Jacob's dashboard

Jacob replied on September 01, 2009 06:55 to the question "Won't authenticate my Dripbook account" in PictureSync:

Was this resolved? If not did you try choosing 'check for updates' from the Help menu?

Jacob set one of Jacob's replies as an official response to "Authentication error" in PictureSync

Jacob replied on July 14, 2009 06:30 to the question "Authentication error" in PictureSync:

Webshots have now acknowledged my report of the ongoing erratic issue that affects some if not all users, but as yet there has been no acknowledgement from them if the issue actually exists at their end, the cause, or if/when it can be resolved.

You may wish to take up this issue and/or Mac support in general with them directly. (I should add that this issue is not Mac specific, PictureSync for Windows is also affected.)

I am however doubtful it will get fixed any time soon, given how it is erratic, and from brief observation appears to vary according to a user's network location (i.e. internet access provider), so I suspect they'll have trouble isolating it, as indeed I would too. As it did work just fine and nothing changed in PictureSync, and also no changes to the Webshots API have been notified, I don't expect it to be possible to resolve the issue simply in PictureSync's Webshots plugin itself either.

For now I suggest signing up with Pixelpipe, add your Webshots account there, then add your Pixelpipe account to PictureSync (disabling your Webshots account in PictureSync) and your uploads will be proxied through Pixelpipe's servers—which are currently reliably connecting to Webshots. (You could also use any other Pixelpipe upload method as well as or instead of PictureSync.)

Jacob replied on June 26, 2009 09:38 to the question "The Topic "Authentication error"" in PictureSync:

For new users the error they'll see when adding a new Webshots account is actually just a generic "Authentication failed" error not the 'correct' "remote failure" error that is the issue at present, so that topic is still referring to the same issue (although the topic title should really be more clear, if that's what you mean, but I didn't choose the topic title...).

Some users may not get the error as it is erratic. I have pinged Webshots (again) to try and investigate the issue. From one connection in the UK I was getting the error myself 100% of the time, but from others it occurs more like 1 out of 10 times and indeed may not even affect everyone. Unfortunately it appears to be something at Webshots' end, and nothing to do with PictureSync's plugin for Webshots (which worked fine for years, up until recently).

If you are getting an "authentication failed" status (as opposed to error dialog) for an account already added, then your details probably do need checking/re-entering as otherwise a different status would be returned.

Jacob replied on June 22, 2009 21:01 to the problem "puctyresync cannot post to flickr" in PictureSync:

The issue solved may not be your specific issue, this topic seems to now cover two (or more) separate issues, however the original issue was solved. PictureSync's upload internals have not changed for a while, so the unsolved issue is likely to lie with the Flickr plugin which has been changed several times (most recently the 25th April).

If you drop your email address to feedback[at]picturesync.net I can shortly send you a version of the plugin with less functionality and more debugging and we can see if this works for you.

Note that although usage and user-specific compatibility of the application is officially unsupported, I will be attempting to maintain the plugins, and compatibility with the latest OS X releases (but not prior).

Jacob replied on June 22, 2009 09:50 to the update "PictureSync is now end-of-life" in PictureSync:

I understand your sentiments, and if you are affected by the ongoing issue with uploads to Webshots, or some other issue that prevents you from using PictureSync, you are entitled to a refund as noted in the blog post. Please just drop a message with your purchase reference (i.e. PayPal transaction ID) to feedback [at] picturesync.net.

The Webshots issue should hopefully be resolved soon however.

A licence purchase (especially a Pro licence) was entirely discretionary, as all PictureSync's upload functionality was free to use, but were certainly appreciated in order to support the time over the past four+ years that went into developing (and supporting up until recently) the application. It is still perfectly functional withstanding any service-provider or user-install specific issues.

I can't comment on the value you reap from the frequency of your usage of an application whether or not you pay for it, but I wouldn't necessarily publicly identify myself with piracy.

Jacob posted an update in PictureSync on June 09, 2009 13:10:

PictureSync is now end-of-life

Please see the blog post for details.

Jacob replied on June 05, 2009 18:37 to the question "Authentication error" in PictureSync:

It does appear that something on their end has changed but unfortunately I was never notified about it. Currently their API has ceased working with PictureSync completely, hopefully I'll hear back from them shortly as to what's happened so that any issues can be resolved.

Jacob replied on June 05, 2009 18:37 to the question "Webshots? Don't think so" in PictureSync:

Webshots' API has completely ceased working with PictureSync. I am attempting to investigate with them to resolve this issue and will get a fix out as soon as possible, if required.

Jacob replied on April 30, 2009 17:34 to the question "Can't authorize with PixelPipe?" in PictureSync:

Hi Jan, a long-shot, but according to my version history I've not yet released a fix for case-sensitive filesystems, are you running on one? If so I can send a test build, but if that were the case no service would work though, are any others? (Sorry, I don't seem to have a record of your prior emails/logs!)

I just tested adding Pixelpipe on a fresh privilege-restricted guest account under 10.5.6 and didn't run into any issues whatsoever. Which OS are you running? Perhaps you could save and send the output from System Profiler and that file mentioned above again?! SIMBL and input manager hacks have historically caused issues. Then if I can't make further progress I'll send a plugin for step-by-step debugging you could run to help isolate the cause.

A comment on the problem "puctyresync cannot post to flickr" in PictureSync:

Are any other services working? If you're on 10.5.6 and have a version of PictureSync prior to 1.8r16 you need to download this version manually. You can download and run the debug script and send the log via email (feedback AT picturesync.net) to help diagnose. – Jacob, on April 28, 2009 07:58

Jacob replied on April 25, 2009 17:26 to the problem "puctyresync cannot post to flickr" in PictureSync:

Please choose Help>Check for Updates and then relaunch PictureSync.

Jacob replied on April 16, 2009 07:47 to the question "New AppleScript error?" in PictureSync:

Could you email the error to feedback [at] picturesync.net if it will not display here.

Jacob set one of Jacob's replies as an official response to "Tags not syncing in Webshots" in PictureSync

Jacob replied on April 16, 2009 07:46 to the problem "Tags not syncing in Webshots" in PictureSync:

Tags are not supported in the current version of the Webshots API used to upload photos, partly because they didn't originally support tags. A new version of their API was in the works but appears to have been put on hold.

You can direct your request to Webshots directly to let them know that it's needed and wanted.

Jacob replied on April 01, 2009 14:06 to the idea "wanted: iPhoto to Wordpress/NextGen uploader" in PictureSync:

Uploading directly to blog providers and self-hosted blogs will be added to the next major version of PictureSync, but work on it has yet to make much progress so there is no specific time frame as yet for a release.

Jacob replied on March 30, 2009 08:43 to the idea "wanted: iPhoto to Wordpress/NextGen uploader" in PictureSync:

This will be added to PictureSync at some point, but for now you can use Pixelpipe (signup at that site, add your Wordpress blog there, then add your Pixelpipe account to PictureSync).

Jacob replied on March 29, 2009 11:55 to the question "Syncing iPhoto library with Windows PC" in PictureSync:

You can't do a bidirectional sync, no. PictureSync would only be able to help you with embedding annotations so that once copied to your PC, Windows Live Photo Gallery (for example) could read them too. (See this page.)

Jacob replied on March 02, 2009 06:09 to the problem "AppleScript Error - Can't make 1 into type boolean. (-1700)" in PictureSync:

PictureSync does not support Webshots downloads, only uploads. Do you mean the error occurred in WBZ Helper? I'm afraid that is unsupported, but Webshots are working towards having official Mac support soon.

A comment on the question "Authentication error" in PictureSync:

Thanks for reporting this. A fix has been issued, please choose Check for Updates from the Help menu in PictureSync. (Note: This issue was specific to FotoTime on 10.5.6 and is unrelated to Webshots). – Jacob, on February 18, 2009 13:42