News: Brickshelf gone for good (UPDATE 7/15 PM)

UPDATE (AB) (7/16 AM Pacific): Images hosted on Brickshelf seem to be working again. What this means I don’t know. More info as we find out.

UPDATE (LB) (7/16 AM Pacific): Keith Goldman pointed out that MOCpages is now offering free hosting for lego images. A note on the front page states that this service may not be free in the future – I suspect it depends on how much it will cost to keep such a service up and running. The old galleries don’t work since they simply linked to the pictures on Brickshelf before this transition, but it’s still a very kind gesture by Sean Kenney, owner of the site.

UPDATE (NW) (7/15 10:50 PM Pacific):  Troy Cefaratti has released similar posts on Classic-Castle.com as well.  Take a deep breath guys, not all is lost.  Remember, it’s only been less than 24 hours. Give it time.

UPDATE (AB) (7/15 3:30 PM): Troy Cefaratti (aka “Mnementh” on BrickLink and Classic-Castle) seems to know something we don’t.

(And my apologies to those of you got a page not found error when you clicked through from somewhere else today. I updated the timstamp and title for this post, and that seems to have changed its Web address. My bad.)

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Whether you host your own images there or not, Brickshelf is one of the cornerstones of the online LEGO community. As many of you visiting this blog will have noticed, none of the images hosted on Brickshelf are currently working, and if you’ve been to Brickshelf.com in the last few hours, you will have seen the following text — and nothing else — on the home page:

“Brickshelf has discontinued operation. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

I’m furiously reading discussion threads, e-mailing, and chatting with my sources, but I don’t have any information about this issue right now. Unfortunately, given the wording of the message, this doesn’t seem to be “scheduled maintenance”.

Discussions are popping up on LEGO forums all over the Internet:

Blog reactions:

Despite the magic of RSS, I won’t be able to monitor the entire online LEGO community for updates about this, so if you learn something definitive, please leave a comment on this post (I’ll see it in my e-mail) or use the Contact Us page to send a private message.

EDIT: (NW) Added discussion topic link to Brickfilms.com. Also, Ecto pointed out in the comments section that https://www.brickshelf.com/ works. Remember to put the ‘s’ after ‘http’. I urge everyone who doesn’t have a backup of their stuff to back it up now, and not upload anything new. It’s not known how long this version will last.

EDIT: (AB) And now the SSL (https) site isn’t working either. Still no word from Brickshelf management as to what’s going on.

44 comments on “News: Brickshelf gone for good (UPDATE 7/15 PM)”

  2. Unclejoe420

    Is a shame Brickshelf has disappeared – was wondering if anyone knew of any way we could help out and try getting it back up n running? I do hope nothing majorly bad has happened…

  3. Lord T

    I use Flickr now anyway (I like the interface) but I’m gonna be very sad to see this leave.

  4. Kikimaru

    Crap, I had my (lone) mecha pics up there! The one I built 5 years ago :'(
    Maybe I have a backup somewhere…

  6. David

    Always back up pictures.

    I hated the site, but now this site has all the little red Xs.

  8. RichardAM

    I had stuff there, but recently stopped uploading due to essentially the community moving to Flickr. All my stuff is still on the hard-drive though, to the people moaning about losing everything- why wouldn’t you keep a copy on your computer? It’s the equivalent of cutting your leg off on purpose!

    Presuming the site’s gone forever it is a sad day, both for the lego community, as well as inspiration on lego building in general.

  10. Unclejoe420

    Yep – the site works with “https” stuck in front of the addy. Even the Recent folders appear!!

  12. smcginnis

    As I’ve been saying on CC and VignetteBricks, this is really terrible. But I’ve been meaning to move to flickr anyway; and I have all my pictures backed up on my hard drive. The only problem is that now I’ll need a pro account; either that, or a lot fewer pictures.

    ~smcginnis

  13. Unclejoe420

    Well, in the immortal words of Charles Darwin:

    “Oh bugger!!”

    Let’s just hope that this is only a temporary situation, and that Brickshelf does return!!

  15. Gert-Jan

    Today is a very sad day because brickshelf is gone. I spent most of my time on brickshelf and uploaded manny picktures. Most picktures where moc’s! I don’t have any backup of those picktures so I am sad. Brickshelf was also the place where you could upload everything, MOC’s, new sets, computer creations and mutch more. Brickshelf always gave me inspiration to build grand things. I loved that site, who wouldn’t? You could find everything there! It was the place to be for a lego fan. So I think we all need to think about the grait things Brickshelf offerd and never forget it.

    Goodbye Brickshelf

    Gert-Jan

  16. Wolf01

    what a bad notice :(
    that site was my center of the universe, i had about 30 bookmarks of my favorite galleries which i look to every week for updates
    and my tiny gallery which i wanted to update when i’ll have finished it :(

  19. Nathan Cunningham

    I’d move to Flickr myself, but I know I don’t have room in that 200 picture limit. Does anyone else know of some good hosting sites? In the event that Brickshelf actually does go (as it has not been confirmed yet), it would be nice to know where to go.

    A thread has also been started on Sly Piggery, but anything said there is about as good as what you’ll get from all the other fan sites. I’ll let you know if anyone says anything new, though.

  20. Fabio Fiss

    I’m reading all this blogs and websites talking about BS going down and I just can’t believe it… With all this massive reaction from the AFOL websites there is no oficial release or notification to explain what happened???

    I hope (like everyone) that this is just temporary…

  23. Jesse Malchow

    I am betting it was trolled

    I’ve been on forums that get trolled constantly

    but as too whom may have troleld it I am highly doubting its the same people who troleld the forums I’m on

  25. Ace

    It says on MOCpages that they are working on the problem and that they hope verything will be back to normal soon.

  26. Jesse Malchow

    it could have been trollers with the CP strategy……

    meaning they have software too hide their IPs and they post CPs and report the site

  27. Keith G

    MOCpages is back up, with a new format. It may, however, become a pay site in the future.

  28. Ethan

    If you need a laugh in the midst of all this tragedy, just check out the Saber-Scorpion link. I had no idea such stupidity existed…

  29. Fred

    Someone give Keith a Sandwich!

    I guess we make the best of it. Perhaps this is an opportunity to make things even better… at least MOCpages allows us to comment on the creations.

    I do hope someone can squeeze out the files from brickshelf so that those who didn’t keep a local copy can learn from their mistakes and recover and those who are no longer with us an be posthumously honored. If I knew who those people were I would gladly take on the task.

    We need a place to organize the effort.

  31. smcginnis

    Wow, the CC links are embarrassing, but sadly true…. The only site with multiple locked topics on this. Usually CC’s rather reasonable. :?

    ~smcginnis

  33. Jesse Malchow

    brickshelf us up until July 31 of this year, theres even a message on the site, so save while you can

  39. Jesse Malchow

    it seems that brickshelf, though still working, has lost alot of images and only the main page can be displayed

    well for me anyways

  40. Jesse Malchow

    apparently brickshelf will not close, but they will be charging members money from what I can piece together, they will open when the trollers leave

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