Ugly Gray Photobucket Boxes :P

[beckettologist]

You may have noticed that there are lots of gray boxes where photos should be. Apparently Photobucket now wants users to pay for third party hosting. I am sorry that we have to deal with this. Until we figure out something different we will just have to live with it. Irene (redwine) our main admin can explain this better than I can. Just wanted to let you all know what it was about. She said that they wanted something like $400 to make this work. Not happening. I call this highway robbery.

[Redwine]

Yes, this has happened because Photobucket has changed its terms of service recently. They now no longer allow free accounts to use "third party hosting" services (links to images uploaded to photobucket accounts) unless users pay up front for the right to do so. Lots of sites and lots of forum users have used photobucket for exactly this, for years.

Unfortunately, PB did not give a lot of warning before doing this. That means wherever there is a link to a photobucket image, the ugly gray box appears, instead.

You can follow the link they list for more information, and hear about "what you can do" by following their link in the gray box.


You can read about the whole issue -- and how upset people are about it -- in this article:
www.denverpost.com/2017/07/06/photobucket-complaints-over-charging/

Short version is, you can pull back your own images from your Photobucket account (it's kind of a slow process) -- they are safe, at least for now. You will probably want to download your images/banners/gifs from Photobucket, then upload them to another service, then correct the links in any site that was previously using the Photobucket links.

For those who use Photobucket for their avatars here, you have three options.

First, go to your Profile. You will need to edit it. Access your profile from the top of the Hollanderia home page, just under the Hollanderia banner. Choose the Avatar tab.

Next: 1. Upload a new file from your computer to your "Profile" OR 2. Use a site-generate avatar instead. OR 3. Choose another service to upload your avatar picture(s), then correct the link(s) in your user profile. Make sure to Save.

How to edit your "signature":
Again, go to your Profile. You will need to edit it. Access your profile from the top of the Hollanderia home page, just under the Hollanderia banner. Choose the Personal tab. If you used a photobucket link to make pictures show up in your signature, you will need to correct that link to whatever your new photo hosting service is.

Life on the web -- sheesh!
Thanks all, for your patience as I correct links like this for the site. Bear with us.....

[lintu]

uughh $400.00 is a bit much . Thanks for the update .