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Direct linking to my pictures fails.

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kneale_brownson
 
Posts: 9

Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Mon Jul 16, 2018 6:14 pm


I've used pbase for years to host my photographs on the internet and link to them on other forums. Lately such linking fails and I have to copy my image URL on pbase, open it in another browser and then right click on the resulting image to "copy image address" in order to get a URL that WILL work in those forums. Why is this happening?

dw_thomas
 
Posts: 481

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:56 am


Someone else reported a similar problem back in April - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=48514.

(I assume links you set up long ago still work, it's just newly added ones that don't?)

What I saw in the previous case was that the links that failed to work appeared to have some temporary server location installed, producing a URL about two yards long and full of all sorts of gibberish. Presumably that URL can be invalid at any future time.

The "official" direct link format is:
http ://www.pbase.com/{user_name}/image/123456789/{size}.jpg

(I left a space after the http so it doesn't become a link.)

It appears the act of grabbing it from the browser (Firefox 61.0.1 here) receives the mysterious temporary address -- something like:
http ://a4.pbase.com/o9/93/463093/1/160394721.iI8gYHKp._DE0134_CopyStandParts.jpg
I would bet that becomes invalid as soon as you leave the page it came from.

Now it seems to me the official address used to show in the browser, so perhaps in spreading image files out into third party storage or something they have changed what shows there. If you open an edit on an image you wish to link (assuming drag and drop editor) there are three links above the edit format, the rightmost one for "direct link" which will display the proper URL to use. (It defaults the size to "medium" but you can just change that.)

So the short answer: yeah, something changed.

DaveT

kneale_brownson
 
Posts: 9

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Tue Jul 17, 2018 11:37 pm


No clue what a drag and drop editor is.

My old posts with pictures no longer work. Really disappoints me in pbase after years of it working fine.

dw_thomas
 
Posts: 481

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Wed Jul 18, 2018 5:11 am


kneale_brownson wrote:No clue what a drag and drop editor is.

My old posts with pictures no longer work. Really disappoints me in pbase after years of it working fine.


The PBase editing tool for adding photos, captions, etc. "Drag & Drop" is the more recent version of it. And I just checked, the old version of the editor also shows the direct link address, without having to click a link.

The reason I asked if old links work is that if you perchance disabled direct linking in your account options that would presumably shut off external access. I have some direct linked images on PBase pulled into my website and I've seen no change in behavior there. There is a check box in the 'Account settings' 'Options' to enable direct linking. I believe your account has to be paid up also. (Just mentioning that in case you've run out of credits.)

Did you truly insert a link manually into the other posts that needs to be clicked? If so, cursoring over the link with most browsers (I think) will display the link's URL. If that's not the standard format I illustrated previously, that's the problem. If they were installed as an image, I'm not sure how you could check other than doing a "view source." In posts where they're missing does some substitute show -- like maybe an empty box with a red X in it or the like?

I guess I also wonder if all of the no longer working posts are in the same web space -- forum -- or whatever, as opposed to a bunch of different websites. If so, maybe they changed something to prohibit direct links from that end. All this webbery stuff seems to be a moving target.

Oh -- by the way --- I don't work for PBase --- am just trying to help when/if I can.

Sorry to not have some super confident fix at hand!
DaveT

kneale_brownson
 
Posts: 9

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Wed Jul 18, 2018 1:17 pm


linking was allowed in my settings when I checked today. My failed links all were made by opening an image in pbase, copying the URL there, posting it either by use of an image link box or by the formula <img src="URL. jpg ">

Do the pbase owners/operators check these messages? Do they input information that might be helpful? The people who operate the forums where I've experienced link failures CLAIM there's no change on their end.

dw_thomas
 
Posts: 481

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Wed Jul 18, 2018 7:39 pm


kneale_brownson wrote:linking was allowed in my settings when I checked today. My failed links all were made by opening an image in pbase, copying the URL there, posting it either by use of an image link box or by the formula <img src="URL. jpg ">

Do the pbase owners/operators check these messages? Do they input information that might be helpful? The people who operate the forums where I've experienced link failures CLAIM there's no change on their end.

OK, that's good further input. What I believe has happened here on PBase somewhere along the way is that the URL seen in the browser when you are looking at the image was the simple generic format back when, but in the current implementation it is now a temporary address of some sort. The help screen on direct linking always showed the format I outlined in my first reply here, so I guess either PBase years back was more tolerant in mapping or the apparent URL in the browser was shown matched to that generic format.

It's admittedly tedious, but if you can go back to where the links are failing and edit the links, you can likely fix the problem. At the thread I previously linked to there is a post by hkcollect that shows what he did to edit the non-working links. It replaces a cryptic sub-domain name with www, then replaces a bunch of path gibberish with "image"; after that the jpg filename has a bunch of residual stuff and all you want is the initial string of numerical digits, that's the image number. Apparently just the .jpg on the end will work, but you can also place a slash and a size in there -- small, medium, large, or original.

Even more weirdly, I just went to collect an example or two and I swear it's working differently than yesterday, that is the URL I'm seeing in my browser looks generic! :shock: I honestly don't remember what I may have done to see the weird gibberish (except perusing the problem described in that other thread). AH! If I preview this post and use the links below, the actual URL shown in the browser with just the image against a plain background has all the crazy gibberish: https ://a4.pbase.com/o6/93/463093/1/92203768.qNkk1Bre.E0226_PerkeoII_Color_Skopar.jpg
(and I bet that won't work here: https://a4.pbase.com/o6/93/463093/1/922 ... Skopar.jpg )
Whoops -- well it just now did -- but will it tonight or tomorrow ... The point being that URL format is not specified and is likely temporary or otherwise not guaranteed to remain effective.
Perhaps if there has been a change in this stuff it's related to support for https protocol ...

Anyway right at this moment from my browser I get: http ://www.pbase.com/dw_thomas/image/92203768 for an image (that as shown should bring up the page with captions, etc.
http://www.pbase.com/dw_thomas/image/92203768

Adding a .jpg on that should get just the image http ://www.pbase.com/dw_thomas/image/92203768.jpg displayed at ? size.
http://www.pbase.com/dw_thomas/image/92203768.jpg

Adding a /{size}.jpg on the image number should get just the image http ://www.pbase.com/dw_thomas/image/92203768/small.jpg at the specified size.
http://www.pbase.com/dw_thomas/image/92203768/small.jpg

Attempting the image insertion with: http ://www.pbase.com/dw_thomas/image/92203768/medium.jpg
Image

As to PBase personnel, my understanding is these forums are considered as space for users. They may occasionally look at them but one should not assume they do. I have on rare occasion seen responses from staff, but down at the once or twice a year -- or less -- level.

kneale_brownson
 
Posts: 9

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Thu Jul 19, 2018 7:51 pm


My last posting of a picture had a non-image icon and this: http://www.pbase.com/kneale_brownson/im ... 798380.jpg Clicking on that goes to an image with this URL: https://a4.pbase.com/g10/11/37011/2/167 ... kHMePc.jpg



Thanks for your efforts. This has become way more effortful than I'm interested in doing. I think I'll have to seek a different way of going about hosting/posting my pictures, especially if pbase personnel are not interested in helping.

cits_4_pets
 
Posts: 1809
Location: Walnut Creek, CA

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Fri Jul 20, 2018 2:48 am


kneale_brownson wrote:My last posting of a picture had a non-image icon and this: http://www.pbase.com/kneale_brownson/im ... 798380.jpg Clicking on that goes to an image with this URL: https://a4.pbase.com/g10/11/37011/2/167798380.LnkHMePc.jpg


Your first address, http://pbase.com/image/167798380.jpg is the correct address & works but not the second one- think the addresses were reversed.

See below for how to edit the 2nd address by deleting many of the letters. I high lighted in the quote the letters in red that need to be deleted. You don't need the 's' after http.

The address with all the extra letters and numbers is the one you get when you are in the edit screen and clicking on "available sizes" on the left side.

This is a Broken link of one of my images that I have edited:
<img src="http://m3.i.pbase.com/g9/20/1081720/3/158011773.qJyahYCD.jpg"> this is the broken link.

THE FIX

I edit this by deleting many of the characters (in red) so that just pbase.com and image number.jpg are left

The LAST set of numbers before the letters.jpg, is the image #, remember to delete the numbers after that image number

delete the m3.i.
delete the series of letters/numbers in the slashes in this case /g9/20/1081720/3 - REPLACE that with 'image'
Corrected link: <img src="http://pbase.com/image/158011773.jpg">

Be sure that you have only one "." before jpeg and only on "/" between the image and number.
Flo
Cits 4 Pets where Happy Pets Go with the Flo
http://www.pbase.com/cits_4_pets/
My Firefox Tthemes/skins for your web browser)

dw_thomas
 
Posts: 481

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Fri Jul 20, 2018 2:57 pm


Oy vey -- it's PBase, what can I say! Right now (20 July 2018 10:14 EDT) both of the links in Kneale's post work -- as does the one I expected not to work in my previous post! :lol: Maybe there's some relationship to where in the world one is located (or sun spots!!!)

One other comment about all this: The one with the cryptic gibberish is in secure https protocol which might generate an added complexity when accessed from external sites -- dunno.

So I threw together a quick html file to access via some of those links so as not to be within PBase -- and they still worked!

EDIT:
I also just tried logging out of PBase and my test file still worked.

The official help screen on direct linking is here: http://www.pbase.com/help/direct_linking
Excerpt:
example: http://www.pbase.com/image/image number.jpg
example: http://www.pbase.com/image/image number/size.jpg

Note: to direct link to a .gif, use the .jpg extension also. It will still send the gif file.


Note that you don't need the user name that I showed in an earlier post (as of 11:03 today, either works :D ).
As shown in cits_4_pets' post, the "www" appears to be optional -- that's common with websites (and possibly filled in somewhere along the path).

Another note: The URL you place in the linking code may be internally massaged by the PBase end to translate to where they have hidden the image. As one example, you can upload a .GIF file or a .PNG file to your galleries. But to link to them, you still append ".jpg" to the URL; e.g, the PBase end does some magic. I still think what may be different (assuming something has changed) is perhaps the "translated" address now shows up where it may have once been the address initially requested.

Another question --- are your links still broken? It appears to me as I fumble around on this site that little changes have been creeping in (mayhaps there is still someone alive out there!) So perhaps things get temporarily broken during tinkering episodes. [Gad -- so unusual for me to be optimistic. :shock: ]

I used to design, code and test/troubleshoot embedded systems software, though I -- uh -- "suddenly retired" in 2002, but there is still a bit of that driven curiosity wired into my aging brain! 8)

DaveT

kneale_brownson
 
Posts: 9

Re: Direct linking to my pictures fails.

Post Thu Jul 26, 2018 1:20 pm


Old image links fail to provide an image, but if I cut out the URL from the longer formula and paste in a new window, it will open the picture.


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