Forum & Photos

Why on earth has this forum stopped displaying images hosted on Imgur lately? Does anyone actually have a clue what's causing this headache?

On Imgur.

Michelle Evans said:It's on Imgur.

Does anyone actually know the specific technical reason behind this, and has anyone even bothered to try reaching out to them yet?

I wonder if any of the moderators have reached out to them regarding the Imgur issue.
I see some people mentioning that removing the "i." from the URL fixes it, though they can't seem to find any official notice explaining why this is happening...

Michelle Evans said:I’m honestly not sure if any of the moderators who actually use Imgur have reached out to them yet.
I see people mentioning that they had to strip the "i." from the URL to get things working again, but nobody seems to have a clue why that’s necessary, nor have they found any official notice explaining this sudden mess.

Removing the "i." isn't doing anything for me.

I dug around and found this:

According to Imgur's TOS (imgur.com/tos), if someone else hotlinked pictures that violate TOS on this site before, Imgur will ban not just the pictures, but also the site itself in the future.

In my opinion, someone from the leadership at this forum needs to get in touch with Imgur immediately, assuming we actually believe this is a serious issue—which, frankly, I do.

I’ll send over what you wrote to the admin.
Thanks so much!

That’s actually an Imgur link. If you just go ahead and delete that first "i" along with the period right next to it, the link should start working perfectly fine for you.

The link actually works even if you open the image in a new tab and strip out the .jpg (or png, whatever it ends up being). But I guess these issues haven't just been happening on this forum lately.

Over on this forum, pretty much none of the other legitimate image hosts seem to work, not just Imgur. The thumbnails only ever pull through via Imagebam, and that's about it.

*I'm not even counting the absolute circus that is Photobucket or anything similar.

Perhaps it’s simply because we are still stuck running an ancient version of vBulletin. God forbid anyone actually invests a few hundred dollars into something modern, faster, and more secure.

It’s working on Imgur, you just have to hit F5, or basically refresh the page you've got open.

Stumbled onto this while hitting F5.

I mean, seriously, I have no clue why Imgur is acting up like this.

Has there been any actual progress made on resolving this issue yet?

Jerry Alvarez7 said:It’s probably because we’re still stuck running this ancient version of vBulletin. Heaven forbid anyone actually invests a few hundred bucks into something modern, faster, or even remotely secure.

Is that actually the case here? If the owners are refusing to upgrade simply because they're being cheap, they should just set up a donation fund. Honestly, I'd be willing to chip in myself. 👍

rustywalker42 said:Imgur is working fine; you just need to hit F5, or basically just refresh the link you currently have open.

I stumbled upon that fix by hitting F5.

But let's be real, that doesn't usually work.

vBulletin 3.8.4. originally dropped back in 2009, which makes it ancient by any modern standard.

Version 5 is already out there, and plenty of the high-traffic forums are making the jump over to the XenForo platform instead.

Imgur has blocked Reddit
When I reached out to ask why all the Imgur links were failing to load, this was the response I received:

Hi Noah Watson20,

Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately due to the adult content, this site has been restricted from hotlinking because of violations regarding Imgur's Terms of Service View on imgur. Our Terms of Service prohibit using Imgur as a dedicated content delivery network, hotlinking adult or illegal imagery, hosting torrents, providing image hosting for commercial ventures, or operating sites that essentially mimic Imgur’s own core features.

Unfortunately due to the adult content, along with the classifieds section found on the site, we cannot lift the block until those specific elements are removed.

If you want to get the site unblocked, please take the necessary steps to fix the functionality that led to the breach of our terms; once that's done, we will be more than happy to reconsider. One effective method would be to utilize Imgur's official embed tool rather than relying on direct hotlinking. You can do this by selecting "post options" --> "embed post" and copying the provided URL.

Feel free to reach back out if there's anything else you need; I'm here to help.

That kind of content is strictly limited to two adult subforums available only to registered members. One is over in Men's Corner, and the other is on Lies. I'm not entirely sure how things are handled on Lies, but over at MK, people frequently use Imgur to post nude photos within the designated threads. It’s likely that Imgur's Terms of Service would flag that content on one or both of those boards...

So now we’re just waiting around for pictures to actually load?
This entire forum has been a complete train wreck lately. Seriously, nothing works. Images aren't loading, you can't even see posts—yours or anyone else's—for love or money, and half the time the site just hangs so you can't even log in. It's absolutely pathetic.

Michelle Evans said:That kind of stuff is only allowed on two specific 18+ subforums reserved for registered members. One is over in Men's Corner, and the other is part of Lies. I’m not entirely sure how they handle things over at Lies, but on MK, people frequently upload nude photos via Imgur within threads specifically meant for them. It’s highly likely Imgur is flagging the content on one or both of those boards.

We don't really have images like that on Lies or Lies 18, except for maybe a tiny handful. 😁

Maria Gray45 said:So now we're just posting sweet pictures via checks?
This forum has been a complete mess lately. Images aren't loading, you can't even see your own posts or anyone else's, and it keeps freezing so much I can barely log in. It's ridiculous.

Photobucket works perfectly fine.

By the way, I ran into that weird trick with removing letters on another forum when I was trying to embed YouTube videos. The thing is, they switched from http to https, and once you strip that 's' out, everything embeds just fine. Otherwise, it's a no-go. Just how it goes.

Wasn't there some sort of issue with Photobucket as well? 🤔
Are we talking about recycling links?

Check out http://abload.de/
They don't ever touch your photos, and honestly, they couldn't care less about nudity... I’ve been using them for ages now and haven't run into a single issue. I still have active links to images that are five years old sitting there untouched...