CrownBariDad Posted December 21, 2016 Share Posted December 21, 2016 (I'm posting in the WC forum to give this a little more visibility than buried in the Customer Service/Tech Support folder.) I don't know if this affects just me or if there are others posting here that use Dropbox to host images. As many of you know, I often relay images from #TheWife (volunteering on tour) of DCI shows and post them here for the benefit of all. What I do is copy the images to my Dropbox Public folder and then post a shared link to the forum thread. This has worked great for several years. (The only hiccup occurred when too many of you were viewing all of these images simultaneously and I exceeded my bandwidth on my account -- LOL!. An upgrade to Pro solved this.) Now it appears the folks at Dropbox decided to change all Public folders for Pro/Business users to Private on Sep 1, 2017. What this means for these forums is all the show pics I've posted over the years will now just show a broken link icon. The same will happen for any other DCPers who share here using Dropbox. There are no solutions from Dropbox other than manually editing every old post and inserting a newly created link. And even then, that might not work -- I'm hearing reports that the new sharing links only take you to a page where you can download the file and would not work when embedded in an image URL. Anyway -- I'm trying to get answers, as are many others who use Dropbox as I do in other online communities. We are all hoping the powers that be will reconsider this decision, but so far we are being ignored. To the folks here on the Forums: Is this a big deal? Only to me? Or, is it "stuff happens" and we just move on. Please let me know. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clutchtow Posted December 21, 2016 Share Posted December 21, 2016 Imgur is a site that lets you upload your photos and link them for free, I think there is some small compression, but it's a pretty reliable service if you were looking for a different option 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liahona Posted December 21, 2016 Share Posted December 21, 2016 (I'm posting in the WC forum to give this a little more visibility than buried in the Customer Service/Tech Support folder.) I don't know if this affects just me or if there are others posting here that use Dropbox to host images. As many of you know, I often relay images from #TheWife (volunteering on tour) of DCI shows and post them here for the benefit of all. What I do is copy the images to my Dropbox Public folder and then post a shared link to the forum thread. This has worked great for several years. (The only hiccup occurred when too many of you were viewing all of these images simultaneously and I exceeded my bandwidth on my account -- LOL!. An upgrade to Pro solved this.) Now it appears the folks at Dropbox decided to change all Public folders for Pro/Business users to Private on Sep 1, 2017. What this means for these forums is all the show pics I've posted over the years will now just show a broken link icon. The same will happen for any other DCPers who share here using Dropbox. There are no solutions from Dropbox other than manually editing every old post and inserting a newly created link. And even then, that might not work -- I'm hearing reports that the new sharing links only take you to a page where you can download the file and would not work when embedded in an image URL. Anyway -- I'm trying to get answers, as are many others who use Dropbox as I do in other online communities. We are all hoping the powers that be will reconsider this decision, but so far we are being ignored. To the folks here on the Forums: Is this a big deal? Only to me? Or, is it "stuff happens" and we just move on. Please let me know. Thanks! Your crown and spirit banners in your signature are not linking properly either btw... Sorry to hear about your dilemma...I've used a paid service since 2009 for all my posted photos on here and other places...I've never really trusted free services much and dropbox pulled some shenanigans on me a couple years ago with photos on my phone...so I dumped using them altogether and had to transfer the photos to my paid service...there are free services out there but many times you are prisoner to their whims with not much recourse either if they change the rules... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrownBariDad Posted December 21, 2016 Author Share Posted December 21, 2016 (edited) Your crown and spirit banners in your signature are not linking properly either btw... Sorry to hear about your dilemma...I've used a paid service since 2009 for all my posted photos on here and other places...I've never really trusted free services much and dropbox pulled some shenanigans on me a couple years ago with photos on my phone...so I dumped using them altogether and had to transfer the photos to my paid service...there are free services out there but many times you are prisoner to their whims with not much recourse either if they change the rules... The missing signature banners are the result of the service that hosted them (for most of us) going away. As for Dropbox, I've been paying for the service (which I use in my software job) which makes it all the more frustrating. Other services: I have concerns about bandwidth -- see my remark on the original post. When I post pics for a popular show and there are hundreds of DCPers viewing the thread and quoting the pic, the hits on the site hosting the pic can be huge. Which is why DCP is probably wise for not allowing images to be uploaded to their servers. Edited December 21, 2016 by CrownBariDad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corpsband Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 The missing signature banners are the result of the service that hosted them (for most of us) going away. As for Dropbox, I've been paying for the service (which I use in my software job) which makes it all the more frustrating. Other services: I have concerns about bandwidth -- see my remark on the original post. When I post pics for a popular show and there are hundreds of DCPers viewing the thread and quoting the pic, the hits on the site hosting the pic can be huge. Which is why DCP is probably wise for not allowing images to be uploaded to their servers. a 2nd recommendation for imgur. i switched from picasa (google) to imgur for all my DCP pix. easy uploads with their app. easy posting on DCP (supports BBCode links) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrownBariDad Posted December 22, 2016 Author Share Posted December 22, 2016 a 2nd recommendation for imgur. i switched from picasa (google) to imgur for all my DCP pix. easy uploads with their app. easy posting on DCP (supports BBCode links) If I'm going to move off Dropbox, I'll need LARGE file sharing capabilities for my day job, not just images. I'm not a fan of Imgur -- they seem more social than professional. And I'm not seeing much on limits and restrictions. The problem isn't moving forward as much as preserving the past. I'm hoping to find a way to keep all those pics accessible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corpsband Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 If I'm going to move off Dropbox, I'll need LARGE file sharing capabilities for my day job, not just images. I'm not a fan of Imgur -- they seem more social than professional. And I'm not seeing much on limits and restrictions. The problem isn't moving forward as much as preserving the past. I'm hoping to find a way to keep all those pics accessible. you don't need to move off dropbox for other needs. it's just not the appropriate tool for hosting images for an online forum (which is after all social medium). i have never seen imgur impose limits or restrictions on it's hosted images. you can supply imgur the dropbox URL and it will host that image. i find it works great for DCP or other social stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liahona Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 The missing signature banners are the result of the service that hosted them (for most of us) going away. As for Dropbox, I've been paying for the service (which I use in my software job) which makes it all the more frustrating. Other services: I have concerns about bandwidth -- see my remark on the original post. When I post pics for a popular show and there are hundreds of DCPers viewing the thread and quoting the pic, the hits on the site hosting the pic can be huge. Which is why DCP is probably wise for not allowing images to be uploaded to their servers. That stinks that you are a paid client and they are doing that to you. I have about 190 terabytes of bandwidth on my service right now...but I have a small group of friends that use my space and I'm the only one who posts images public and I usually only do that on here... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrownBariDad Posted December 23, 2016 Author Share Posted December 23, 2016 I'm working with a customer service rep at Dropbox and while she's being very helpful, I'm not hearing good news on this issue. I'll keep you posted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrownBariDad Posted December 23, 2016 Author Share Posted December 23, 2016 you can supply imgur the dropbox URL and it will host that image. Now that part has me confused. I usually upload the file to Dropbox, get the public link to the file, and then use the DCP forum editor to wrap the link in the picture HTML. I would have assumed I would do the same with imgur -- upload the file to their servers, get a link, and post the embedded link here on DCP. And from what I'm hearing from Dropbox, they won't provide direct URLs to files anymore. It sounds like they give you a URL to go to a page where you can download the file, which wouldn't work in DCP posts. All their "marketing" spins this as "we've found better ways to share files and you need to start using them." But, they never actually come out and say why they are removing the old ways of sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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