TinyPic disaster

[bixaorellana]

You all may have noticed that our logo is missing (it's still clickable, though). That's because TinyPic abruptly shut down, meaning that pictures hosted there are not showing up here.

from the tinypic site:
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Tinypic is no longer accepting uploads from international locations, and links are turned off. If you have content on Tinypic, you can still view the URLs and the content, but only on Tinypic. To upload, share, or link content, please go to Photobucket.com to register an account. You will need to upload your content again to your Photobucket account, but you will be able to share and link your images and videos. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and hope that you enjoy Photobucket, our premier image and video site.
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there's a place to click for more info, which takes you to a page telling you to sign up at photobucket & also has this message:
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Tinypic International is changing. Beginning September 23rd, you will no longer be able to upload content to Tinypic and your links will be turned off. Please begin using Photobucket to upload, share and link your images and videos.
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Right now I am trying to figure out how to transfer TinyPic content to Photobucket. This of course might well strain our photobucket accounts. Perhaps the intent is to force us to buy their "pro" version?

Anyway, I'll report on what I find here, but please -- anyone who has more knowledge or tips, jump in with them!

[Deleted]

I can still see the logo, and the properties say that it is hosted at Tinypic, so apparently not everything is going down at the same time....

[Deleted]

Oh, all gone now.... and that TinyPic wallpaper is not quite my favorite.

[betsie]

Try Imageshack, they don't put limits on usage.

I wonder if the logo was causing my computer problems with this site, it's working fine this evening, but formerly it was freaking my computer out and the pages took ages to load.

[bixaorellana]

It shouldn't have had any bearing on load time, Betsie. The only thing that would have happened would be to see the logo as plain type instead of fancy.

ImageShack is not all that handy for FF users. IE is really slow for me, so I'd hate to go to it for hosting pictures.

Coincidentally, before this happened there was a discussion about photo hosting sites:
anyportinastorm.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=4351&page=1#88406

[bixaorellana]

Okay -- here is one way to rehost your broken tinypic images as you find them around the forum. I just tested this & it's working, but who knows for how long.

Go to a post where you've put up a tinypic image.
You'll see either [image] or x depending on your browser.
Right-click on that & select either "View image info" (FF) or "Properties" (IE).
Copy the Location url (FF) or the Address URL (IE).

Now go to your photobucket account, and tell it you want to upload pictures from the web.
Paste the url into the slot provided and upload.
You will now see a thumbnail of the image & will have a Direct Link, an IMG Code, etc.

This should work with any hosting site that lets you upload urls.

[bixaorellana]

Note that TinyPic is now leaving little "image unavailable" icons in some places. Just treat them as outlined above.

[bixaorellana]

Who knows WHAT is going on?!

TinyPic is semi-working again. The notifications quoted in the OP are no longer showing up on TinyPic, and many TinyPic-hosted images on this forum are now visible. There's little information on the web, and none of it is official:

stuff.techwhack.com/9738-tinypic

techcrunch.com/2010/09/23/tinypic-revolt/

I don't know if it's only my computer, but Photobucket-hosted images seem very balky today. That may well be from the overload they created with panicking everyone to re-host on Photobucket.

Check out the photo-hosting thread: anyportinastorm.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=4351&page=1
At #11, there are two new suggestions.

[bixaorellana]

Well, now that I've moved bunches of my images from TinyPic to Photobucket, it looks as though TinyPic has backtracked. Here is the only thing I could find on that, a Wikipedia article not entirely supported by Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TinyPic

All things considered, I don't think I'll be uploading anything else to TinyPic.

[fumobici]

Unless the photo hoster you use is contractually bound to provide service, they will always have the right and very probably an incentive to discontinue their service to you.

My answer: Get your own domain- it is cheap, hosting is essentially storage and bandwidth unlimited for personal use and you are the one is control of your own intellectual property rather than some business who has in essence absolutely no reason to consider your best interests or wishes. Free photo hosting services will never be reliable, they really have every reason not to be. Once you've linked to a few hundred images you've uploaded to them, they have you by the short and curlies considering the amount of work you'll have to do fix those links if they decide to discontinue the free hosting, which of course they are entitled to do at any time and for any reason.

[Deleted]

Yes well, when a site is free for everybody and the people trying to operate the site do not earn even one cent, the idea of owning a domain is not really an option.

[betsie]

I joined a forum recently which was said to be free. After a week or two, a discussion was started about donations, since it was costing the owner about 35 pounds a month to run. People who donated were given special stars on their profiles.

I have nothing against discreet requests for donations, but a huge debate ensued, with posters who had already made donations shouting that everybody should be required to pay if they wanted to post, that it wasn't fair, that nothing in life is free, etc. This ticked me off considerably. Either it should be free or donations should be optional and dealt with quietly, instead of creating two classes of posters: the payers and the free-loaders.

[fumobici]

Sept 25, 2010 18:10:12 GMT kerouac2 said:

Yes well, when a site is free for everybody and the people trying to operate the site do not earn even one cent, the idea of owning a domain is not really an option.

You misunderstand I think. I wasn't talking about this site, which I assume you are referring to, but to the users who want to post photos here doing so from their personal website domains as opposed to entrusting that to an intrinsically unreliable free photo hosting service. Domains with hosting seem to run around 5USD/month including essentially unlimited storage and bandwidth allowances if one shops around.