So prior before this upload problem and fix, thumbnails have been counted in a user's quota? And given the trick by notabug they're now no longer counted in it? Interesting.
Please keep us users posted when hardware purchases for the server (e.g., larger disk) is coming up and requires a new round of fundraising.
@simsa04 The global thumbnail cache is only limited by the space in the server, which is not an issue (yet). Setting a bigger user quota is what has fixed your issue.
Besides that, fixing this has had the (unexpected) outcome of preventing the storage of thumbnails, which benefits everyone in this server, as thumbnails won't be counted in users quota. Or that's what I'd like to happen, time will tell...
@administrator
... so, when you say "I've deleted almost 7GB of global thumbnails", does this point to the possibility that not an individual user cache (mine) but that of the overall cache, i.e., that of gs.net, reached a limit. But of so, then why should only I experience the issue? (Perhaps other people don't upload so many jpgs?) Interesting.
@simsa04 Last try tonight: I've deleted almost 7GB of global thumbnails (which should be regenerated if needed), and I've setted the user quota to 3 times the space you are using right now. Let's see...
About your question: the images are retrieved (if they exist) just to show a "preview" of the link. Right now, I'm now sure if they eat space from your quota (it seems they do); anyway, I've applied the trick suggested at notabug, so they should not get space anymore:
Still the same error message "A file this large would exceed your user quota of 150000000 bytes." and no way to upload image files.
BTW: Why is that when links are uploaded (say, to a news article) the images of that source most often get uploaded? True, I don't technically "attach" them, but they come with the article that I link to. Wouldn't that eat into the upload quota too? And if not, why not?
Yep, even more to the right than Boris Johnson and definitely more disciplined and "competent" (i.e., brutal). Like a Farage only without the nuts and overt narcissism. @andyc