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Broken images on forum posts

Alsty

Alsty

TS Member
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Shambhala
Not sure if this is something that can be fixed or not, but when browsing old posts it's not uncommon to find broken images.

Example post. In this case it's not even two weeks old yet the image is broken. It takes away some of the context when catching up on older content.

I noticed there's a proxy for all images. It would be great if it could keep a copy of all the linked images so this doesn't happen if the original image gets removed (which I assume is what's happening).
 
What do you mean by a proxy? Do you mean that all images seem to get removed after a certain amount of time?

If so, I’ve noticed that too. Even on my own Planet Coaster posts & trip reports, where I set the images to not autodelete on imgBB, I notice that they often disappear after a certain amount of time.
 
Unfortunate it is down to the location of the photo hosting site or link. There is nothing that this forum can do.

If the photo gets deleted or using someone else's photo, then the link can get blocked. I know that linking images from Facebook can get timed out.

Best to upload a photo to Imgur or Flikr. So far, I don't seem to have any issue with these sites, despite being registered with them for a good few years and I've photos linked from them for a good few years now without any problems.

A few years back, we had that issue with photo bucket holding its customers to ransom when they blocked all photo links unless you paid a subscription.
 
I'm not sure if the intention of the proxy is to hold a copy of the image? That would avoid the above problem. If it's meant to do that then it's not working properly.

I host my images on my own domain. I've noticed in the past one of my images was showing as broken even though it's still there, but I've rechecked that post and it's come back... so who knows. It sounds like similar things have happened to Matt.
 
Matt N said:
What do you mean by a proxy? Do you mean that all images seem to get removed after a certain amount of time?

If so, I’ve noticed that too. Even on my own Planet Coaster posts & trip reports, where I set the images to not autodelete on imgBB, I notice that they often disappear after a certain amount of time.
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For security reasons forums don't let browsers just fetch images from other sites, they instead get you to ask a special page on the forum to fetch it on your behalf..
 
That example you provided is from the Facebook CDN, I think they have begun to use more ephemeral URLs, in part to prevent hot linking and also to encourage you to embed Facebook post rather than a photo that it contains.

The proxy only seems to route, rather than retain, not sure if it's supposed to.
 
Yup, the proxy isn't intended to download the images permanently but to obtain them on the fly. There's a few issues at play causing the problem:
  • Facebook Image URLs have expired: A lot of embedded content is from Facebook, such as the example you provided. Unfortunately they've expired a huge number of those links (I've tried the original URLs in the example post and they're not accessible directly).
  • Image URLs have changed from http to https or are redirected: This particularly affects older Flickr, Imgur and Tumblr links. That's intended behaviour of the image proxy, it won't process redirects.
Obviously that's on top of the usual broken links that we have as well. The proxy can sometimes be a little bit temperamental (as you said a quick refresh normally sorts it) but on the whole it's working as intended. I'll try and run through and fix some of the http to https links but should be ok for the more recent posts :).
 
Sorry if this is the wrong thread but didn't think it was worth starting another one:
Sorry to bother anyone but I was trying to embed images earlier and I was unable to. I used the image hosting platform ibb.co and tried both BBCcode options (full linked and thumbnail linked) I also just tried the standard view link. Neither of which worked. Would the HTML version work. The images show in edit view but don't show anywhere else including during typing the post out. Have I done something wrong or should I use a different image hosting service?
I've never attempted to embed photo's on here so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but I'm just not sure what.
post it wouldn't work on: https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/tbc-sw9-speculation.4577/page-74#post-341142
 
JAperson said:
Sorry if this is the wrong thread but didn't think it was worth starting another one:
Sorry to bother anyone but I was trying to embed images earlier and I was unable to. I used the image hosting platform ibb.co and tried both BBCcode options (full linked and thumbnail linked) I also just tried the standard view link. Neither of which worked. Would the HTML version work. The images show in edit view but don't show anywhere else including during typing the post out. Have I done something wrong or should I use a different image hosting service?
I've never attempted to embed photo's on here so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but I'm just not sure what.
post it wouldn't work on: https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/tbc-sw9-speculation.4577/page-74#post-341142
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Try the picture icon and paste the image URL from imgBB (the link marked "Image URL" as opposed to either of the BBCode options) into the Image icon in the forum posting software.

That always works for me; hope it helps!
 
Matt N said:
Try the picture icon and paste the image URL from imgBB (the link marked "Image URL" as opposed to either of the BBCode options) into the Image icon in the forum posting software.

That always works for me; hope it helps!
Click to expand...
I am missing something here? I thought that's what I'd done in my edit section of my post. I feel rather silly not being able to figure this out.
 
How odd… I always thought there was a separate one right beside “Image Link” called “Image URL”. I’ll see if I can find it on one of my own images…
EDIT: For my own image, “Image URL” comes up directly beneath “Image link” under Direct Links; take this one for instance:
F3-B6-EEBB-2-A8-F-44-F1-AA67-E527881-A6-E99.png

Maybe try clicking the photo you want to upload directly from your account page?

EDIT 2: Odd… it appears fine for me in the writing page, but doesn’t appear within my actual post.
 
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JAperson said:
Yes it was like that for me in the edit panel but it won't show up on the main forum page.
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How bizarre… maybe it’s something to do with this forum, as I seem to have no problem doing it that way over on CoasterForce?

I don’t really know; I’m just spitballing here, really, as I’m unsure why it shows when you’re writing your post (and when you go back to edit it), but it doesn’t display in your actual public post… come to think of it, I have sometimes found that when using imgBB on here for trip reports and Planet Coaster parks…
 
Matt N said:
How bizarre… maybe it’s something to do with this forum, as I seem to have no problem doing it that way over on CoasterForce?

I don’t really know; I’m just spitballing here, really, as I’m unsure why it shows when you’re writing your post (and when you go back to edit it), but it doesn’t display in your actual public post… come to think of it, I have sometimes found that when using imgBB on here for trip reports and Planet Coaster parks…
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Yes it seems to work on your trip reports and such like @Matt N thanks for trying I'll do some more research and see what I find.
 
No need to do any research, it’s the image proxy refusing to pull the images from imgbb. I’ll take a proper look tomorrow when I have some spare time :)
 
Any idea why my image isn't loading on this Brexit post?

I can see it when I edit the post but it doesn't display otherwise. It's 15kb so I can't see any reason why it wouldn't load?
 
Alsty said:
Any idea why my image isn't loading on this Brexit post?

I can see it when I edit the post but it doesn't display otherwise. It's 15kb so I can't see any reason why it wouldn't load?
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Not sure why it happens but it sometimes throws a hissy fit. I'd suggest keep trying and it should eventually work hopefully. :)
 
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