403 forbidden errors with any photo url size above 1024 (except original) #735
Description
Hey thanks so much for the great work on this project! I am using 3.0.4 but did not see any changes in the newer versions that would address this.
I've been using it on a photo gallery for years and yesterday I started getting 403 forbidden errors back from Flickr on all photo URLs for sizes above 1024. They must have changed something and I did open a ticket but based on their response I don't think I'm going to get anywhere with them.
After a lot of digging, I think the problem is with the generated secret in the URL and using the original URL as a base, I found a workaround.
// getLarge1600Url() also fails
// the resulting URL will give a 403 forbidden
String imageUrl = photo.getLargeUrl();
// My workaround
// original URL works fine and by replacing the suffix, the large sizes now work
// I guess because the secret for the original was good
String imageUrl = photo.getOriginalUrl();
imageUrl = imageUrl.replace("_o", "_h");
Here is the page that tells about the different secrets. I'm not sure if it's always been this way or not.
https://www.flickr.com/services/api/misc.urls.html
Secrets
All photo image URLs use a secret value that's provided by API methods. All sizes below the H (1600) size use one shared secret. All sizes above and including the H (1600) size each use a unique secret for just themselves. The original size, regardless of dimensions, always uses its own secret.
I'm happy to test any potential fix but I think it will be easy to recreate. Thanks!