Home > Photography > Photobox Pulls ftp uploads

Photobox Pulls ftp uploads

PhotoboxFurther to my last post, I now have email confirmation from Photobox that they have removed ftp upload capability (despite still accepting logins on the ftp server and having instructions on ftp uploads on the help section):

…to be honest i’m not to sure when or why it was stopped.
I think its something to do with the new uploader software.

I will look into the FTP servers openness and have the information from the website. [Ed:I presume the word ‘removed’ is missing here]

again my apologies for the inconvenience.

FTP capability was one of the benefits of Photobox. I don’t want to have to install Photobox’s own upload software, I have a perfectly capable one of my own – it’s called a standard ftp client. When I have tried their software in the past it is slow and clunky, whereas I can just type ‘mput *.JPG’ at the ftp command line.

I wonder how many others have suddenly found this not to be working without warning.

So what does something to do with the new uploader software mean? Come on Photobox, I understand that some people like to have their hand held with an uploader applet, but why stop others from using ftp as well?

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  1. Richard
    March 11th, 2008 at 18:41 | #1
    Using Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12 on Windows Windows XP

    yes I had same response as you, don’t want to install the clunky site software, FTP was perfect !
    Spent an hour trying to find alternative with ftp upload….. can’t find one unless I want to pay 5 times the price for photos
    have you had any luck?

  2. March 11th, 2008 at 19:25 | #2
    Using Safari Safari 523.12.2 on Mac OS Mac OS

    Not yet Richard, not had chance to look. What’s annoying is that I have 600 print credits with Photobox and they gave zero warning about dropping ftp.

  3. March 21st, 2008 at 11:48 | #3
    Using Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12 on Mac OS X Mac OS X Mach

    Well the plot thickens – I tried a test upload with ftp yesterday (server still accepting connections and uploads) and they appeared to sit in the root directory again, but today they have been correctly moved into an ‘ftp_upload’ album (the upload log is also dated today), so the question is “Have photobox decided to rethink dropping ftp, or is the customer support bod wrong?”

  4. Richard
    March 21st, 2008 at 18:37 | #4
    Using Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12 on Windows Windows XP

    Very odd, after reading your post I just tried the same with 1 jpeg, ftp to one of my albums and its in straight away !!
    Going to try 20 or so in one go, would sometimes have problem with this though,
    they would upload to folder but not always turn up in an album.
    I still can’t find any better service offering ftp, can’t understand why all these companies prefer to offer some rubbish java uploader when ftp is so simple !

  5. David
    May 8th, 2008 at 21:39 | #5
    Using Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows Windows XP

    …yep just found the same. I’ve tried their activex uploader both in IE and firefox and always had trouble. At least with FTP you could leave it uploading safe in the knowledge you could come back and there would be a fair chance it would have uploaded the images.

  6. David Fraser
    August 25th, 2008 at 20:24 | #6
    Using Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1 on Linux Linux

    Looks like its working again – but the http://ftp.photobox.co.uk server says now to use http://ftp.photobox.com. I tried and creating folders and uploading was working perfectly

  7. August 26th, 2008 at 08:05 | #7
    Using Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.16 on Windows Windows XP

    Yes David, ftp uploads disappeared ahead of the new website (which has been almost unanimously condemned as a mistake), and it would appear that photobox did not intend to reinstate ftp uploads until myself and several others protested. I was asked to test the .com ftp before it went public.

  8. jq
    November 3rd, 2008 at 19:09 | #8
    Using Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.17 on Mac OS Mac OS

    Thanks for posting this thread…. im now using a mac (which is a brilliant experience) as well as ubuntu and being able to send up photos using command line is brilliantly easy and means i can do it and walk away without the fear of their useless applet falling over all the time

    nice one photobox

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