# What does it take to view images on photobucket?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 8, 2013, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916 "2013-07-08T05:19:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 15\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/21 "2013-07-09T05:50:21Z")

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FWIW, the image loads just fine in Safari 6.0.5 on OS X 10.8.4

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**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/22 "2013-07-09T06:17:09Z")

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> [@GusNSpot](#):
>
> Hummmmm  
> From my photobucket pictures. ( I too hate photobucket ) None the less…
> 
> [Try this](http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv143/Dragon1943/rainday015.jpg)

Odd. The first time I clicked on the link, it took me to the Photobucket page containing the image. When I closed the window and then clicked on the link again, it took me directly to the image, all by itself.

Mac OS X Mountain Lion, Safari 6.0.5

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**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/23 "2013-07-09T06:41:54Z")

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I’ve noticed that Photobucket recently started hijacking attempts to go directly to the image. If you click on a link that goes directly to whatever.jpg, Photobucket will (sometimes) catch that and send you to the godawful cluttered album page instead. This only started happening maybe within the last year. Before that, a link to whatever.jpg did what it was supposed to do.

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/24 "2013-07-09T08:35:51Z")

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**GusNSpot** offers this as an example of a link to a picture on photobucket:

> [@GusNSpot](#):
>
> [http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv143/Dragon1943/rainday015.jpg](http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv143/Dragon1943/rainday015.jpg)
> 
> So you can see the actual address if you want to copy it & try different ways or OS’s to view it.

Okay, I went there, and took a screenshot of exactly what I see. [Here it is. rainyday015-screenshot.png](http://doggie.freeshell.org/pictures/rainyday015-screenshot.png) This only shows the first screenful, but if I scroll down that page, it’s just more of the same like this. It’s completely unformatted (looks like other sites if I turn off their CSS), and there aren’t any pictures to be seen. This is exactly what I see when anybody here posts a link to photobucket and I try to go there.

It may be, as other have suggested above, that the link is only meant to be viewed on a mobile device with a postage-stamp sized screen.

OTOH, I had no trouble posting my picture (that screenshot) where anybody can view it perfectly well. (I assume. Am I right?)

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/25 "2013-07-09T09:00:07Z")

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I have a web site where I post pictures. (For example, the screen shot linked just above.) There is a FREE public-access Unix system where anybody can create an account. (They do ask for donations, and if you pay you get increased services.)

But you can create a basic web site for free, and get a domain name of your own, and post your pictures there. It’s plain and simple. No need for the very-latest-up-to-the-minute browser, and no need for JavaScript.

I’ve created a [thread in ATMB](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=696005) with some relevant links and remarks in the OP.

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**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/26 "2013-07-09T10:38:17Z")

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> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> It may be, as other have suggested above, that the link is only meant to be viewed on a mobile device with a postage-stamp sized screen.

No, that shows an unstyled web page. Its CSS file didn’t load correctly.

They serve CSS files from a different domain, presumably a CDN. It’s possible there is a DNS problem preventing your browser from reaching it.

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**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/27 "2013-07-09T14:11:03Z")

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> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> **Digital is the new Analog** , can you tell us what it is about your environment that _does_ work with photobucket?

Sorry..no idea. It’s actually a corporate Ubuntu image on my work laptop, running under a VM. I have a native Ubuntu 13.04 setup in my office, but I’m on vacation right now and would prefer not to log into that machine. 🙂

> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> **GusNSpot** offers this as an example of a link to a picture on photobucket:
> 
> Okay, I went there, and took a screenshot of exactly what I see. [Here it is. rainyday015-screenshot.png](http://doggie.freeshell.org/pictures/rainyday015-screenshot.png) This only shows the first screenful, but if I scroll down that page, it’s just more of the same like this. It’s completely unformatted (looks like other sites if I turn off their CSS), and there aren’t any pictures to be seen. This is exactly what I see when anybody here posts a link to photobucket and I try to go there.
> 
> It may be, as other have suggested above, that the link is only meant to be viewed on a mobile device with a postage-stamp sized screen.
> 
> OTOH, I had no trouble posting my picture (that screenshot) where anybody can view it perfectly well. (I assume. Am I right?)

I occasionally see random web sites looking like this..maybe once every week or two. This would be with Chrome or FF on a Windows 7 machine. It sometimes resolves by hitting refresh. I assume this doesn’t work for you.

(I did verify that rainday015.jpg works for me.)

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/28 "2013-07-09T16:37:34Z")

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> [@tellyworth](#):
>
> No, that shows an unstyled web page. Its CSS file didn’t load correctly.
> 
> They serve CSS files from a different domain, presumably a CDN. It’s possible  
> there is a DNS problem preventing your browser from reaching it.

Must be something like this happening? I tried to “View Source” to take a look.  
When I then tried to view the source of the CSS files, what I saw was:

```auto

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>404 Not Found</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Not Found</h1>
<p>The requested URL /pkg/2d8a51290927/head_global_main.css was not found on this server.</p>
<hr>
<address>Apache/2.2.12 (Ubuntu) Server at static2.pbsrc.com Port 80</address>
</body></html>

```

Oops. So why would this work right for some people, but some people can’t see this  
CSS file? (The other CSS file linked there did the same, and so did the JS file too.)

ETA: @ **Digital is the new Analog** : Yes, I get pages like that from time to time where  
the CSS doesn’t load, and refresh usually fixes it. Not so with these Photobucket pages.

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/29 "2013-07-09T16:50:15Z")

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> [@tellyworth](#):
>
> No, that shows an unstyled web page. Its CSS file didn’t load correctly.
> 
> They serve CSS files from a different domain, presumably a CDN. It’s possible there is a DNS problem preventing your browser from reaching it.

PROBLEM (mostly) SOLVED.

This suggested to me, that I should look in my own /etc/hosts file, where I’ve been putting lines like:

```auto

127.0.0.1 ads.crap.com

```

in a (somewhat successful, generally) attempt to minimize the amount of ads and other crap that I see. And now, seeing where Photobucket loads its CSS from (see post above), and looking at my /etc/hosts file, guess what I have there?

Fixed.

Now, it (mostly) works. I still need to enable JavaScript (PITA), and there’s still some sort of fuckup when I go there, but it mostly works.

Now, it loads the picture and I can see it for about 10 seconds, but then the whole page disappears and it tries to load some _other_ crap that doesn’t happen. But if I press ESC in time, I can stop that.

I still think it would be nice for there to be a place where users can upload pictures that other people can just, you know, click on and see the damn picture. I suggested one in an ATMB thread (see a few posts up), but somebody here has already gone and tried that and there seems to be a problem there too. (See the ATMB thread about that.)

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/30 "2013-07-09T16:53:44Z")

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Straight Dope comes through again!

(See above post.)

Thanks, **Digital is the new Analog** , **tellyworth** , and **GusNSpot**! Your posts in this thread provided the various pieces by which, connecting the dots, pointed me in the right direction.

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**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/31 "2013-07-09T17:06:10Z")

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I use Picasaweb albums as my free picture place.

Pro = free  
Con = limited display size of 800 pixels on the long side. ( Or I am not doing it right. )

I do not use Picasa on my computer to manage my photos. Makes a real mess so I do all my own file handling.  
Batch uploading works just fine for me.

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/32 "2013-07-09T17:13:54Z")

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So anyway, now I can _finally_ see that billboard picture that everybody’s having a shitfit about over in ATMB right now. 😃

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**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/33 "2013-07-09T23:10:09Z")

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> [@SeaDragonTattoo](#):
>
> **GusNSpot** ’s links work fine-ish for me. They both go to the mobile site, and as my experience with other links by other posters here, they are teeny, tiny little low-res squares that have yet to be worth bothering to look at. No options to increase the size or resolution and the pics are hard to see on either monitor I use - a 17" (XP, FF 22.0) at work and at 37" (Win7, FF 22.0) at home. I can right click and “view image” to blow it up, but the resolution is so bad it’s useless. Terrible, I tells ya!
> 
> The takeaway from my post - don’t worry, the pics that do load aren’t worth it anyway.

I’ve also been seeing just the mobile version of the site. On a hunch, I disabled AdBlockPlus on [photobucket.com](http://photobucket.com) and that fixed it: Now the link goes to the regular site with the full size picture. Perhaps they want to punish you for refusing to see their ads…

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**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/34 "2013-07-10T02:07:40Z")

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> [@GusNSpot](#):
>
> I use Picasaweb albums as my free picture place.
> 
> Pro = free  
> Con = limited display size of 800 pixels on the long side. ( Or I am not doing it right. )
> 
> I do not use Picasa on my computer to manage my photos. Makes a real mess so I do all my own file handling.  
> Batch uploading works just fine for me.

Edit the “S800” in the URL. You can set it anywhere from 0 to 1600. 0 is the original size. This way, you can automatically generate thumbnails of any size you want.

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**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-take-to-view-images-on-photobucket/662916/35 "2013-07-10T04:53:23Z")

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> [@AaronX](#):
>
> Edit the “S800” in the URL. You can set it anywhere from 0 to 1600. 0 is the original size. This way, you can automatically generate thumbnails of any size you want.

Hummmmmm

[Zeus at 1200 pixels???](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-NRU_1bub4NI/UdzoD_7-4kI/AAAAAAAA-bo/-zx5qqJjq2s/s1200/Zeus014.jpg)

By Jove, it works. Thanks so much… I had no idea… W00t !!!

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