Posting Images now Link Only?

[Zloth]

Looks like I can only post images via links now. Is that just me or is it everyone?

 

[Rensje]

I seem to have the same issue in that I can't upload images directly, nor can I show images in my posts in any way. There used to be two buttons there after you pressed Ctrl+P, now there's just the one and it doesn't work. All you can really do now is create a link to an image, but that's just not the same, is it? How am I going to do my XCOM diary now that I literally can't put any screenshots in?

@Zloth I'm assuming it's a bandwith concern. You and I have both posted a lot of visual material to the Beautiful Game Appreciation topic, so maybe we unknowingly exceeded a certain threshold that's preventing us from posting additional pictures? I assume it's different for everyone because you posted this on Saturday, when earlier today @Frindis managed to post an image to the same topic just fine. Meanwhile, I am still affected.

Interestingly, I haven't lost the ability to add media (like a YouTube video) to a post.

Mods/staffers, can you shed any light upon the matter?

 

[Frindis]

@Rensje @Zloth Not had any problems adding pictures, with the exception of trying to upload them through the [Insert image] option and them being too large in size. I now use imbgg as that one will not give the same size error. When it comes to adding a YouTube link I tested it now and it works for me. It sounds like this might just be a hiccup on the site, maybe it works for your guys now?

 

[SWard]

Thanks for the feedback, have forwarded to the tech team!

 

[SHaines]

Looks like I can only post images via links now. Is that just me or is it everyone?

Hey there,

Definitely not just you. We did allow attachments initially, but we caught a post with a malicious file attached that required some quick action. For now, attachments aren't possible on the forums, so using a link is your best bet.

If this turns out to be too much of a burden on the community we can revisit down the road. Folks should feel absolutely welcome to chime in on their preference so we can get at least a sample of opinions.

Thanks!

 

[Rensje]

For the record, I don't think either of us is asking permission to upload images directly as attachments. We would simply like to be able to link to the URL of an image online and have it show up in our posts. Now we can only post them as links that you have to click on, which is not as nice when you want the images to essentially show up as pictures in a book, like I do in my XCOM topic. Either this functionality was disabled, or it currently isn't working as intended.

Again, attachments are unnecessary. I'll just upload the images to Imgur instead.

EDIT:
@JSimenhoff

Thanks for this, being able to share images means everything to me when posting on these forums!

 

[SHaines]

For the record, I don't think either of us is asking permission to upload images directly as attachments. We would simply like to be able to link to the URL of an image online and have it show up in our posts. Now we can only post them as links that you have to click on, which is not as nice when you want the images to essentially show up as pictures in a book, like I do in my XCOM topic. Either this functionality was disabled, or it currently isn't working as intended.

Again, attachments are unnecessary. I'll just upload the images to Imgur instead.

Using a link should work, unless the changes we made prohibit it. I'll do some additional digging. Thanks for adding that extra bit of context for me.

 

[JSimenhoff]

We're investigating what's caused this issue. It appears to be some type of bug with the image attachment tool. In the meantime we have found a work around. You can post images by manually typing out the

bbcode. I have taken a screenshot of what that looks like and have also pasted an image using this method:

Make sure to copy and paste links directly to the image location. The link url should end in .jpg, .gif, or .png (as it does in the example above).

Thanks for your patience while we sort out what's wrong with the tool.

 

[I Will Haunt You]

I was wondering why I could no longer just drag an drop an image into the post. I thought it was intentionally disabled too.

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

Actually curious, was the malicious file attached as some sort of image type-file? If not (either .docx or even .exe, dunno), easy solution would be to limit the size and file type. Or allow upload for example to imgur from within the form. Just an idea.

 

[JSimenhoff]

Actually curious, was the malicious file attached as some sort of image type-file? If not (either .docx or even .exe, dunno), easy solution would be to limit the size and file type. Or allow upload for example to imgur from within the form. Just an idea.

Attachments are disabled for security purposes. File limits cannot prevent these types of attacks because virus/malware can come in any shape or size

We have identified the issue and are currently trying to schedule a roll out for the hot fix. In the mean time please continue to manually insert bbcode to post images.

 

[Zloth]

Yeah, a virus can be smaller than an icon, never mind a screenshot. If it were me, I would read the image in to an image processor then save it again for display to make sure there isn't anything funny going on in the JFIF or anything else. It'd cost some image quality but this is a forum, not an art gallery.

Anyway...

BB code is great for posting links to images but you have to have a place to put the image still. If you look on the left side menus, there's a "Media" section where you can post images that still works fine. There's a cap of 5GB but, for the short term, that shouldn't be an issue. Once you post it, it will even give you the exact IMG tag to use down in the lower right.

I did bump into a strange thing, though. I first posted last night (Kansas time) with an intro paragraph and then the image. It worked great. Then I uploaded another image, edited my first post to include the 2nd image, added some text under both images... and it wouldn't save! The message said to try later so I just tried it again but got the same error. I copy/pasted the code to add a new message and that worked fine, so it seems to just be the edit of a message that has issues. Hopefully it saved a more detailed reason why it wasn't allowing the save in some log so the issue can be debugged. The posts are over in the... ummm… art gallery subforum. <ahem>

 

[JSimenhoff]

BB code is great for posting links to images but you have to have a place to put the image still. If you look on the left side menus, there's a "Media" section where you can post images that still works fine. There's a cap of 5GB but, for the short term, that shouldn't be an issue. Once you post it, it will even give you the exact IMG tag to use down in the lower right.

That's partially why we have the media section Imgur works too and usually my default by habit.

The message said to try later so I just tried it again but got the same error. I copy/pasted the code to add a new message and that worked fine, so it seems to just be the edit of a message that has issues. Hopefully it saved a more detailed reason why it wasn't allowing the save in some log so the issue can be debugged. The posts are over in the... ummm… art gallery subforum. <ahem>

Thanks for calling this out. I have a feeling it relates to the bug we identified with the image upload tool. I'll take a look in the logs to see if I can find any further information.

I'll update here once we can schedule the hot fix.

 

[Zloth]

Any news here? Or is this something that can't be fixed? I've gotten used to the work-arounds but they're going to be rough on new folks.

 

[SHaines]

Any news here? Or is this something that can't be fixed? I've gotten used to the work-arounds but they're going to be rough on new folks.

Hey there,

Sorry for the delay. This fix will require dev intervention, which is not likely to be coming in the immediate future. We've logged this issue for them, but with things happening in the world as they are, it'll likely be a little while before we can start getting dev work done.

I'll follow up with Josh to see if there is anything specific to report, but for now, please bear with us.

 

[Zloth]

Can do.

By the way, another little issue - once you put a media item in you can edit the title and description but I couldn't find a way to edit the key words associated with it.