Imgur images suddenly became invalid?

[Edwardard]

Time to move from imgur to other sites.

Ironically, I hardly used imgur to upload my images and post it in forum(s). If somebody is interested, I would recommend to use this site instead: https://img.doerig.dev/
Its simple, plain, easy to use with no ads or whatsoever. Using it since 8months. The website gives you an imgur link for img posting after you upload the images on it though.

[1714229941]

1714229941

[1714229941]

1714229941

[1714229941]

1714229941

[Husires]

The problem is not in the new images that will be hosted, but in the old images, reading old threads becomes impossible and a lot of information will be lost due to these restrictions.
Is there any solution for old hosted images?

Im using ShareX so it is easy to move to any other hosting service with a simple edit.

[LoyceV]

I am going to stop using them and switch to some better image hosting.

I learned that lesson years ago, when Tinypic stopped their service.

The changes are going to take effect this Month on the 15th. That's just 3 days away, so I believe they started blocking proxies?

So that leaves just 3 days to download all broken images, or lose them forever.

I think Theymos has to think about the forum being able to self-host images if it's possible, away from using third party image hosting sites that keep changing their terms of service every day

That opens up the possibility of copyright claims, and I don't think theymos wants to deal with that.

Based on my archived posts, I'm compiling a list of all images on imgur. Let's see if I can download them all.

I think that what it is is that imgur added a new very restrictive per-IP limit on image downloads. So all ip.bitcointalk.org requests are blocked, but even many Tor exit nodes are being blocked, for example.

Challenge accepted!

[lovesmayfamilis]

The errors of this service do appear regularly on the forum. I found a couple of threads with the same problem.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5242734.msg54278788#msg54278788
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5289234.msg55590719#msg55590719

But people continue to use it, and in the same way, they lose their images from time to time.
The forum has excellent service that is much faster and more convenient; in addition to that, you can use it. https://imgbb.com/
I've been using it for a long time, and fortunately, there were no problems.

[robelneo]

I've been using IMgur for a long time, it's unfortunate that we can't use it anymore here in Bitcointalk
One of the alternatives that I can think of and a good one is

Postimages

Some Frequently Asked Questions

How many images can I upload simultaneously?
Users are currently restricted to max 1000 images per batch. If you need more than that, you can create an account and upload several batches of images into the same gallery.

How many images can I upload in general?
As many as you like! We do not impose strict limits on our users (except restrictions mentioned in our Terms of Service). Some users store and share tens of thousands of images, and we are cool with that. However, disk space and bandwidth are not cheap, so if you use REALLY much of either, and your usage pattern does not allow us to recover our costs (e.g. you do not publish your images embedded into links leading back to our site, thus stripping us of any potential advertising income from them), we reserve the right to contact you and discuss possible ways to satisfy your needs while allowing our project to make ends meet.

How long will images remain on the server?
You can upload unlimited images per post and you will never have to worry about your images being removed due to inactivity.

[aysg76]

Previously I think this issue was with imgbb hosting site and there were lot of threads regarding it at that time also.The images hosted with them were showing proxy invalid image tag above the image and now this is with imgur.Later on I shifted to https://postimages.org/ and it gave comfort and ease of copying the BBcode on the forum without any issues.

But as @TryNinja has suggested above the new image hosting site by @joker_jouse seems really a good alternative for forum users so you can try it and we should encourage members who are really doing something good for the forum.

[Shamm]

is it just me or posted images that were uploaded on Imgur, copied the BBcode in order to post here suddenly became "invalid"? this might be a dumb question, but anyone has any idea what was the reason for it?

sorry if the thread is unnecessary.

This is a good thread as well because we all know many forum members here in our community. Didn't Know yet wants happening to Imgur. Why this issues happen and if we are posting and image it's appear that proxy invalid image which there's something wrong about that. Anyway there are still have many options to post images here in bitcoin talk and one of that is in this thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5450546.0
We can follow the guidelines and start using this site.

[UmerIdrees]

I just saw my post history and was saddened to see that almost all of the images have disappeared. I know many people will not think it is a problem but there are many threads (even I have started some threads), where the main thread contains an image. Now all of sudden those threads look a bit outdated.  
Just check some signature campaigns, bounty and ANN threads which have images in place, now showing NO IMAGE

Ironically, I hardly used imgur to upload my images and post it in forum(s). If somebody is interested, I would recommend to use this site instead: https://img.doerig.dev/
Its simple, plain, easy to use with no ads or whatsoever. Using it since 8months. The website gives you an imgur link for img posting after you upload the images on it though.

I checked this site but it gives you a simple link after the upload. It does not give you an embedded link to be posted in the forums, or maybe I am missing anything ?

[joker_josue]

This was the main reason for creating the TalkImg service - to stop images broken by third-party services.

I thank everyone who has recommended this service, and I hope it is useful for everyone. And the start of a service for the future of images on the forum.

[uneng]

The changes are going to take effect this Month on the 15th. That's just 3 days away, so I believe they started blocking proxies?

So that leaves just 3 days to download all broken images, or lose them forever.

Wow, I was taken by surprise this time. Thankfully I have been checking my threads today and noticed all the images have disappeared within 3 days left to recover everything important (at least the main images). If I didn't, I would have lost track of all my data regards Freebitco.in - FUN Token Investment Experiment. Almost one year of informations on the garbage.

Sadly many secondary images on other posts will be lost forever... But I can't go on each of them recovering the images manually.

[LoyceV]

Sadly many secondary images on other posts will be lost forever... But I can't go on each of them recovering the images manually.

Allow me to quote myself here:

It would be really cool if someone could write a program to move all of the imgur images to talkimg instead.  I guess that would require superuser access to the board though.

I'm currently downloading about 800,000 images from imgur, using 3 4 servers (and 1 second delay between requests). According to logfiles, I have 3 days, which won't be enough. If I get a substantial number of pictures, and if joker_josue wants to deal with ~200GB, I'll ask if theymos can update all imgur-links to talkimg.com. It would be nice if the forum doesn't lose that many images.

Server #4 is downloading without a delay in between requests, and is currently downloading 9400 images per hour. I only have unedited imgur-links, and some are messed up (for now), but at this rate, I'll manage to preserve most images before they're deleted forever.
Restoring the images is beyond my powers, but at least it won't be gone.

[imamusma]

This was the main reason for creating the TalkImg service - to stop images broken by third-party services.

I thank everyone who has recommended this service, and I hope it is useful for everyone. And the start of a service for the future of images on the forum.

I'll probably consider your image hosting service and hope it's one that gets a lot of attention once the other services come out. Some images need to be retained by the poster, so when it disappears suddenly or perhaps when the user is not aware of the announcement, then they will lose a lot of track about the image.

dansus021 has spread the word about this service to our local users, so I hope it will get a lot of attention when other services stop their services.

TalkImg.com - Hosting gambar untuk forum BitcoinTalk

[notblox1]

I learned that lesson years ago, when Tinypic stopped their service.

What service are you using now for uploading and what do you suggest for other bitcointalk members?
I need something that dont need creating accounts and it should have the option to resize images easy when they are large, I remember one ex moderator didnt like my posts and he kept resizing all my images to minimum visibility.

[joker_josue]

Sadly many secondary images on other posts will be lost forever... But I can't go on each of them recovering the images manually.

Allow me to quote myself here:

It would be really cool if someone could write a program to move all of the imgur images to talkimg instead.  I guess that would require superuser access to the board though.

I'm currently downloading about 800,000 images from imgur, using 3 4 servers (and 1 second delay between requests). According to logfiles, I have 3 days, which won't be enough. If I get a substantial number of pictures, and if joker_josue wants to deal with ~200GB, I'll ask if theymos can update all imgur-links to talkimg.com. It would be nice if the forum doesn't lose that many images.

Server #4 is downloading without a delay in between requests, and is currently downloading 9400 images per hour. I only have unedited imgur-links, and some are messed up (for now), but at this rate, I'll manage to preserve most images before they're deleted forever.
Restoring the images is beyond my powers, but at least it won't be gone.

As I commented in another topic, so from one day to another 200GB can be more complicated, but not impossible. Complicated, because my plan was not to increase overnight, but progressively.

I might even be willing to deal with that, depending on how the images are organized, and how they are linked in the forum. Sometimes the way the link is presented can make it difficult to replicate the same path on another server.

Either way, it will be a subject to analyze. When you have all the information gathered it will be easier to analyze.

But to move forward with this, oh yes, I'm really going to have some support from the community in order to make a sudden increase in resources, which, as you can understand, was not in the initial plan. Now, I am available for us to follow this path.

[fillippone]

I am really disappointed by this.
I have been an Imgur user since its inception, and basically, every image I upload on this forum are imgur based.

Having all the images deleted in three days means a lot of posts, or even whole threads, will become unintelligible.
This will cause damage to the forum as a whole, I am afraid.

I am pleased about @joker_josue's effort to provide a reliable alternative, and I am already using it, but I hardly see how we can recover the past pictures.

I have been trying to lure new users to the forum, and I even made some of them go past the very dated look and feel, but I guess having so many broken links would disrupt the browsing experience even more.
 

[UmerIdrees]

Sadly many secondary images on other posts will be lost forever... But I can't go on each of them recovering the images manually.

Allow me to quote myself here:

It would be really cool if someone could write a program to move all of the imgur images to talkimg instead.  I guess that would require superuser access to the board though.

I'm currently downloading about 800,000 images from imgur, using 3 4 servers (and 1 second delay between requests). According to logfiles, I have 3 days, which won't be enough. If I get a substantial number of pictures, and if joker_josue wants to deal with ~200GB, I'll ask if theymos can update all imgur-links to talkimg.com. It would be nice if the forum doesn't lose that many images.

Server #4 is downloading without a delay in between requests, and is currently downloading 9400 images per hour. I only have unedited imgur-links, and some are messed up (for now), but at this rate, I'll manage to preserve most images before they're deleted forever.
Restoring the images is beyond my powers, but at least it won't be gone.

I really appreciate the efforts and concern shown by you on this matter. Maybe since you are most techy among most of us, only you can come up with such a good innovation.

Anyways I have a couple of questions in this regard

1- When you will upload all or most the the images and they are uploaded on any other site (talkimg in this case), the links for all the images will be changed, so how will they be replaced on the forum ? Will you make a database too that this was old imgur link and this is new talkimg link that needs to be replaced on the forum ? Also the image links are also embedded in quoted posts too.

2- If the automated image replacing process does not work, when you have downloaded thousand of images, how will we identify that this is that particular image unless we open every image and see what it contains  

[Asuspawer09]

Getting the same issue, It's really a problem since almost all of my bb codes are uploaded on Imgur upon checking my post it's all getting the error which is disappointing.

I'm starting to find a new alternative but I don't think I can recover most of my posts, because it's still on my Imgur account but still an error, I might reupload some to other alternatives but it's going to be a lot of work.

even uploading new photos doesnt work anymore...

[joker_josue]

1- When you will upload all or most the the images and they are uploaded on any other site (talkimg in this case), the links for all the images will be changed, so how will they be replaced on the forum ? Will you make a database too that this was old imgur link and this is new talkimg link that needs to be replaced on the forum ? Also the image links are also embedded in quoted posts too.

2- If the automated image replacing process does not work, when you have downloaded thousand of images, how will we identify that this is that particular image unless we open every image and see what it contains  

Everything will depend on how the images were organized and how the links were generated. However, it may be possible to change the image link via DB, but this is only possible with some parameters that the original links had.

In turn, it can never be guaranteed that all images will work as they were. There are so many variables at play that we have to do a complete analysis to see what is and is not viable.

[Patrol69]

I myself faced this problem several times and I tried many times and also with different net connections but every time I saw the connection fail then an idea came to my mind when I try with VPN on I succeeded in linking the photo from Imgur.  If you are facing this problem then you can connect any VPN and try from a different Regions, hope your problem can be solved.

[LoyceV]

What service are you using now for uploading

I use my own domain name for hosting: loyce.club/other/.

and what do you suggest for other bitcointalk members?

TalkImg.com - Image hosting for BitcoinTalk

I need something that dont need creating accounts and it should have the option to resize images easy when they are large, I remember one ex moderator didnt like my posts and he kept resizing all my images to minimum visibility.

It can't resize images (yet), but you can always adjust the height and width tags.

1- When you will upload all or most the the images and they are uploaded on any other site (talkimg in this case), the links for all the images will be changed, so how will they be replaced on the forum ? Will you make a database too that this was old imgur link and this is new talkimg link that needs to be replaced on the forum ? Also the image links are also embedded in quoted posts too.

I can't do any of this, but I'm hoping Admin will jump in once we have an image mirror sorted.

2- If the automated image replacing process does not work, when you have downloaded thousand of images, how will we identify that this is that particular image unless we open every image and see what it contains  

If changing the links on the forum doesn't work out, at least I'll have the images. You could find them back from the file name in the post. But I doubt even 1% of the images will be updated manually, which still leaves about a million dead links.