PB have closed the back door to see the images without a subscription - which I knew they would do.
(2) If the images were not on PB when I did the extraction then the links in the thread would of remained untouched.
(3) I think that you may of deleted some of your PB pictures before I did the extract. If you look in some of your later pages you will fine that your images are there, looking closer at the URL you will see that they are hosted on our server and not PB.

You have no option but to go through each page and correct the images as you are the only one that has the copies now - you deleted them off PB before I could get them :-(


"Unfortunately again, despite the earlier website fix to recover pictures deleted by PB, it seems that we still need to store the pictures in PB. That's my perception anyway."
This is absolutely not true - we do not use PB at all and there is no requirement to do so. Pictures that I extracted from PB are stored directly on our main server. Pictures uploaded by our "Add Image" mechanism are stored on the Cloudinary CDN (Content Data Network) that we pay for (through paid membership).

"I am now in the process re-editing my posts to put them back in using the new website attachment process. This is working, I am currently on Page 3 of 29!!"
You will be saving your images to our CDN! You shot yourself in the foot by deleting them off PB before I had the chance to extract them.

Ade,

Thanks for the quick response.

OK, I agree that I need to put the photos back in. I am kicking myself with the consequences in deleting the photos from the PB website.

Just to clarify though, we did go through my project back in November last year when similar problems occurred, see the earlier posts in this thread.

At that time you clarified to me that you had done two fixes, one very early and then later to recover all photos and I also replaced those few photos where I had continued to use PB in the latter pages after you had done your later fix.

All posted photos were visible then and have been since then. My perception then that everything was fixed and now I have ruined it with my action in deleting the photos from my PB account.

It was only when I received a PM from a member this weekend on the 21 Jan 2018 to ask a question, that he informed me that my pictures were no longer viewable.

I only deleted all photos from PB the day before, 20 Jan 2018, because PB had frozen my account and I had no use for it anymore.

Hence my perception that there might still be a link to the original PB photos in my action to delete the photos from PB.

I just wanted to pass on to other members that there might be consequences in deleting their PB account photos.

Regards

Malcolm

Malcolm

Cracking response to FB!

But you've got to admit as I'm more than happy to do that this car club has one of the best Administrator's of computer systems that you and I have ever seen.

Ade is shït hot and as a fellow Admin of 25 years I bow to lhasadreams shear knowledge and skills.

You know the very sad thing is that without his skills we would have nothing as a platform.

So to all members, please don't forget the really great hard working people behind the scenes that make this club as good as it is!  

We'll worth an FYI 36thcrazyfist Mr. Chairman

Sent from my Smartphone 📱

Agreed, I have always received excellent support when I have had issues with the website, they have been addressed very quickly.

I feel that my current issue is of my own making which I can address in due course.

Regards

Malcolm

Malcolm said

Agreed, I have always received excellent support when I have had issues with the website, they have been addressed very quickly.

I feel that my current issue is of my own making which I can address in due course.

Regards

Malcolm

😂
Reminds me of what someone said to me a very long time ago.
"We all make mistakes as the Darlek said climbing off the dustbin!"

Sorry just got the devil in me today. 😉 👍🏼

Sent from my Smartphone 📱