Photobucket support group?

pdq import repair

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Location
idaho
TDI
09 Jetta
I realize this may be technically the wrong forum to cry about this problem, but I couldn't find a more appropriate one. Mods, feel free to put it elsewhere or delete if I have violated any rules, and if I have I am truly sorry.

I have made many posts over the years on many different forums on many different sites using Photobucket as the picture hosting service. Yes I know I was stupid to us such a site, but it worked for me. Till now. apparently Photobucket has a death wish and has blanked out all third party hosting unless you pay their ransom of 400.00 a year.

Thus, all my posted photos now are gone and replaced by a warning that I need to update and pay to revive them. I plan to download all my photos from them, if possible, and kick them to the curb. The monumental task of finding and replacing all photos in posts may be too much for me to handle and remain sane.

I see some other fools on this site and others have also used this service in the past and are facing the same fate.

There was little or no warning of this happening, or at last any that I saw. I understand the need to make a profit as well as anybody, but this seem suicidal to me from a business standpoint. If they wish to limit third party hosting they should put a start date on it and allow the previous ones to remain, in my opinion. I think a move like this will completely alienate all of their user and piss them off enough to defect and never return, like me.

What are others doing?
 

1.9ZOOK

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2015
Location
Downstream of a Volcano
TDI
ALH Samurai
I started flooding my account with useless photos,I will upload as many
as possible until no more can be uploaded then let the account sit fore ever.
 

Rembrant

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2014
Location
Canada's Ocean Playground
TDI
2013 Golf TDI DSG
There was little or no warning of this happening, or at last any that I saw.

What are others doing?
There was some warning, for me at least, that last year Photobucket became so slow and unresponsive I couldn't even use it. I didn't know if it was my own PC (Chrome, w/Adblocker) or if it was a global issue, but it just became too unruly to use. I expected it to simply shut down.

Kind of a sin really, with all of those pictures gone from many helpful threads that surely benefited from those pictures.

I've been using Postimage.org since, and it seems to be working OK.
 

KLXD

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 22, 2009
Location
Lompoc, CA
TDI
'98, '2 Jettas
I had no problem with the ads. It's a business and they had to make money. When it got too slow I paid the $25 bucks or so to get rid of them. No problem.

I do have a big problem with what they did.

I wonder what happens when my subscription expires. I think it defaulted to auto renew. Will the price be the same, will thy hit me for $400 without permission or will they ask?

Now matter what I'll be going elsewhere. All PB subscriber need to be telling them that. Maybe they'll back off.
 

VincenzaV

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2015
Location
New Hampshire
TDI
2004 Jetta Wagon
Wow, I had no idea until this post. I never paid them a dime and always uploaded photos FROM my back-up, so I got off easy. I feel very bad for people that got subject to this "ransomware" like tactic.
 

Millennium Falcon

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2016
Location
Central pa
TDI
2003 jetta wagon, 1949 willys cj3 ALH TDI swap
Hi my name is Millennium Falcon and I have been a victim of photobucket as well. :) it is ridiculous! I hope the "Netflix effect" happens to them. I cant imagine anyone in their right mind will pay what they are asking.
 
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\/\/0J0

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2010
Location
Knoxville, TN
TDI
Sadly, none anymore
The best thing to do is to pull all photos and close your account. This way it hits them where it hurts.. They cannot show populated servers and account logs to investors.. Instead, diminished account numbers and empty (wasted) server space remain.
As a solution, Google drive and drop box(and others, I'm sure) offer space to store and share more than just photos and Tapatalk has provisions to easily upload photos to many forums while hosting them on Tapatalk servers. The app costs a couple bucks up front and there is an optional subscription to pay if you want additional features and ad removal.
*I'm not affiliated with any of the products or services I mention, only a (mostly) satisfied user.

Sent from my mobile look-at device
 

pdq import repair

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Location
idaho
TDI
09 Jetta
I am pulling copying my photos all back to my computer. I will have quite a bit of redundancy there as I have many of them in files already. I mainly uploaded to PB for 3rd party hosting in the first place.

I am still mad that my postings are all ruined and the rebuilding will be tedious. I don't think they thought this through very well as they have now upset many people that will never use them again for any reason even if they have a change of heart. I would not have been opposed to a minimal fee for posting, but they burned that bridge too.

I don't know what would hit them hardest, removing my photos and closing my account, or keeping my photos there tying up room on their system and never accessing the site again.
 

phaser

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2004
Location
Oregon
TDI
2004 Jetta PD - 490k
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RoseBud68

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2016
Location
PSL FL
TDI
'99 mk3 Jetta 1.9
$400??? That is shocking. Surely there must be a misunderstanding somewhere.

Took me a while to find the pricing structure, and here it is, from Free accounts and up.

http://support.photobucket.com/hc/en-us/articles/200724444-Plus-Subscription-Pricing-Info

According to that page, they want $400 for 500 GB of storage.

Are you folks really using that much space?

And here is the Free Accounts page: http://support.photobucket.com/hc/en-us/articles/200724044-Free-Accounts

.
Im no where near 3GB of storage and they want me to pay $400....Not sure what going on with PB. As a matter of fact, I'm using 0.3 GB of the 2GB of free storage. The issue is because i'm using it for 3rd party hosting only.
 
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Blue_Hen_TDI

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 23, 2005
Location
Slower, DE
TDI
owned: 96 B4V, 06 Golf, 12 NMS, 15 GSW
No third party hosting or hotlinking, though, so millions of internet DIYs are wrecked forever, unless they are meticuously rebuilt with the original photos relocated and rehosted elsewhere. The damage has been done.

As \/\/0J0 mentioned, the best way to penalize the extortionists is to delete all your photos and close your account. BUT, I did just that last weekend and it said my account would be permanently deleted on July 6, 2017. However, it's not. It's still there and I can still log in. Looks like Photobucket may be trying to disguise the bleeding to their advertisers.

I really want them to fail.
 

Rembrant

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2014
Location
Canada's Ocean Playground
TDI
2013 Golf TDI DSG
$400??? That is shocking. Surely there must be a misunderstanding somewhere.

Took me a while to find the pricing structure, and here it is, from Free accounts and up.

http://support.photobucket.com/hc/en-us/articles/200724444-Plus-Subscription-Pricing-Info

According to that page, they want $400 for 500 GB of storage.

Are you folks really using that much space?

And here is the Free Accounts page: http://support.photobucket.com/hc/en-us/articles/200724044-Free-Accounts

.
There is no misunderstanding. I have a free account, and with 455 pictures on there, I'm at 7% of my 2GB limit.

Problem is, I've only ever used Photobucket for 3rd party hosting, and now, the only way to continue to do that is with a Premium account @ $399/year.

The prices are all clearly laid out on their site, with the features of each plan.

I don't care what they do, I have all of the pictures anyway, they were only ever uploaded to post into forums like this one.
 

jimbote

Certified Volkswagen Nut
Joined
Jul 10, 2006
Location
spiral arm, milky way (aka central NC)
TDI
Tacoma 4x4 converted to TDI
i feel your pain, nearly all my threads from the past six years have imbedded photos from bucket.... i'll be going through the painstaking process of uploading my computer stored photos to the TDIclub server ... like most people i'd be more than happy to pay a reasonable amount for third party hosting but $400 ? honestly, this feels like a suicide move by photobucket or Heather Bresch took over as CEO ;)
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
That that is exactly why people should be using the tdiclub picture server.
Since when do we have that? I must have missed it somehow...

About Photobucket, I don't mind if they decide to have all 3rd party links behind a pay wall but to do that without any notice and, even worse, to break the links to pictures that were uploaded and linked to other sites when it still was allowed is just weak.
I removed all my pics and deleted my account as soon as I found out what they've done.

Volkswagen survived dieselgate, will PB survive this? I doubt it.
 

cleaver

Veteran Member
Joined
May 8, 2006
Location
Berwick, Nova Scotia
TDI
None - did own '01 and '02 Jetta TDI
The biggest problem with PhotoBucket and other sites like them has nothing to do with the storage. That is why accounts are cheap for storage, but cost $400 for third party sharing...its the bandwidth usage. Photobucket has to pay an internet provider for all the traffic in and out of their server. For instance, I upload a picture and share it on a third party site. The third party site now get a million visitors who view the photo. Do you know who pays for the data bandwidth used to view the photo a million times. Its not the third party, its PhotoBucket.

Stop complaining about PB, they cannot survive as a company with third party sharing...no company can survive without $$$ support.
 

Lightflyer1

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Sep 13, 2005
Location
Round Rock, Texas
TDI
2015 Beetle tdi dsg
That was their business model and the overwhelming advertising there now should cover it. No excuse for not notifying their members either, in advance. Did they really think individuals would cough up the 400? If they can't survive then go down the tubes. That is how it works.
 

belome

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 8, 2010
Location
Mid MI
TDI
2002 Jetta GLS TDI 5-speed
Thanks for letting me know about this, just deleted my account with 3 photos and a small vid.
 

turbocharged798

Veteran Member
Joined
May 21, 2009
Location
Ellenville, NY
TDI
99.5 black ALH Jetta;09 Gasser Jetta
on the blue bar below your username there is a link that says "photos", click that and that will bring you to the tdiclub picture server. Log in with your username and password upload your photos.

I don't understand why people don't use this.
 

phaser

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2004
Location
Oregon
TDI
2004 Jetta PD - 490k
...no company can survive without $$$ support.
That would also include the TDI Club.

There's nothing mandatory, but there are expenses, and be thankful there are no ads here on the TDI Club.

1) On the TDI Club home page there's a donate via PayPal button on the bottom left column.

2) User Control Panel on the bottom left column is Paid Subscription options.

.
 

jimbote

Certified Volkswagen Nut
Joined
Jul 10, 2006
Location
spiral arm, milky way (aka central NC)
TDI
Tacoma 4x4 converted to TDI
ughhh.... well it looks like most of my almost 900 photos on photobucket are now missing.... I tried to move the entire bulk from my library to an album so i could download to my laptop and after several error messages and re-attempts at moving the photos I closed out the window and now it's showing just under 70 photos in my entire library all albums included :confused: :(

possibly the servers are so overwhelmed it's taking a long time to complete the process but i'm not holding out much hope
 
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senso

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 19, 2017
Location
Portugal
TDI
Bora Mk4(ALH)
So many tutorials are now almost useless/a lot less useful, my brother got an E46 BMW and all the tutorials that I find for regular maintenance things where all Photobucket hosted images, all dead :(


Its a bit of a dick move, and also a great way to show lots of users why using third party hosting instead of the forums own hosting is a bad idea.

Before was the imgshack thing, all the old links just re-direct to their make an account and pay..
 

boertje

Veteran Member
Joined
May 24, 2002
Location
Coeur d'Alene, ID
TDI
'01, '01, '03, ‘06 NB - TDIs all.
I created a tutorial on putting HID lights in the chevy 2015 and up HD series truck. It was my first PB usage. Yesterday I got the PB email on upgrading to the $399 account for third party hosting, etc. Nope, no way. I have the entire tutorial in a PDF. http://www.duramaxforum.com/forum/h...-how-2016-silverado-d2s-4-0-hid-retrofit.html
I removed all pics and deleted my account and basically removed the entire tutorial since without pics it's useless. Now i just have a link to the tutorial.
 

Blue_Hen_TDI

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 23, 2005
Location
Slower, DE
TDI
owned: 96 B4V, 06 Golf, 12 NMS, 15 GSW
A week and a half now after "deleting" my account, which they said would be permanently deleted on July 6, and the account still exists.

This ticks me off. I want it gone so they cannot use it as a stat to charge their advertisers.
 
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