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Imgur uploading is currently off-line: Intermittent Failed to upload image; imgur is rejecting the request

Many answers are rather dependent on being able to include images; is there an alternative host to use while this problem persists?

I know that Imgur is out of the control of Stack Exchange; this question is not a duplicate of the one linked. I am not asking for Stack Exchange to look into or try to fix the problem.

Incidentally https://imgbb.com also appears to be down at the moment. That is the #2 result on a Google search for "image host."

It seems that postimg.org is working for the time being:

postimg.org test #1

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    Possible duplicate of Intermittent Failed to upload image; imgur is rejecting the request Feb 28, 2017 at 19:32
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    @JakeGould I just linked to that question in my opening sentence! This is not a duplicate. I am asking what to do because of that problem.
    – Mr.Wizard
    Feb 28, 2017 at 19:34
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    You can try ImageShack.us ... oh no wait: those delete images at will. Maybe just wait it out until Amazon solved their S3 issue that impacts imgur?
    – rene
    Feb 28, 2017 at 19:40
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    Yes, I know. The problem is ALL of StackExchange is dependent in Imgur as we now know. Switching—or encouraging using—another service as a “stop gap” measure is really not a good idea. What happens when Amazon S3 issues are resolved and things are back to normal? What happens to those “stop gap” images? “I am asking what to do because of that problem.” Be patient and wait for it to be resolved. Feb 28, 2017 at 19:50
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    A stop-gap that works till the other service goes down. And then we have to migrate all those images back to imgur.
    – Oded
    Feb 28, 2017 at 19:55
  • @Oded Isn't that a small price to pay for continued function of the site, rather that ceasing posting until this issue is resolved?
    – Mr.Wizard
    Feb 28, 2017 at 19:58
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    One can keep posting. But complicating everything for the future trying to produce a stop gap for a temporary outage is not constructive.
    – Oded
    Feb 28, 2017 at 20:23
  • @Mr.Wizard if the outage will last for weeks then you're right, better find alternative and maybe stick with it, hoping it will be better than imgur. But otherwise, I tend to agree with Oded and rene, better wait it out. Feb 28, 2017 at 20:41

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You can include images from any other image host or personal webspace, in theory. But there are significant drawbacks to many alternative image hosting solutions. Many free ones expire, and any image hosts that don't serve via SSL will break once SE uses encryption by default.

So I'd just wait out the outage and continue using imgur, instead of using external image hosting.

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    Regarding SSL: We already stopped allowing embedded images from displaying at all if they aren't accessible via a secure connection on Stack Overflow. That change will eventually go out over the entire network too.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Feb 28, 2017 at 20:09
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    @animuson I'd go even further and disallow any image hosts not controlled by SE. It's just seriously annoying if you don't have control over the images, this inevitably breaks at some point in the future Feb 28, 2017 at 20:11
  • Until this event for some reason I thought that image links to other servers were automatically re-uploaded to imgur and relinked. I don't know why. Has that ever been done?
    – Mr.Wizard
    Feb 28, 2017 at 20:28
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    @Mr.Wizard nope, and I doubt there's even such a feature request. I think what confuse you is the option to upload image via URL in the upload dialog of SE, which is doing what you said, but it's not automatic. Feb 28, 2017 at 20:37

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