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No answer to question

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gailb
 
Posts: 37

No answer to question

Post Mon May 18, 2020 1:39 pm


I emailed pbase an important question on Mar 1. I received a reply and they said they would get back to me with details. But they have not.

I waited patiently then emailed the same request two more times. I only get an automated reply; no answer.

Is everything all right?

gailb
 
Posts: 37

Re: No answer to question

Post Tue May 19, 2020 5:51 pm


I want to close my account and was told months ago by one of the owners (via email) that they were developing something to zip and download all images in my account; and that it would be done before my account ran out (currently one month left) and that they would get back to me. I've been a pbase member since Feb-2004 and no longer need the service.

"We are working on being able to make a .zip file of all your photos that you can download. It will be ready to use before your account expires. "

As mentioned, I never heard from them!!

Any suggestions?

Thank you.

dw_thomas
 
Posts: 481

Re: No answer to question

Post Wed May 20, 2020 4:16 pm


(accidental duplicate ...)
Last edited by dw_thomas on Wed May 20, 2020 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

dw_thomas
 
Posts: 481

Re: No answer to question

Post Wed May 20, 2020 4:19 pm


Hmmm - do you not have your own copies of the files you have up? From what I've seen over the last decade or two, not just with PBase, it is risky to assume these gallery display sites can be relied on as archival storage. A number of them have just disappeared with no or very little notice.

It would be an exercise to try ones patience, but assuming I was working from my Windows desktop, I would first set up an empty directory tree to match my PBase gallery directory tree. Then I would arrange two onscreen windows, one of my browser and one of the file directory. I would then select one of my PBase galleries, select an image, and set the size to 'Original'. As far as I know, once done, all further image views would then show up at original size. I would then systematically walk through the online and local directory trees and transfer the image file to my computer by left clicking on the PBase image and dragging it to the equivalent location on my desktop directory tree. (I know this works in Windows; I would guess, but with no first hand experience, there is an Apple equivalent.)

By working from the original size, you would get the highest resolution available, and also the filename will include the original name you supplied, albeit prefixed by some cryptic PBase indexing. So while not a trivial exercise, it is a way to get there.

Long ago (probably after some major PBase crash), I started maintaining such a directory on my local system and then uploading from that to my PBase galleries so that I could restore more or less from scratch if I had to, or upload it to some other gallery site. I later began a series of HTML files on my system that displays the images as thumbnails in the same general presentation as my PBase galleries, and including my caption info in HTML comments for each image. Yes that is tedious, but I could -- in theory -- reconstruct just about everything I have on PBase.

Every now and again the management here surfaces and acknowledges their existence, but in general absentee management appears to be the rule. Occasionally something new happens, the last performance upgrade was mind bogglingly faster. But I would be wary of placing much hope on any explicit new feature happening on any sort of schedule. Over the past half dozen years there have been some script packages more or less user created to download stuff, but there were constant problems with them breaking because of various internal changes in the PBase site. Having proactively maintained my backups, I fear I have not paid much attention to whether anything like that still exists (or works!) I would think supplying an app to potentially facilitate users moving their stuff away from PBase would be far down their priority list.

Perhaps someone else will show up here with more info.

gailb
 
Posts: 37

Re: No answer to question

Post Fri May 22, 2020 2:06 am


Thank you, dw_thomas, for your reply, and for the helpful suggestions. I do have most of my photos backed up on my computer and external drive. However, not every one. I am not optimistic that I'll get the promised software to download my images. Very disappointing.

gailb
 
Posts: 37

Re: No answer to question

Post Sat May 23, 2020 1:25 pm


I'm really ticked off that I've received no response from pbase after being told I would receive one...even if told that a download program hasn't been developed.

My account expires in less than a month; guess I'm going to have to renew it one more time because I don't know what will happen with my photos if I don't. That will give me time to double-check my images.


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