Help needed with forum tech

Rather than continue to moan about my current problems getting Photobucket images and gifs to show up on three different threads, I thought I'd just bring the issue up here where it belongs. Clearly there is an issue with forumotion and PB not playing nice together, since the images in question are still showing on multiple other sites, including OSW.

I know I can try hosting images directly here, but I'd like to be able to use PB as well because I have so many images stored there.

Who can we turn to for help? Does Forumotion have tech support?

Tank Girl,

Did you check the links I provided in the PM? Those are from Forumotion's resolved support threads. I found a third, but it seemed even less helpful.

I have experimented with any changed settings to this forum, and reverting to earlier settings (which had nothing to do with gifs anyway) did not make a difference with the display of these images.

Have you made changes to any of your settings or preferences here? Or on Photobucket? I know from flickr that if you simply change the status of an image to private or public, the whole link changes, although I doubt this is the issue here.

From the start I have pointed out I am not tech savvy and I call upon the other Founding Fathers and other forum members in general to find us a tech and/or a solution.

I hope this is worked out, as it is truly a curious and disturbing issue.

PS A logical step would be for anyone else with Photobucket to test this and see if their images (jpeg or gif) from there would display here.

I can't offer much, but, all my albums in Imgur are private and I've never had display issues anywhere.

CHEERS!

Rogerbee wrote:I can't offer much, but, all my albums in Imgur are private and I've never had display issues anywhere.

That particular issue (which may not be Tank Girl's problem) is a little different. It's not that an image is private, but if (for example) you made a link to it while it was still public and then made it private, the link would be broken, because the system (at least flickr's) assigns the image a different url. So for the link to work, you would have to update the url accordingly. And then, even if the image is private, as long as the url is correct, it would display.

Interesting,

I'm sure I've posted pics before and then made the album private and not had issues. Have you seen my reply in TGF's thread? I don't use the buttons on here to post pics, I use the clipboard.

CHEERS!

Rogerbee wrote:I'm sure I've posted pics before and then made the album private and not had issues. Have you seen my reply in TGF's thread? I don't use the buttons on here to post pics, I use the clipboard

What I described may just be a flickr thing. I did see. Is it that you use the clipboard or that you put the correct (for example) around what you paste? Theoretically that should be just as good as inserting or hosting.

They have proper share links already set up, as do PB, you just copy and paste them. With PB they are linked back to the site, but with Imgur they are embedded.

CHEERS!

I've been awake for about two hours now.

How come many are not bothering to use the image hosting capability with Forumotion?

You know. Upload the images from your PC?

Hi DFC. Good morning! Tank Girl wanted to reintroduce a large number of images she has on Photobucket, and I cannot blame her for being taken aback by the disappearance of her already displayed images and of what seemed to be one of our system's capabilities. I myself upload images on Servimg (so to speak, "here").

GubernatorFan wrote:Hi DFC. Good morning! Tank Girl wanted to reintroduce a large number of images she has on Photobucket, and I cannot blame her for being taken aback by the disappearance of her already displayed images and of what seemed to be one of our system's capabilities. I myself upload images on Servimg (so to speak, "here").

--

HMMM . . .

If Tank Girl is inclined, please PM me the link for the images on Photobucket and let me futz around.

The worst case scenario is for her to download the images to her PC and upload the images to servimg and post/share them that way.

Please send me the links and let me see what I can do/find out.

DeltaForceChung wrote:I've been awake for about two hours now.

How come many are not bothering to use the image hosting capability with Forumotion?

You know.  Upload the images from your PC?

I never got that to work well in OSW and haven't tried here. I stick to what I know, which is Imgur and that has worked perfectly for me so I see no reason to do anything different.

CHEERS!

I've been using "image hosting" function practically since the beginning (it's how all the New Product threads I've created are done), and it works great. No problems, whatsoever. But, now we seem to be having problems with Blackpool's photos, as well as TGF. Is this a formation issue or a PB issue? Some people can see them and some (like me) cannot.
I have a feeling TGF has already given up on us, and Blackpool may not be far behind. This isn't good...

What we're experiencing is not isolated to just our group.

I submitted a support query to Forumotion in their support discussion group. I submitted the required details and awaiting a response. I discovered the issue we're experiencing started sometime this week.

A different forum member posted the same issue and verified admin panel settings are set appropriately and the affect members using PhotoBucket are premium PhotoBucket members.

That's all I know for now.

OH . . . and no one should be installing any PhotoBucket image fix extensions on their browsers because they don't work. I know. I tried a couple on Chrome and Firefox and it's doesn't fix/solve the PhotoBucket image problem.

ONE LAST THING . . .

I <CENSORED>ing despise PhotoBucket. I know some of us utilize them for whatever reasons, but they're worthless compared to other options. Just my $.02 worth.

Thanks for the heads up, Chung. Glad to know it isn't this site necessarily, but as expected something to do with those worthless c@#k-suckers over at PB.

While I have been searching Forumotion support files for the last two days, it appears that DFC has uncovered more than I did. As we suspected, it does not appear that any settings on our own forum have caused the problem with the display of Photobucket-hosted images. There may be something at play with our host Forumotion or with Photobucket and the way in which they interact. As indicated in the previous post, DFC has written a dedicated message to Forumotion support on this issue and we are awaiting a response. I am sure some sort of fix will appear, but none of us know how soon this will be. Please bear with us. If you are up to it, consider looking into other image hosting sites. Imgur, Flickr, and Servimg (which is somehow associated with or recommended by Forumotion) all appear to work. For what it is worth, I opened free accounts in the latter two when I started this forum, and so far have run into no issues.

On a personal note, having infected my computer with malware while installing Chrome to replicate that browser's experience (in vain), I may be a little distracted in the immediate future.

Hmm, not good, at least something might get done. We will see....

CHEERS!

Good luck, Gov'na. Dealing with malware can be a pain in the butt.

Depends what you use. I have found Malwarebytes to be very effective, though occasionally problematic after hardware changes and after it updates itself.

CHEERS!

Thank you, Stryker and Roger. It is the "friendly" type of malware but I am on high alert. I am considering doing a system restore in the hope of resetting to an earlier clean system. And it all installed although I had the wherewithal to decline its installations offers while installing Chrome. Here's a lesson learned...

If it's a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) you can check your quarantine to see what it is. Sometimes perfectly legit programs can get flagged and you need to tell the software to exclude that file when it next does a scan.

What are you using?

CHEERS!

Rogerbee wrote:If it's a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) you can check your quarantine to see what it is. Sometimes perfectly legit programs can get flagged and you need to tell the software to exclude that file when it next does a scan. What are you using?

Windows Defender, but that's not the issue. It is a PUP but not flagged. I realized there is something fishy when it would not uninstall when I tried to uninstall it. Two programs, apparently related:
Workgroup Inc Product
PrUpdater

I did some web searches, and it appears it is the sort of malware that tries to bombard you with ads, etc. So not technically a virus, but pretty shady and annoying. Of course the easy uninstall suggestion requires downloading pay antivirus software that is itself commercially extortionist in one way or another. They do provide step by step instructions, but I gather they are intended to be so lengthy and discouraging (and potentially compromising your system) that you should be convinced to get their software. I just hope that a system restore is a viable shortcut.

I see, I ditched Defender for Malwarebytes years ago. Back then you could buy a lifetime license for their Premium version, now it's renewable very couple of years.

Not sure what steps you could take

CHEERS!

HI all, I'm back. Busy Saturday as usual, and then got to watch my stupid Bruins lose to those even stupider Leafs. So not in a good mood to begin with. I'm "glad" to know it's not just me or that I did something wrong to cause this issue if it's true that others have been experiencing similar issues with PB and FM. That said, I do NOT like that FM pushes a servimg account automatically on you without your consent. Three times last night servimg sent me emails saying my account was created for me without my ever asking for it, and all three times I signed on and immediately deleted it. So far it hasn't tried again. While on that site briefly working through the deletion process each time, I was hit with three separate malware redirects/intrusion attempts that my AV flagged and blocked. I'm sure those of you using it are doing fine with it, but I refuse to use it and do not appreciate Forumotion's attempts to force me to sign up by automatically create an account for me, using my same email and password. It's almost like FM is trying to block PB users to force us to use servimg, but maybe that's just my conspiracy theorist coming out.

I get that most of you hate PB for what it did last year, and I was none too happy with it either. But after a bit of reflection, I realized I had gotten a free ride from them for over 10 years, and the new fee is basically just over $1/day to continue using something that simply works with just about every site and that I have a ton of pics already loaded on. Actually, it's still free to use, it's just the hotlinking that one has to pay a lot for, but it was worth it for me. I'm used to hobbies that require I pay money (sometimes a lot) just to enter a flying field (>$100/year, which is actually cheap; I think most fields charge closer to $200, not including AMA dues) or step on the ice ($12-$15/session for stick and puck $20-30 for games, which adds up), so I accept it as just another cost I have to bear if I want to share my 1/6 hobby with others. (That doesn't include all the money spent on hockey equipment, airplanes, electronics, field equipment, etc.etc. Having fun is expensive!!)

So, if the only way forward is that I have to "host" the pics here (which means servimg), or switch to another service (flickr/imgur/etc.), I don't think this is going to work for me.

But I will wait until we get some word on what's going on from the FM people. Until then I'll lurk a bit.

Thanks to all for trying to help. I do appreciate the support and effort!

So sorry this has happened, I never got any emails from servimg, nor have I ever tried to use them. I didn't realise that you were paying to use PB and now I know that's the case, I can better understand your frustration.

I'm also sorry that I don't know enough to be of help on this occasion

Hope something is sorted soon

I am now using imgur which I find very simple, seems to work everywhere I post, and is pretty much the same as PB used to be but without so many adds and pop ups.

I took a break from posting pics at all after the PB thing went on and only started to post pics again here when the forum opened.

As to my old posts its a shame that they now don't have pics but I don't see that as my fault.  I really doubt that anyone will ever read most of them again anyway, and I still have the original pics on my Computer.

I would happily pay extra for a hosting service, paying for it is not the issue for me with PB.  It was the way in which they decided to ask me to pay, which was tantamount to a ransom demand on all of my previously posted pics, And that they made the change overnight with no warning to people using their services.  Its the company I object too, not the fees.

If Imgur asked me nicely today to start paying for hosting then I would have no hesitation in saying to them how much?  But I will not pay money to an immoral and bullying company like PB.

I simply had to post pics, so when PB did what it did, I knew I needed somewhere else and fast. Shovelchop had been using Imgur and I have ever since. You can use forum code to get the pic here and it's here without needing to link back to them. I also had all the originals stored, but, certainly didn't want the hassle of going back through old threads that didn't get read much just to put pics back that wouldn't get seen much anyway.

Being as money isn't the issue it used to be, I too would pay to use Imgur, if it came to it.

CHEERS!

Here's something odd that may be of use to TankGirlFuzzy:

From my Imgur account, I copied the BBC url code, and as I was typing the last entry in my Man Cave thread, I simply pasted what I copied into the box where I was typing (bypassing the menu bar above completely -- i.e., didn't use "host an image" or "insert image" buttons), and it worked. Picture is visible for me. However: I DID NOT try to "Edit" that post again (I seem to encounter weird things with my pics of late if I try to correct the usual "auto-correct" so-called fixes.

Tank Girl, like I tried to explain before, the overly direct association between Forumotion and Servimg was probably intended for convenience. I would imagine that if you tried the Host an Image function (which goes through Servimg) which has been working as a workaround, the system automatically initiated the opening of a Servimg account. And while that may have been unexpected and intrusive, it was probably not nefarious. The other issue, about those annoying ad redirects, is an unfortunately frequent reality with pay and free sites alike; sometimes our anti virus and ad block features keep it at bay but occasionally something sneaks through and we have to ignore, close, or get back from it. I have encountered it very rarely with Servimg, which does not detract from how annoying and unsettling it can be. But Servimg itself is not malware and I don't think there is a conspiracy. Given the amount of work you have posted on Photobucket and the amount of money you pay them, I cannot blame you for insisting on being able to use images hosted there on this forum. I hope the issue will be resolved soon, and we will keep you (and everyone else) posted.

Stryker2011 wrote:Here's something odd that may be of use to TankGirlFuzzy:

From my Imgur account, I copied the BBC url code, and as I was typing the last entry in my Man Cave thread, I simply pasted what I copied into the box where I was typing (bypassing the menu bar above completely -- i.e., didn't use "host an image" or "insert image" buttons), and it worked. Picture is visible for me. However: I DID NOT try to "Edit" that post again (I seem to encounter weird things with my pics of late if I try to correct the usual "auto-correct" so-called fixes.

Do you mean you used the Copy function from Imgur's 'Get share links' menu? If so, that's what I've always done, even with PB.

CHEERS!