I get "This photo is currently unavailable" in my
lightbox image
Usually this occurs if you have lightbox effect
and are asking for a picture bigger than what
flickr has.
When flickr gets a photo it creates up to 5
additional sizes for it. Flickr will never
increase the resolution but it will happily
decrease resolution. The 5 sizes are
- Square (75x75 pixels)
- Thumbnail (100 pixels on a side)
- Small (240 pixels on a side)
- Medium (500 pixes on a size)
- Large (1024 on a size)
- Original (original format & Size)
So if you upload a picture that is 800 pixels on
a side it will create a medium, small, thumbnail
and square but NOT a large since the original was
800 pixels it will never create anything bigger
than this. Additionally it will have the
'original' size available (if you are a pro user,
see below).
For "Original" you have to be a 'Pro' user (e.g.
pay the yearly fee) to get access to them. Even
if you original is 800x600 the largest you can
access is medium (500 on a side). Free flickr
account should never use original size.
So if you see 'this image is currently
unavailable' Your options are to either upgrade
your account or always upload a picture of at
least 1024 pixels.
One final note -- While this restriction on free
accounts has always been true flickr only
recently started enforcing it. Pictures uploaded
after ~April 2007 have this restriction in effect
for free accounts.