New Photobucket policy is blocking some TVT images

[llamavan]

Photobucket has, without warning, blocked "3rd party hosted images" (meaning anything posted on Photobucket and then displayed on forums such as this, and other sites including ebay and craigslist) and demands an account upgrade to $399.99/year to restore said photos. Needless to say, I am not about to pay that kind of money for photo hosting, and I doubt many (if any) members here will find that to be an acceptable price point for their own purposes, either.

Not all photos are blocked yet, apparently — I'm guessing that only the most-viewed images have gotten on their radar.

Tim and I (especially Tim, who has a TON of photos and posts here) are going to have a massive job ahead of us. I've already fixed some of my most photo-intensive posts, but locating the threads and posts with single photos is next to impossible. So ... please help us out with the repair effort!

(1) If you find a thread with blocked photos, please reply to THIS thread and post a link to the thread (or post) with the blocked photo(s).

(2) If you currently have photos posted here on TVT that are hosted on Photobucket, please-please-please re-host elsewhere and edit your posts to use the new links as soon as you are able to do so.

For now, I have started a free account on Postimage (which is specifically intended for hosting forum images) and other than having to limit uploads to only 3-4 images at a time to avoid have some get skipped, it is working great, the interface is super-easy and (everyone should love this) there are photo rotation tools built right in. However, if anyone else has experience with other photo hosting sites (with positive or negative recommendations), comments are definitely welcome. This will be the fourth time I've had to move externally-hosted photos, and I'd REALLY rather not move them again!!!

Thanks in advance to everyone for your help and patience!!!

Gwen

[bikerjosh]

Thanks for the heads up. I have photo bucket hosted images on most forums I belong to. I'll sign up for an imagehost or like account this week for past and future posts. -Josh down w/photbucket bye

[timsrv]

I've had a paid unlimited pro account with photobucket since 2005. My subscription is set up for auto renewal with a PayPal auto-pay each Sept. So far my pics (at least the ones I checked) are still displaying, but who knows what will happen in Sept. I'm hoping I'll be grandfathered in, but who knows.

If they cancel my account and take down my pics, there's really nothing I can do about it as I do not have the time to set up a new account somewhere else and transfer over. I might consider paying the $400 for 1 or 2 years, but since this site is paid for by Gwen & I, it will be very hard to justify that long term (the few donations we receive aren't even close to being enough for that). I literally have thousands of pics hosted there that display on this forum. Due to a hard-drive failure I had in 2011, everything I posted on photobucket prior to that are my sole copies (they'll be lost forever).

Most of the more comprehensive threads I've posted and my blogs will be almost worthless without the pics, but unfortunately with business at record levels I cannot take the time to deal with this. Tim

[bikerjosh]

Not to have a group of angry townfolk show up on my internet door step w/torches, but maybe this site needs to become a pay or subscription site to defray the cost of photobucket and related internet site costs? A site I frequent for AE95 alltrac info made this the case a while ago, and I just consider this a cost of our hobbies. I have seen other sites use a specific link to get to shopping sites like amazon, that doesn't increase costs for buyer, but kicks down a fee (probably only a fraction of a %) to the site. I order tons of stuff from that site, diapers, oil, power tools, etc, and have used other links to get to their site so someone else will benefit from my expenditures.

Not trying to step on any toes, and I haven't been a member here that long but I see the value in preserving the knowledge base here.
Josh

[AD2101]

Well this has the potential to be catastrophic for this site and sites like it, I know photobucket is a business and needs to make money but $400 is an almost comical amount to expect from its users.

I've always used imgur for the photos I haven't directly loaded onto the site, it's been good for the occasional photo or two but haven't used it on the kind of scale required to know if it'd be a viable replacement but I'm assuming it wouldn't be.

What would be awesome would be to set up a home server or go with someone like dreamhost and host the images ourselves, which would be a lot cheaper and would likely be permanent so we wouldn't have to mess with this again. It's been about 10 years now (so a lifetime in internet years) but this was the route I went when I ran my last website. I grew tired of all the broken links and having my photos scattered all over the internet so I just hosted all of them. It worked well, but I was only getting maybe a couple of thousand hits a month, so there wasn't much that could go wrong.

I'd be curious to know what the forum's traffic statistics look like (hits, unique visitors, bandwidth, etc) to see how plausible the latter option is. If this is a route you guys decide on taking, I'd offer to help in whatever way I could.

EDIT: I do hope that this site can find a way to remain free, and I honestly think the forums would die down to just a few members if we started charging for the information listed here. True, for some people these vans are a hobby but for a lot of us, these vans are what we can afford and putting the information behind a paywall would just add insult to injury. It would fragment the community and I'd go so far as to say it would lead to more of these vans getting junked for relatively simple reasons because the information that could have been used to fix the vehicle was tied to a subscription fee.

[Carbonized]

Don't even get me started!It's not making money anymore I call it gouging. From hosting to holding you hostage . Key word in Gwen' s post: "Without warning" Typical Bigcorp sh... Its happening all over the web. All those poor sobs doing business on the "Cloud" just wait...

bikerjosh,(no burning torches here ) subscriptions, advertising banners, whatever source of revenue, they all require something that Tim does not have a lot to spare: Time. And the little he has to spare he spend it answering our "brain picking" not managing "accounts". I've got to respect that!

[spacecruisers]

I've always used imgur and created albums for the corresponding TVT thread. very happy with imgur as it seems to have longevity - and its free! they give you BBcode for easily linking your images when creating a new forum post/thread

[Stenly_IP]

Do you still have the images? I dont know why but I cant load them. I you have them can you send them to my email? tore@seznam.cz Thanks

I will demonstrate dash disassembly on a 93 Previa. I know from experience that 91 - 93 Previas are the same, but unsure of anything newer as I've not worked on one yet. I suspect 94 & up are the same in these areas.....or at least very similar, but I don't know this for sure. If anyone reading this knows of anything different, please let me know by posting here in this thread. Okay, here's the procedure for 91 - 93 Previa dash disassembly:

Using a small screw driver, pry out one of the hinges to the change tray, then open it and it will come off.



Remove the ash tray.



Pull the wires from the lighter assy, then remove the black plastic cover piece.



A 90 deg scribe works well to release the plastic hooks.



Push the metal part of the assy out from behind.



Use your scribe to release the plastic hooks, then remove the white plastic part.






The plastic garnish will pull off now. Do not twist or change angles. Grab it firmly and pull straight toward you.



Remove these 4 screws, then the drink tray and frame assy will come out. It's a tight fit, but play around trying different angles and it will come out when you find the right ones.



Take out these 2 screws.



Find the hidden latch, and remove the top center dash / fuse box cover.



Remove these 2 screws.



Remove the radio and fascia assembly.



Okay, now that you got the radio out, the rest is pretty easy. Next comes the instrument panel hood. There's only 2 screws holding it on and 5 "push in / pull-out" style fasteners. Take out the screws:



After the screws are out, the only thing holding it are the 5 push-in / pull-out type fasteners. There are these 3 bumps on the hood



and they go into these 3 holes in the dash panel



The other 2 are here by the heater duct.



All you need to do (after you pull the 2 screws) is grab a hold of the hood and yank. It should pop right out. Just be careful to pull straight so you don't tweak the heat duct section. Sometimes you need to carefully loosen this area with a knife as to avoid damage while yanking out.



After you get the instrument hood off, if you need to go further, it shouldn't be a problem as all remaining fasteners are pretty obvious and easy to figure out. Tim

[timsrv]

They are displaying for me.......even your quote of my post they display. Perhaps try signing out and signing back in? Is anybody else having this issue?

[llamavan]

Odd. They are NOT displaying for me, quote or original.

Gwen

[timsrv]

Huh, that's weird, now they're not displaying for me either. I sure hope photobucket isn't holding out for more money again.

[originalkwyjibo]

Tim, some of your pics in another thread I was looking at yesterday evening weren't displaying either.

[timsrv]

Today I was able to sign into my photobucket account. I was immediately stopped by a warning saying I could not proceed until I disabled my ad blocker (prevents pop-up advertisement). I have a paid photobucker account and never had to deal with this before today (disappointing). So I disabled ad blocker and was able to view my folders. All the folders are still there, but the amount of pics listed in them have greatly diminished (I estimate approx 2,000 pics are missing). I then tried to click on a folder but instead of being able to view I got an endless "loading" icon. I left and came back multiple times and tried different folders only to find the same results with each attempt. The one thing that does work is their advertisement program. I was reminded I need to clear my cache because I now I feel spied upon. I'll check it again in a few days and keep you all updated as to what happens. Tim

[Carbonized]

I did a wickipedia search on photobucket, and boy, it's a wonder how this thing is still in business. Interesting read but be warned: pinch you nose before diving 'cause it stinks. Once owned by News Corp. Cannot shake the News Corp stench off, no matter how many Venture screw balls have owned it since.

[timsrv]

I just sent them the following message in an email:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~

Hi, I own & operate an internet forum that is reliant on photobucket to display my pictures properly. I have a paid account with you and have an ~ 2,000 pics that are not displaying on the forum. This has been going on since just before Christmas and my forum is a mess.

I have been following your twitter posts and have also received the letter from Ted explaining the situation. I have been very patient while my forum suffers. I still cannot properly sign into my photobucket account. Could you please look at my account/profile and give me some sort of assistance and/or an update on what is happening. I'd also like to make an announcement on my forum as pictures are a major draw and most of the threads are worthless without them. Thank you. Tim

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~

I sent this from the email address I have on file with them and I provided my account info. I received an auto-response that said dear "username" (so they know who I am) and it basically said they'd be contacting me shortly. I'll keep you posted as to what they say. Tim

[Andywear]

Awesome thanks!

[HI_Beach_Van]

Gwen,

Here is a thread that had photos when you clicked the links (just a few weeks ago) and now they are missing. I was interested in the link for reading multiple codes....

Thank you

https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/...gons-all-years

[timsrv]

Gwen,

Here is a thread that had photos when you clicked the links (just a few weeks ago) and now they are missing. I was interested in the link for reading multiple codes....

Thank you

https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/...gons-all-years

Hi Beach Van,

We recently had this discussion but it was improperly posted in the Previa Technical forum (it belongs here). For that reason I just moved those posts over to this thread. The forum automatically organizes posts based on the date/times they were made, so they will show before your most recent comment. Just scroll up to view. Tim

[llamavan]

Gwen,

Here is a thread that had photos when you clicked the links (just a few weeks ago) and now they are missing. I was interested in the link for reading multiple codes....

Thank you

https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/...gons-all-years

The pdfs are still there and download for me. They won't open as a window in your brower, and you do need Acrobat Reader installed to view the PDFs.

Gwen

[HI_Beach_Van]

The pdfs are still there and download for me. They won't open as a window in your brower, and you do need Acrobat Reader installed to view the PDFs.

Gwen

Thanks for the quick reply. The PDFs download fine, but the links that had pictures are not there...

• For an example of how the "check engine" light behaves when a van is throwing two codes, click here.

Thanks