There are some real gems on this board, I'm just trying to figure out if I need to download all of them to my local machine in case the images disappear some day.

The basic question is in the title - what determines when/how the attached images in a thread disappear?

 

They dissapper when people take them off the site that is hosting them.
Normally for more room ext.

 

A while ago there was also a board glitch that made the attached pictures disappear (those that were hosted on the board's server, not the ones linked from elsewhere). They are still there, just not showing up. This error has never been fixed, so there still might be some threads with missing pictures.

In that case, you can 'fix' these threads by posting a new reply to them, attaching a small picture with your post. Why this is happening I don't know, but many people were able to make the pics appear again by doing this.

 

or just shoot me a pm with a link to the thread and if the are actualy attached and not linked ill fix the issue in that thread.