Textamerica hardware upgrade has some members wondering: where did our pictures go? |
Loading ...Textamerica is currently having some site issues: pictures from several of their members are not being shown in their respective moblogs. Scaling issues? Hosting problems? No, actually it’s a hardware upgrade, according to a message that quickly flashes by on their homepage, anyway.
It’s happening to my my Textamerica moblog too as you can see in the image above where it shows that I have “0 Total Posts” — however a couple days ago I had 256 total posts. When I login to my account I can see the thumbnail-sized pics of the 257 pictures I’ve taken with my cameraphone and sent along to them, and I can send a new picture and the new picture shows up on my moblog, but the other 256 pictures taken over the last year or so are not showing at all. It’s as if they no longer exist, but my guess is the other 256 pictures haven’t completely migrated to the new and/or beefier servers.
A hardware upgrade is hardly news, but the reason I write this is because I wonder why Textamerica didn’t make this hardware upgrade notice much, much more visible to its members? I certainly am not the only one with a moblog at Textamerica who’s pictures are currently missing in action:
“I have the same problem and it’s been like that for more than 24 hours, what is going on?? That’s a lot of memories gone…..I always wondered how secure the pic would be, i guess i know now. Please Help!!!…” - techstar2
“I lost over 500 pics & videos yesterday……” - omnitron
Though a hardware upgrade should be expected for a site as it scales, the lack of any significant communication during this change sort of puts the seed of doubt that pictures may not be entirely safe at “free” sites like this (I’ve commented at this blog before that free services are great until everybody starts using them: Free services come with an asterisk: popularity and bandwith). I’m pretty sure that Textamerica doesn’t want its members to doubt the safety of their pictures, but the reality is that some people will see this situation and think: Hmm, maybe I need to host my own pictures – despite the fact it’s only a hardware upgrade.
The primary reason I have used Textamerica is because it is convenient to send pictures from my camera and also because I wanted to have a presence on the Textamerica site (and I like their service too). We pay for multiple dedicated servers with plenty of free space and bandwith and I certainly possess the ability to program my own moblog solution — or install one to run on my servers (like Chris Pirillo did some time ago when he ditched Textamerica). Here’s to hoping that this hardware upgrade is over soon, in the meantime, if you are Textamerica moblogger, you might want to be aware of what’s going on.
- Textamerica linkrot, going commercial only, closing accounts, redirecting links
- Vegas bound or bound for Vegas
- Flickr picture sharing continues to heat up
- California fires raging
- Page / site / blog loading speed still very imporant
- Seahawks move to 3 - 0 and tear up the (Puget) sound!
Please pardon our progress (and lack of communication on how to fix this). Adding the following string after a “trailing slash” at the end of a TA mob URL will show the images that are certainly not lost. We actually did post this in our support forums and on our main page. More than 80% of users that needed it have applied the fix but there are always a few that would rather tell everyone but us… anyway, here’s the fix for any who find your site:
/?entry_reset=1
Comment by Shawn Honnick — October 30, 2004 @ 12:22 am PST
Hi Shawn - If it wasn’t clear in my entry above, I *did* tell you folks directly on 9/29 at 7:55am
I posted this issue in your support forums before posting here along with other Textamerica users and nobody from your site could be bothered to reply with this fix.
No thanks for responding what … a full month later? There’s a bunch of complaints in the place where I linked on your own site about how there was no response from anybody at your site, so it’s hardly a case of “a few that would rather tell everyone but us.” More like a bunch of folks who had this same problem and got ignored in your own forums on your own site!
Now that sites like Flickr are eating your lunch it isn’t so cool coming out to put on the PR spin: http://www.flickr.com/ but thank you again for stopping by to let our readers know that Textamerica doesn’t totally suck as a free service.
BTW, I just looked and my moblog with all pictures was restored at http://tdavid.textamerica.com/ — I didn’t need to use the fix you described so somebody must have finally hooked me up on this.
Comment by TDavid — October 30, 2004 @ 9:14 am PST
I applied the fix. Our support forums also have announcements that they are not monitored (we are replacing them). I did see your post on that thread. Hopefully we’ll get around to removing that old forum soon. Thanks for your input. Flickr is nice but is hardly eating anything of ours (except dust).
Comment by Shawn Honnick — November 1, 2004 @ 9:43 am PST
“I applied the fix.” [to your moblog]
Comment by Shawn Honnick — November 1, 2004 @ 9:46 am PST
Hello. I just did a google search on images not posting on Textamerica, and I found your site. Looks like you had some success getting your blog fixed. Although this was a couple of years ago, I assume it is the same thing with my blog. They either upgraded their servers, and or my images are lost. I have searched for over an hour now trying to find any tech support and there is no contact information for anyone. I am extremely frustrated, and I cant find anyone to help me from textamerica.
Anyway, great site you have here! If you have any information on how to get ahold of anyone from Textamerica, please let me know. I dont want all my memories to go away.
Thanks -
Brian DeLeon
Comment by Brian — September 11, 2006 @ 5:30 pm PST
Hi Brian - sorry to hear that Textamerica is having problems. I pretty much stopped using the site after this happened, so I’m not sure how much help I could be these days
I suggest to try reaching Shawn at his moblog, but it appears he has moved or discontinued it. Please report back if/when you have the problem fixed and how you got it fixed as I’m sure other Textamerica folks searching would be interested. I could also do some poking around and make a new post referencing this one if you keep running into a brick wall. Let me know and good luck to you.
Comment by TDavid — September 11, 2006 @ 6:18 pm PST
My account got disabled from textamerica FOR NO REASON at all. It is my main point of contact between my family in other countries and mine. Last I had posted some pics of my kids when i found my site pointing back to Textamerica.com and I could not log on AT ALL.
Nobody notified me as to the reason why the account got disabled.
- i have never posted wrong content, only family related pics and fun interesting everyday mundane things 
I have called them, written e-mails and NOBODY at Textamerica has offered a reply.
Comment by Sal Salazar — November 15, 2006 @ 12:57 pm PST