Last month I began to wonder how Google was going to deal with existing Google+ Album Archives if they are
shutting down Google+. So far, the answer seems to be: "Not very gracefully".
Today I'm getting a
404 error when using the "more options" menu item "manage in Google Photos" to link from a Google Album Archive to Google Photos.
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| Google bugs |
If I go to
my Google+ account, view the "profile" and click on "About" then there is
a link to my image Album Archive. In the past, those image Album Archives had a Google+ URL "https://plus.google.com". Now there is a "https://get.google.com" URL.
If I select
the Book and Magazine Covers archive then I can select a link called "Manage in Google Photos" (see the image below). The images begin to open in Google Photos then the 404 error occurs (see the image at the top of this blog post).
If I access the
Book and Magazine Covers archive using
the older style plus.google.com URL, then the page looks somewhat different. From that archive page, I can use a different link to Google Photos (see below) and then the archive will open without the 404 error.
I've been worried that all of my older image archives might simply disappear when Google+ is phased out. Since 2013 I have been using my "
posters" and the
Book and Magazine Covers archives that I created within
my "alisence" Google+ account (this is a "brand account" that is linked to
my YouTube account). There are many hypertext links to those archives from this blog.
Today I tried to link my main Google Photos account to the "alisence" "
posters" and the
Book and Magazine Covers archives.
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| How Brand Accounts Work |
As shown above, I was able to upload three videos to the "alisence"
Book and Magazine Covers archive from my main Google Photos account. About two hours later, they were visible within Google Photos from the "alisence" account. However, those images do not seem to have been transferred into the
old Google+ archive.
The
image archives for my Blogger blogs are associated with my main Google account (
Album Archives). There is also
another Google+ account associated with my main Google account.
However, those (above) are not all of the Album Archives. When using
Blogger to create new content for the
wikifiction blog, I can access images that I have previously uploaded. I'm now also getting updates about the linked "alisence" account and its Google Photos activity. Internal to
Blogger, if I click on "From Google Album Archive" then additional archives are visible (
current album archive for this blog):
The two archives labelled 2018-11-23 (above) are the "
posters" and the
Book and Magazine Covers archives that I am now sharing between my "alisence" Google Photos account and my main Google Photos account that is linked to my Blogger blogs. The Album Archive called "
posters" contains the one image that I uploaded today using my main Google Photos account. The Album Archive called "
Book and Magazine Covers" contains the three images that I uploaded using my main Google Photos account.
I suspect that the "share your library" feature in Google Photos was not really designed to link together a
"brand" account with a main account in the way I am doing it.
Album Archive, native view (495 images):
...same Album Archive in
Google Photos (498 images):
I would not really mind switching over to using Google Photos for everything if 1) Google would display my stored images to people without harassing them to make an account and 2) if Google Photos was a stable photo-sharing application. They keep changing it and introducing new bugs. Today I noticed that Google had inserted an "estimated location" into an image in my album for books and magazine covers. "Sakarun" is apparently Sakarun, Croatia, a tourist destination that probably advertises heavily on Google.
Notice that my image is actually for an imaginary location, Bellicent Island on the planet Trullion. I'm not interested in having Google insert "estimated locations" into my album for such images.
Google's instructions for editing a location are shown to the right. I first tried to enter the correct location, Bellicent Island on the planet Trullion, but Google Photos only seems to except locations that already exist in their data base. I then entered "no location and now my album looks like this:
I conclude that Google Photos will continue to be a source of irritation for me since I don't use it in the way that Google expects most people to use their service. I know that Google is in the business of figuring out people's locations and then pushing location-specific advertising at them. If that is Google's plan to monetize Google Photos than that is fine, but must they do it in such an inept fashion?
Today I uploaded an image to an album using Google Photos. That was several hours ago and that new image is still not being displayed in the album. I guess all of their processing CPU cycles are going to other things such as estimating locations. The image to the left shows how Google Photos tried to force me to identify my own image today. This was just the first of several attempts, all of which I had to dismiss with extreme prejudice, particularly since none of these faces is mine.
2023 Update. Today I got an email from google.com saying, "Starting on July 19, 2023, Album Archive will no longer be available."
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