A Forum Users discussion of the Photobucket debacle

REF wrote:

My photos will vanish soon, I must have posted thousands. I can't access photobucket as I can't remember my password and I can't edit my posts! I even hosted other peoples photos on the forum too.

Presumably you have tried their forgotton password facility?
secure.photobucket.com/forgot
( you would have to hope that they at least they can make that work properly}

stevie wrote:

RICH - I've managed to save & de-photobuck a lot of your photos as I'm sure I've already mentioned to you. All your pics in Lincolnshire, Leic, Rutland, Notts, Derby, Northants & your Airshow ones have been done & I know other mods have done others in other Countys.

I'm planning on tackling Suffolk & Norfolk (I know thats where MANY of yours will need saving) soon.....It's going to be an epic one!!

Steve

Currently Richard has
2283 on the forum
369 in norfolk
320 In Suffolk

Of course this is posts rather than photos, but it sounds better like that..

We still have a long way to go, but I know that all the Mods and Admins have been working hard to recover photobucket photos, I have done well over 3000 of Richards myself.

.

NM wrote:

REF wrote:

Thanks for your help guys in doing this, it is much appreciated. Especially as Mods are the only ones that can edit posts now!

Cheers

Richard

Pity that. We could have de-photobucketed our own posts, which might have lessened the load.

This should only be a temporary hiccup, it is being investigated, and hopefully sanity, on this point at least will return soon.

But thanks for your offer of help , we may well be in touch.....

FLICKR has now been taken over by SMUGMUG , they promise things will continue unchanged for the time being. There is a 45 day free trial off on FLICKR PRO.

I wonder how long Yahoo will survive? I was reading yesterday complaints about yet more problems with the Yahoo mail system that BT uses and calls for them to break away from Yahoo.

There were doubts over Yahoo a year or so ago and therefore FLICKR. I wonder how long it will be before things settle down enough to be more certain. The history of online photo storage doesn't give a promising future and the rate at which big names change their services means you cannot rely on anything lasting. Future proof is now only a meaningless marketing term and looking at the SMUGMUG website doesn't give any reassurance as it seems to plead - please don't leave, we'll give it go for a couple of years.

The other more basic problem is that online storage doesn't work when the internet goes down. We had the same problem when I last worked and all the PC's were replaced by those little boxes (can't recall the technical term) that only viewed a virtual PC which was in a server farm hundred of miles away. The number of times we sat twiddling our thumbs when for various reasons the connection was lost. The phones were IP based and we couldn't use those either.

Never put all your eggs in one basket, especially one controlled by someone out of your control.

End of lesson