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Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

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Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#171

Post by gwkoehler »

exitb wrote: post #152
8fingerlouie wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it helps you now, but i also keep all our family photos in the cloud (iCloud in my case), but at the same time i have a small ARM machine at home that keeps a mirror of the iCloud data. That ARM machine also has the responsibility of making backups, local to a USB drive, as well as to another cloud. Not mirrors, but proper versioned backups (as in Restic, Borg, Arq, Duplicacy, Kopia, etc). I also maintain a…

As a fellow small ARM machine owner, what's your strategy for getting the photos from iCloud? Is there a tool one shouldn't feel weird to give their iCloud credentials to?

i have been using icloudpd for years. there is a docker image that makes it simple to install on my synology. because of 2fa, i have to re-authenticate it from the terminal every couple of months, but that takes one minute.

https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#173

Post by BLKNSLVR »

themitigating wrote: post #154
thrdbndndn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I totally agree. I do wish I have such luck when posting on HN though, often ended up with zero upvotes and no replies.

The stories that get helped often start with the premise that a company has destroyed the person's life/business and the company is hated by a large portion of people here. That will get the most upvotes, visibility, and sometimes a company will reach out.

Bitcoin just ate all my cat videos!

But they were backed up to Ethereum, but Ethereum might be declared a security, so they'll be gone too!

At least I've also got them on XRP.

Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#174

Post by toomuchtodo »

ALLTaken wrote: post #33
stepri wrote: post #16

This is just a reminder to take a backup of your cloud photos and store it locally (or other cloud provider). For example, with Google Takeout you can get a ZIP file with all your photos and videos from Google Photos.

For iCloud, would just copying images from iCloud to the backup media be enough?

https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#175

Post by HeavyFeather »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #134
clevedotoner wrote: post #101

One of my worries that keeps me sleeplessly awake at nights sometimes is the possibility of solar flares wiping out storage/data -- at my bank, on my hard drive and what not. A sufficiently strong solar flare can essentially put us back a few centuries electronically, and a few millenia socially, instantly. Wonder if there are stress tests on cloud storage that account for this possibility by means of adequate insula…

> possibility of solar flares wiping out storage/data -- at my bank, on my hard drive and what not. Oh, one solar flare can solve global inequality in an instant! There money in all bank account would dissapear and the recently rich would have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps!

Nah, it will just eliminate the middle class. I’m sure the millionaires will figure something out from their villas and yachts.

Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#176

Post by vladvasiliu »

unxdfa wrote: post #126
krzyk wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised, Amazon is well known of having the best in class customer support for their store (I mean: "Customer: My kindle broke, because I sat on it. Amazon: no worries, let me send you a replacement, no need to send back the old kindle" level of good support) - oh and human support, not google botocracy.

Have you tried getting through to a human recently on Amazon retail support? It's quite difficult. First you have to negotiate with a bot with an IQ and service level of an angry wasp, then you get filtered through to someone who usually can't help. So you have to try 2-3 times to get stuff sorted. The whole thing is designed to put people off and make it difficult to get problems resolved. I'm fairly good at being a…

How "recent" are we talking about?

Last November, my Logitech mouse's scroll wheel started acting funny. Tried to check on Amazon the warranty situation, the docs said: take it up with the manufacturer (note: the mouse was sold by Amazon, wasn't a marketplace item). This was like two weeks before the 2-year warranty was up.

So, I headed on over to Logitech. Man, their site sucks. My mouse was a "gaming" model, so it wasn't directly clear where I should seek help. I end up with some support guy who was obviously doing something else in parallel, judging by the time between replies. Went through the usual checklist (is it on / did you try unplugging and plugging it back again?). Never mind that before getting on the chat, I had to fill up a form with the exact same questions, up to and including the serial number, which is the first thing the chat person asked for. Half an hour later, he asked the killer question: where did you buy it? Amazon. Oh, take it up with them, then.

Went back to Amazon, opened a new "other" case. Less than two minutes later, I was on the phone with someone from Amazon, asking me point-blank whether I wanted them to try to fix it or reimburse me. Said the latter, and he asked me to be sure to send it within 30 days.

Guess where I bought my next Logitech mouse?

So yeah, Amazon's retail support experience is still top-notch in my book, at least on this side of the pond. This was for an account without prime support that doesn't do a lot of business with them.

Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#177

Post by hbn »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #46

It literally only has been 1 hour since OP posted that thread. I agree with all the points about having backups and/or using better service/self host etc., but IMO it's too early to conclude anything about this incident.

The point of these services is they're supposed to be an easy-to-use, worry-free photo backup. Amazon/Google/Apple should surely have the resources available to keep my photos stored somewhere with some redundancy. I don't want to worry about how they do it, but that's the idea. In exchange they're probably training image recognition algorithms or what have you on my photos, and I certainly wouldn't keep anything too personal on those services (i.e. nudes). I may even be paying them for more than the free storage limit. The least they can do is be a reliable backup. Yahoo Mail doesn't disappear emails randomly, YouTube doesn't just disappear videos randomly (barring stupid robot moderation). You'd expect the same for your photos on these services.

Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#178

Post by presto8 »

johnnyballgame wrote: post #144
josefresco wrote: post #79

Anyone have a good iCloud backup option? I finally "gave in" and stopped manually pulling photos off my iOS devices and subscribed to iCloud. However I'm worried I'll get screwed or mistakenly delete something.

Install iCloud app locally and sync them. Then backup your local folder to another device or cloud. Backblaze B2 is a great cloud option for raw storage.

Exactly what I do. I use an old Mac Mini with an attached 5 TB USB drive. This provides a mirror of the iCloud data. For versioning, add a separate drive and use Time Machine. This provides versioning. For offsite backup, B2 or other backup provider.

Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#179

Post by vladvasiliu »

unxdfa wrote: post #141
krzyk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on "recently". I contacted them (human, right away, speaking my language - I'm in EU and the store was in different country than mine) about a year or two ago where I had issue with my phone, and there was no issue to get my money back (Pixel 4 had issue with NFC not working correctly) - no "We will repair it", like any other retail store I used.

Last month here in UK. After a package was stolen from my doorstep but the delivery driver said it was handed to receptionist. We don't have a receptionist, or a reception! I'm a "high hitter" customer. I have prime and spend a hell of a lot of money with amazon every year so they tend to do what you ask eventually. But if you're a new customer or low value one your customer experience will be very very different. I…

I've had a similar situation, where the delivery guy said I wasn't home, so he left the package at some drop-off point. It was a small package and the house has a big ass mailbox. There wasn't a drop-off notice, either. And both my parents and I were at home, with my mom hanging around in the garden in plain view of the mailbox.

The opening hours of the place were a PITA, so after two attempts I called up Amazon and complained about this. Sure enough, they sent the package again without trying anything funny.

Re: Is something wrong with Amazon Photos? I lost 240k photos

#180

Post by domh »

thedanbob wrote: post #170
wh33zle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if it has been mentioned already but photoprism added face recognition a few releases ago and it is working well for me: https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism The quality of this software is overall extremely good. It is a solo-developer as well so you might want to consider sponsoring them if you end up using it. I am not affiliated, just a happy user :)

Seconding photoprism. The face recognition was pretty meh when it was first introduced, more of a gimmick than anything. But (I assume) a recent update pushed it into "wow, this is actually really good" territory.

Thirding photoprism, got it hosted on a raspberry pi and made it accessible outside of my home via Tailscale. Seems to work fairly well... though I could probably make it faster with an SSD vs an HDD over USB.
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