Bummed Out that photos are gone.

[browningautorifle]

I am suffering from a feeling of futility.

That summarizes it...all the times I suggested I post the pics for posterity. Well, we forge ahead.

[ssgross]

backup provider was failing to backup

have you gotten to the bottom of this yet?
My first caption-obvious guess would be a file/folder permissions issue making the rsync fail. If this is on the provider's end, hopefully they will at least reimburse you for failing to deliver the service you paid for.

[USGI]

I see something that may, or may not be a clue: In my own threads and posts, in some cases there are "attachment #'s" where the missing pictures had been. There are others where there is nothing at all shown that would indicate a picture is missing. I'd like to know why it isn't consistent - either one way or the other?

I could edit my old posts and replace most of the pictures, but would likely need another 10 years of "spare time" to get that done! It's too bad, because most of these posts and threads are now meaningless without pictures. I made the mistake of mis-understanding Doug's 2011 thread (at the time) and thought it meant all of the pictures uploaded to the forum would be just as safe as those hosted on other sites after the updates were made - or were Milsurp's saved versions of "hosted" images also lost? - Bob

[MasterChief]

I checked an old post of mine from 2013 and found ("hosted") photos still attached, even though the photo host is now defunct. Curse you, Fototime.

[Badger]

I checked an old post of mine from 2013 and found ("hosted") photos still attached, even though the photo host is now defunct. Curse you, Fototime.

That is because your pics are preserved here by a different method, I assume because they were referenced from an external Fototime link. Even if Fototime is gone, the pics are still stored on our database.

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=29369

The ones that were lost were direct attachments members made to their posts/threads, which our backup provider was failing to backup.

Regards,
Doug

[Surpmil]

....

The ones that were lost were direct attachments members made to their posts/threads, which our backup provider was failing to backup.

Regards,
Doug

No backup copies of the forum from previous years exist?

They've just gutted the reference and financial value of your forum. Sue 'em

I wonder if they're screwing over other customers this way?

Stretches the bounds of credulity IMHO, that no one noticed this for years and years - good way to save on storage capacity though!