slOT: Photobucket Morass

[HRBAKER]

I am having issues with PB this morning. I logged in and was greeted with their "New and Improved" version. In the past when this has happened all I had to do was click on the "Return to Original Version of Photobucket" link and I would be back to the prior version. The link is still there with this new version but I can't get it to take me back. Anyone else experiencing anything similar or better yet, have a fix? Thank you.

[dog*dirt]

Jeff,

Same problem here. I will let you know if I can get back to the old version.

[egbeachley]

Took Dan some emails to them.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/526604/thread/1356954044/last-1356981844/Off+Topic+-+Photobucket+Decemebr+31st

[HRBAKER]

Thx Eric.

[slidekellyslide]

Photobucket is having some issues as well...last week I could not log in and it said my account was banned for violating TOS...I was freaking a little bit because I've used that site for years and have my entire collection scanned and cataloged on there. I emailed them and they said I was not banned and my account is "stuck"...they figured it out and I'm back now, but I really hate their new layout.

[Leon]

I pay a relative lot of money, $13 a month, for my own website, but I have never had any issue with hosting pics or needing to do something on it. I know free, or almost free is great, but for my $13 I am happy.

[HRBAKER]

Yikes, the new "improved" version of Photobucket is back today with no button to push to return the previous version like before. However the url does have the word "beta" in it so I am hopeful that I am just missing something. Anyone have any ideas?

Thank you.

[thecatspajamas]

Yikes, the new "improved" version of Photobucket is back today with no button to push to return the previous version like before. However the url does have the word "beta" in it so I am hopeful that I am just missing something. Anyone have any ideas?

Thank you.

Unfortunately, you're not. There has been a bit of discussion of this over on the non-sport side. Photobucket has been forcing users into their new "beta" version of the site for a while now with the intention of abandoning the old version. The unfortunate part is that the new site is nowhere near as functional as the old site, and many of the functions are still unavailable or broken. They have had an option to go ahead and switch over to the new "beta" version for a while now with, as you said, a button to push to go back, but in the last couple of months have disabled the "go back" option to keep everyone on the new version. Supposedly the drop-dead date that they will "force" all remaining users onto the new site is March 18.

I had a scare yesterday when I went to the site and found the new version, but logging out and back in again got me back to the old version again. The scare was because, for the hour or so that I was messing around with the new site, the links to change my preferences and all links to upload more images to the site were broken or non-functioning. Whether that was because I was "really" still on the old version or not, I don't know, but after hearing all the troubles Dan C. has had loading images for the non-sport board's galleries, I won't be making the switch until absolutely forced to.

How anyone can think it's a good idea to forcibly move their entire client base to a new version that has a sliver of the functionality of their previous version, and BEFORE THE NEW VERSION IS FINISHED is beyond me. If I didn't already have thousands upon thousands of images stored and linked from there, I would be looking for another alternative. As it is, I'm paid up for another year for the pro version (renewed just before all this crap started).

I would be interested to hear from anyone who is on the new version of PB and has been able to upload as to how they went about doing it. For the hour that I was there, the only way I could do anything was by ftp, which is really like the back door to my files and folders that avoids the new interface altogether.

[jb217676]

I am unable to even see a photobucket beta page. It stays up for a second then the screen goes blank. I know a lot of the members here use photobucket but I am unable to see anything when I click on a photobucket link. Does this happen to anyone else?

My advice: use IMAGEEVENT to host your pictures. Only costs $24.95 a year and works perfectly!

[3-2-count]

Photo Bucket fails miserably in the customer service department as well. Have yet to receive a reply to three emails sent over a week ago. Ive already gone elsewhere for my needs.

[HRBAKER]

I am really hard pressed to scream too loudly about something that I have used for free for several years and it has worked fine. I have been able to upload images today to the "new" version.

What I miss is the "Display All" and the "Organize" view which lets you drag the files/images where you want them.

I am going back and logging out and then back in and see if that is a temp fix for me.

Thank you.

[deadballfreaK]

I actually only joined 2 days ago in order to post pics here. I didn't know there was an older version. I'm using the beta and gotta say I'm not thrilled with it.

[HRBAKER]

FWIW and who knows how long this will last, Logging Out and back in did get me back to the older version. Thanks for the tip.

[slidekellyslide]

I can't even figure out what's going on there anymore. The photos in my albums are in no specific order any longer...I had them exactly the way I wanted them and now it just seems random. I have a bunch of stuff to scan to my collection, but I'm thinking of abandoning photobucket and going elsewhere.

[cubsfan-budman]

are there other good FREE options?

[thecatspajamas]

Anyone had any luck with Photobucket since the forced switchover to the "new" version of the site? I haven't been able to upload photos through the site, their "desktop" app doesn't work for me (when trying to upload, just has a "busy" circle spinning at the top and never shows me any options for where to upload to), and now the ftp "back door" that I was using to get photos uploaded for use on eBay isn't working.

If anyone knows any "tricks," I'd be glad to hear them. PB customer service is useless. I e-mailed them weeks ago about the problem. Heard nothing for 2 weeks so I e-mailed them again. Got a canned response that their engineers had found the problem and were working on a solution. Then a week or so later get another canned e-mail from them saying:

"Hello,
We haven't heard back from you in a few days so we're checking in with you! We're hoping this means our suggestions have worked, or you've answered your question yourself. If this is the case, well done! If your question is still unanswered, don't worry! You can reply back to this email and re-open the ticket, or if its been a while, it will open a new ticket."

I could go on with my griping, but the bottom line is I'm not expecting any real help from PB.

Failing that, anyone have any suggestions for other photo hosting solutions? I'm fine with paying for a service, so long as it's stable, isn't going anywhere, and has a simple interface with predictable urls for linking photos for use in eBay listings. I would dump PB altogether, but at this point I have thousands of eBay listings that use photos linked from PB, and I shudder at the thought of trying to update all those to a new source. So I'm looking at leaving the PB-linked listings as-is and just going with a new option from here forward, possibly revising and the old listings over time.

[sbfinley]

are there other good FREE options?


collectorfocus.com

[thecatspajamas]

Figured out late last night what was wrong with the ftp upload for PB: apparently you can't have the PB site open in a browser AND upload through ftp in Windows Explorer at the same time. If you close the browser window and just work through ftp and it works fine.

Just in case anyone is having similar problems and wants to try the ftp interface, you get to it by opening Windows Explorer and in the address line type ftp://username: password@ftp.photobucket.com (no spaces) where username and password are the ones you use for your PB account. I'm not sure if this works with the Free accounts. Supposedly the ftp method was going away with the new site. It's still there though, they just don't tell you how to get to it anymore.

So anyway, I'm still limping along, but would be glad to hear of any simple, relatively cheap options for hosting photos where I can just dump the images and then link to them in some predictable way (i.e. no filename scrambling) for eBay listings, Net54 posts, etc. I don't need fancy photo album displays and would actually prefer it NOT to look like facebook, which is where PB seems to be headed. The more utilitarian the better, I say :p