Busted images - *possible* Photobucket problem

[Chadm1n]

I just noted a few broken images around the site and ran through some preliminary investigative checks. From what I can tell thus far, I think there are a few likely scenarios:

1. Rob screwed up his Photobucket account
2. Photobucket screwed up Rob's account
3. Photobucket is experiencing a partial service failure

There could be other possibilities - not much certainty right now. The only thing I know for certain is that the Webcomics Community servers are operating normally.

[Rob]

Can you link me to some of the broken images? I don't see any so far myself.

[Chadm1n]

Hey Rob,

It was everything hosted by you on Photobucket. It looks like it was an issue on the Photobucket side of things -  it cleared about 20-25 minutes ago.

-cec

[Rob]

Yay.... crisis.... completed?

[Alectric]

Is there any particular advantage to using Photobucket instead of your comic's domain space?

[Rob]

It reduces bandwidth costs but in my case it's simply a matter of convenience since Chad controls my server access and hasn't had time to set up a linkable image are for me yet.

[Chadm1n]

Alectric,

As Rob indicated, I haven't had a chance to setup a mechanism to allow him to manage images on the web server. He uses and likes Photobucket, and the approach works well overall. Yesterday's issue was the first time I have seen a problem with Photobucket availability in more than 18 months.

At some point we'll need to change our approach, but it works fine for our current traffic volume and storage footprint. As far as advantages go, there are several strong advantages to a distributed approach, but I am quite sure we're not benefiting measurably from distribution given our relatively low demand. Our choice is one driven by functional simplicity rather than operational necessity.

 
-cec