[dovedescending]

Everytime I look through a picture thread, Photobucket pics are no longer available...

[earlthegoat2]

If the user has deleted the pictures from their photobucket account, as is usual after any arbitrary amount of time, then they will be dead links after that. Check the age of the post and I will bet it is more than a week old.

It works the same way for all remote photo providers like cupid, snapfish, etc.

[WardenWolf]

Pretty much. Photobucket stores pics forever unless the user deletes them or lets their account go inactive.

[ChaoSS]

Photobucket mods have itchy delete fingers.

Use one of the numerous other sites, it's easier on the people who end up viewing the pictures later, or in the case of photobucket, want to view the images later.

[Calibre44]

Even If you move an exisiting pic to another folder in Photobucket the link will break.

[MrBorland]

Since the link you post to your pic is linked to a precise location, the pics also become "no longer available" if you simply organize your pics to different folders within your photobucket account.

For example, say you initially open a photobucket account, add a pic of your favorite gun, then post it. Fine. You go on and upload a bunch of pics over time, maybe even post some of them and all is still ok.

Then one day, you notice all your gun pics, your vacation pics, your car pics are all together on your disorganized photobucket page, so you make separate "gun" "vacation" and "car" folders, and put your pics in there. Any pics you previously posted are now "no longer available" to anyone viewing your THR thread.


edit:Caribre44 beat me to it.

[ny32182]

I've been using photobucket forever and I've never had a picture deleted by anyone other than me...

If the link is broken, one of two things happened:

1) The user exceeded their monthly bandwidth allowance (tough to do unless you are hosting pictures on CNN.com or something)... and the photobucket supplied thumbnail will explicitly state this.

2) The user deleted (or otherwise moved) it.

My only gripe with photobucket is that their advertizing has gotten steadily more invasively irritating over the years... that combined with the newer interface changes make it generally a bigger PITA to use than it used to be.

[W.E.G.]

Don't worry about it.

Wait three hours, and somebody will start the same exact thread all over again, and people will post new pics, and a whole bunch of the old pics.

If you want to save the thread immediately after you read it, you should save it to your hard drive.
If you don't know how to do that, you need to learn.

[jmorris]

As above you must place the pics where you want them before you link to them and never move them.