The frustration of trying to link photos here.

[Idaho45guy]

I have discovered that this is the only internet forum I have found that is nearly impossible to link photos on.

For instance, if I want to post a generic photo of something, I do an internet search for that item, find a relevant photo, right click on it and select "Copy Image address" and then go here, click on the photo icon, choose the "Image URL" option, paste the link to the photo in it, then hit OK.

And then nearly every single time, I get this message...

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Then I have to click and re-click a few times to get rid of the message and start over with another photo. After wasting a few minutes trying to find a photo that the site will magically accept and failing, I have to download the original pic to my computer and upload it that way.

Why? I can't seem to see any pattern to photos that the site will accept and those it won't. I don't have this issue with any other forum.

Would appreciate some insight into what is going on.

[ryanmattes]

It's the url. In the photo, what you've actually pasted in isn't an image url, but a web page url. A web page is not a valid image, so the error is actually correct.

To avoid this problem, when you right click, instead of "copy url" pick "open in new tab." If it opens nothing but the image in a tab all by itself, you can copy that url and paste it in here.

If it opens whole web page and not just an image, it would've given you the invalid image error.

Web sites intentionally make it so that the image has an invisible box on top of it that is a link, and when you copy the url, you're getting that link url instead of the image url. You have to get through to the image itself, and get its url in order to link it.

Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk

[Idaho45guy]

Awesome! Thank you!

[MrWolf]

It's the url. In the photo, what you've actually pasted in isn't an image url, but a web page url. A web page is not a valid image, so the error is actually correct.

To avoid this problem, when you right click, instead of "copy url" pick "open in new tab." If it opens nothing but the image in a tab all by itself, you can copy that url and paste it in here.

If it opens whole web page and not just an image, it would've given you the invalid image error.

Web sites intentionally make it so that the image has an invisible box on top of it that is a link, and when you copy the url, you're getting that link url instead of the image url. You have to get through to the image itself, and get its url in order to link it.

Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk

Nice explanation. Thanks did not know that.

[Soundguy]

I'm barely able to post pics here too. Ironically.. from my work laptop.. i CAN.. But i try to not be on my work laptop here.

From my phone.. it's impossible.

[Idaho45guy]

It's the url. In the photo, what you've actually pasted in isn't an image url, but a web page url. A web page is not a valid image, so the error is actually correct.

To avoid this problem, when you right click, instead of "copy url" pick "open in new tab." If it opens nothing but the image in a tab all by itself, you can copy that url and paste it in here.

If it opens whole web page and not just an image, it would've given you the invalid image error.

Web sites intentionally make it so that the image has an invisible box on top of it that is a link, and when you copy the url, you're getting that link url instead of the image url. You have to get through to the image itself, and get its url in order to link it.

Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk

Makes sense. But, why does the same image work on another gun forum, but not on this one??

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[ryanmattes]

It's hard to get into details without having the full link, but I noticed "w=320" at the end of that link. That suggests to me that the image is being processed on request, so the original image is larger, and those parameters at the end are telling it what size image to give you.

It's possible that castboolets rejects it simply because it doesn't end with ".jpg" or ".gif" or whatever. Since it doesn't end with a recognized image extension, the forum assumes it's an invalid image link. That was common years ago, and this forum is running in old software.

Or it may be that the processor that hosts the image returns a valid image, but with bad or missing header information, so this forum doesn't know how to process it. It's like sending a letter with only the recipient's name and city. If the post office in that city wants to do the work, they can probably still get it there. But most won't even try, they'll just reject it

Remember, even though the internet was invented by engineers, it was mostly built by amateurs, and it shows. There's an awful lot of it held together with duct tape and twine, and only keeps working by the grace of God. I say this as one of the guys who built a not-insignificant part of it. I've spent much of the past 25 years building shims and scaffolding to keep all that duct tape and twine from just falling apart.

And this is what you get. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

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[jonp]

It's the url. In the photo, what you've actually pasted in isn't an image url, but a web page url. A web page is not a valid image, so the error is actually correct.

To avoid this problem, when you right click, instead of "copy url" pick "open in new tab." If it opens nothing but the image in a tab all by itself, you can copy that url and paste it in here.

If it opens whole web page and not just an image, it would've given you the invalid image error.

Web sites intentionally make it so that the image has an invisible box on top of it that is a link, and when you copy the url, you're getting that link url instead of the image url. You have to get through to the image itself, and get its url in order to link it.

Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk

Thanks, i also didnt know that

[No_1]

There is a sticky in the FAQ section which addresses posting photos to the site.